The advice I frequently see offered in regard to feeling more comfortable in your own body and freeing yourself of your social anxiety is “dance like nobody’s watching.” While it’s wonderful if that works for you, I just didn’t feel like this method was helping me live up to my full dancing potential. However, the minute I decided to dance like Abby Lee Miller was watching? I saw enormous change.
My turns? Tighter. My pirouettes? Cleaner. My crushing unfamiliarity with my own body? More suffocating than ever.
While it’s true that I first started prioritizing dancing alone in my apartment in order to get more in touch with my body and my emotions, that pursuit quickly devolved when my debilitating need to be the best at anything I do got in the way. My need to be at the top of Abby Lee Miller’s dance pyramid proved to be much greater than any desire I had to improve my own well-being.
Sure, I felt freer without an unfiltered child’s dance teacher critiquing me, but was I getting better? While dancing like nobody’s watching can be an excellent way to shake off the constraints of societal pressures, it does nothing for when you’re actually around real people and want to flex on them a little bit.
Since embarking on this journey, my goals have shifted drastically. I no longer endeavor to feel good about myself, but I do endeavor to reach the unattainably high standards of the imaginary, but still brutal, Abby Lee Miller in my head.
Of course, I don’t think I’ll ever be Maddie Ziegler, but I could be Mackenzie, maybe?
Since I’ve started dancing like Abby Lee Miller’s watching, my enjoyment of dance has plummeted, my self-esteem has never been lower, and my relationship with my parents has taken a turn for the abysmal (sure, Abby Lee isn’t actually watching me, but I can’t help but blame my parents a little for hypothetically enrolling me in this sadistic dance class).
However, my spins have never been sharper, my jumps have never been higher, and my loosey goosey arms have never been more loosey goosey (this is a dance move I made up, but the Abby Lee Miller in my head seems to think I’m getting better at it).
As for the rest of that saying – “love like you’ve never been hurt” – well, that’s just bad advice, and I didn’t need Abby Lee Miller’s cruel but correct assessments to help me figure that out.
