Confidence, Ego, Fear and Inspiration

I don’t know exactly what to make of the above. Does some part of self doubt lie within the fear mentioned above? This one seems a little too deep to be limited to talking about skills in ballroom. Maybe this next one is a little more to speed. Similar concept but maybe not as all encompassing.

Last night was one of those tougher lessons where a few things weren’t clicking. The focus was on the Rumba and, after it was done, I really started to have some doubts about the ability to get things all put together before Showcase. I mean we haven’t touched on the Cha-Cha, Swing, Bolero or Mambo. The Rumba routine needs to be completed. We have to get OwnerGuy to smooth out the rough edges of the Hustle. We have to bring back the Tango routine to make sure too much rust doesn’t settle in. As well as touching on the Waltz, Fox Trot, Tango and Viennese Waltz to try to make use of the coach’s comments.

That feels like a crap ton of stuff to get done in a short period of time. I was talking about this with PJ after the lesson and bringing up the possibility of scaling back a little bit because I didn’t see a clear path to getting it all accomplished.

One of the other instructors was at the front desk and overheard a bit and then asked if I was going to Showcase. I said that was the plan. Then he said something about how it is nice for the other students to have a good dancer there. Because I wasn’t feeling it, I said something like “well I hope you can find a good dancer to show up”.

Instead of just taking my joke and dropping the discussion, he went on again about how I’ve been an inspiration to some of the other dancers in the studio. And how the newer students like seeing what a dance can develop into. There was another instructor listening across the room (It was late and between lessons and the studio was quiet) and she chimed in with a comment that he wasn’t wrong.

Here I had just put a post together talking about how maybe I didn’t want to be an inspiration all the time. Let me be clear, there are many dancer who are far, far better than me. I know this. There are a few in the studio who are better – they just maybe don’t show up as often as I have recently. I’m just the one they see while they are taking lessons and the one who’s been most visible at the last two events.

I guess it can’t really be helped. To someone just starting in Bronze, the upper Silver stuff is going to look flashy and anyone who can get through those patterns without falling down is going to look impressive. Or maybe there is a talent level there that has been developed through all the years and they are just responding to it.

So is my wanting to just blend in really just me wanting to play small? Or am I just seriously overthinking a few random comments at the end of a lesson?

Yeah, I haven’t really finished my thoughts yet so you get some incomplete rambling. I do know that I’ve let me ego take over before and that didn’t end well. So maybe I’m doing too much compensating on the other side.

I have a skill set. I’m good at this. People are going to notice and pay attention. If that inspires them to learn a dance they see me do or inspires them to keep going, then that’s a good thing. And I’m just going to have to live with that fact that there are those who like to watch me dance. So I’m never going to be able to fade into the shadows unless I end up in a studio full of Gold level dancers. And maybe that’s really the best because why should I fade?

I mean if I ignore the whole inspiration thing, I keep dancing because I enjoy it. The other stuff just kind of comes with the territory. Maybe this last quote kind of sums it up as well.

Or does it come down to this. I don’t have to be 100% comfortable with being called an inspiration. I just dance what I’m capable of to the best of my abilities and whatever comes along with that I deal with.