Shifting Perspectives on Weakness

The handsome young lad on the left is my oldest child. This blog is incredibly outdated, so let me update readers, briefly. This boy moved away from home when he was 13. He wasn't FAR away - only about an hour and a half drive - but he left to pursue more intense ballet study with Ballet West. In the 3 years he studied there, he lived with host families, completed his school work on his own, made his own breakfast and lunches, and took public transportation to and from his dance classes which lasted from 1:30pm until about 7pm Monday-Friday.

This was SO MUCH to manage at the tender age of 13 and I worried and prayed for him constantly. He survived. In many ways, he thrived. He certainly grew as a dancer! This picture is of the cover photo of his end of the year performance, when, at not yet 16 years old, he danced the male lead of Sleeping Beauty.

As his parents, we have observed this son's dedication to ballet. It is thrilling to us, because everything indicates that this will be a very viable career option for him. And this is a career he can (and essentially needs to) begin sooner than later. Dancers don't perform generally into their late 40's and beyond, so in some respects, it is 'now or never.' That being so, however, we are aware of the need to have other skills and a rounded education to support oneself and a family BEYOND a performance career.

So we have "pushed" school. Not demanding he get good grades - we still mostly "homeschooled" all the rest of his "high school." And high school is in parentheses because at some point, he went beyond where we could effectively challenge him academically at such a distance, and this point seemed like a natural "graduation" mark. So he did "graduate" and moved on to college. Or more accurately, taking ONE college class. Online. (I'll post about THAT later.)

But we noted he was not nearly as driven or disciplined academically. And some of that, we realized, was his age, and some was our failure to provide the hand-holding that is present for students his age still in high school. But more and more, we felt like his weaknesses included over-confidence and a disregard for thorough preparation. My husband and I, both type A's, tried to convince this son that he would be wise to develop some of that type A, uber-driven approach to the rest of his life. And then, to imprint the value of what we were saying, I told him about all the type A dancers that filled professional ballet companies. (If you haven't read elsewhere, I was a professional dancer myself.)

Anyway, I was sharing this ongoing struggle with a dancer friend of mine and she had another perspective. She said that she thought it may be his laid-back, low stress attitude that will prove his longevity in a dance career. She reminded me of all the type-A's that stress out, whose overly critical view of themselves leads to burn-out or worse: unintentional self-sabotage. And I could remember that happening too. With her wisdom and encouragement, we sent this now-16 year old off into an even BIGGER world: Boston.

He is now living across the country, training with the Boston Ballet. Still loving ballet. Still making his own breakfasts and lunches, doing his own laundry, maneuvering through the city on public transportation, and living with a host family. And still showing a lack of discipline and focus when it comes to school.

But here is what happened.

My 16 year old boy was asked, with his class of 12 other men, to understudy company roles in the ballet Giselle. Not because the company intended to USE him. They had understudies already, assigned for different casts. But it is part of a trainees training to begin to work with the paid pros, and so my boy was there. His peers told him he would never BE used - that if anyone was injured, they would use first the full company members from other casts, and next, the members of the second company (like a farm team), and THEN someone from his class, and that extreme need was inconceivable. Beyond that, they were not even assigned which spot TO learn, so that means you learn every spot, which REALLY means you don't learn any spot. So he is in rehearsals with all the other older boys from his class, plus all the even older dancers from the second company, AND all the company dancers, and the artistic staff, guests to set the ballet, etc.. Learning fast steps and complicated traffic patterns.

And low and behold, there was a rehearsal with a company man missing. So they asked for other company men to fill it, but they were in different rehearsals, and because they were gone, the second company men were already dancing too. They nearly left the spot empty, when someone pointed out the trainee men were there. So they asked all of them, "Who knows this?"

And that is when my over-confident and under-prepared son gave it a beat (likely because he KNEW he didn't know ALL of it, and also in-part because of a migraine he was suffering, impacting his peripheral vision) before he raised his hand. He, the youngest person in the room FULL of around 50 adult professionals. And he stepped in, learned on the spot, did his best, and "faked it 'til he made it." My boy, at 16 years old, was rehearsed for an hour with one of the top 5 ballet companies in the country. Because he had NOT learned it is safer not to try when you are unsure. Because he had NOT learned you have no right to be confident unless your preparation is perfection.

I am beginning to learn the wisdom of my friend's perspective. I am beginning to see that those things that I may regard as weakness, my child may use as a strength to fuel a bright future. It was the message of so many older posts: trust the process. I suppose I need to never let go of that trust.