I spend about fourteen hours a week plugging away at dance. I have spent over half of my life at my studio, eagerly absorbing as much knowledge of the art as I can and practicing what I can in order to refine my technique. Along the way, especially as I have grown older, I have found my style in dance, my own unique voice as a storyteller through movements. I have picked up tips and tricks, and worked hard every single minute of every single hour.

But there are stumbles in everything in life, and my dancing career has been no different. Time and time again, competition after competition, I was disappointed by scores, by how I had felt performing my solos. Even the times in which I felt as if I had done my best, there was, as there always is, someone who was better. I worked so hard, worked harder than anyone, and it was all continually disappointing.

What did I do in the face of all of it? I worked harder. And people noticed. Starting when I was about twelve years old, I began to get noticed by instructors and choreographers, being put in smaller groups of the best of the best and being singled out to demonstrate pieces of choreography for the class. Finally, my hard work was paying off. Things were looking up. I was getting better, and people were noticing. I was no longer simply there to increase the body count of a dance; I was an actual dancer valued for skill.

And yet, my solos remained stubbornly the same, plateauing on a level that I certainly was not pleased with. No matter how high I flew in group numbers, how much of myself I put into every dance I did, my solos were not nearly as spectacular as I hoped they would be. The expectation to do well after so many years was piling up, as it has done all throughout my career as a dancer. The weight of this expectation threatened to crush the fight out of me at times.
I attempted to turn that expectation into results, and I did have fleeting success. Last year, I found my style for the first time through dance when I realized that I am not as much of a technical dancer as I am a storyteller. Through my movements, through my expressions, through the emotions telegraphed through my body, I began to convey a story through my dancing. I found my strength and I found my voice.

It worked. For the first time last year, I received a platinum, the highest award possible, for my solo at one of the competitions. I also received 7th place over all, beaten only by the older girls at my studio who I have grown up dancing with and admiring hugely.

But when things started looking down again towards the end of last year’s competition season, when my solo dipped a bit, I started looking down once again. I knew I was capable of receiving a platinum now, but I was nervous. I had done it once, had proved to everyone that I was capable of high success. My studio director had even praised me for all of my hard work once I had finally earned the platinum, telling me that the award was a long time coming and that I completely deserved it. Everyone knew that I was a capable dancer on me own, but what if I never got better? What if that was the only success I could achieve?

The burden of expectation had returned, and this time, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to survive it. Success had come and gone quickly, and I wasn’t entirely sure if I could replicate it. I became trapped inside my own head, psyching myself out with my own want of perfection. No matter how hard I tried, things weren’t clicking. Hard work wasn’t enough this time. Stress had reentered the game, and this time, it was winning.

After a particularly depressing and lukewarm solo rehearsal only eighteen hours previous, I set off on a Friday for the first competition of this year. New solo, new year, new judges. I was afraid, concerned as to how well this would go over. That stress sat in the pit of my stomach, and that was the stress that whispered to me that I shouldn’t expect the success I craved. I went in praying for a gold, which is the third highest that can be achieved. I went in there expecting little of myself.

I stretched. I ran through my routine. I tried to breathe. And then I decided to listen to my solo song.

I found myself a little niche in the corner backstage. Sitting down rather unceremoniously on the carpet, I unraveled the headphones to the IPod I had surreptitiously slipped back stage. And I let the world slip away from me as I put the buds in my ears and I skipped ahead in the playlist to my solo song.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t worry about who was before me, or after me, or about any of the people that were in the audience. I simply listened. I listened to the music, I listened to the feel of the song, I listened to my instincts, and I listened to myself.

I envisioned the dancer I wanted to be. In my head, I was graceful. In my head, every movement was as fluid as possible, with no awkward transitions in between the pieces of the routine. In my head, I didn’t care what others thought of me, and instead I danced as if no one was watching. In my head, I soared. In my head, I saw exactly the dancer I wanted to be.

All that was left was to go up on that stage and become that dancer. All that was left was to let go of expectation and to realize that I would be able to grow constructively from this experience if I allowed myself to. And as I stepped onto that stage, I left expectation behind me, in that little corner backstage. I didn’t look back.

Later that evening while waiting for awards, sitting in a circle with friends who were also awaiting their scores, I was called up to receive a platinum for the solo I had gone into with no expectations.

I was told later that my face, when I heard the news and stood up to receive my award, was priceless. I remember, upon sitting back down next to my friends, how I very nearly cried with how shocked and amazed and thankful I was. I had done my absolute best and poured my heart and soul into my performance. It had all ended up working. I had not plateaued. I was capable.
Looking back on it, there is something I am even more thankful for than the platinum. I am thankful for the lessons the experience has provided me with. I was so focused beforehand on the end goal that it was as if I was wearing blinders. I did not take the time to appreciate that, good or bad, the lessons I would get from the experience would be worth it. I did not realize beforehand that, even if I messed up, I would do better the next time. I did not realize beforehand that, even if performing my solo this time felt off, then I would be able to do it better the next time I found myself beneath the lights of the stage. I did not realize beforehand that, even if this performance didn’t go as planned, I would be able to take solace in the fact that I had let it all go on the dance floor.

All of these things I realized only when sitting in that tiny little corner, eyes closed, imagining the carefree dancer I wanted to be. These were the things that proved to be my saving grace. These things allowed me to breathe throughout my performance and to finally let go and just do my best without the weight of my own expectation crushing me.

It is a philosophy that goes for everything. We cannot let our own burden of expectation, our own weight of that want for perfection, crush us before we even have a chance to prove it wrong. The time leading up to the competition, I was inside of my own head, nervously telling myself that things wouldn’t go well; I only let go of those things once I was in the wings. We cannot judge ourselves so constantly that it becomes a burden that we must carry, that our own expectation becomes even heavier than the ones others place on us. We are our worst critics.
And because we are our worst critics, it is up to us to tell ourselves that things will go better. It is up to us to choose to ease that burden and allow everything to happen just as it’s supposed to. Was I expecting to do well? No. Was I putting unnecessary stress on myself? Of course. I chose to ease that burden that night in the little corner, however, instead of let it consume me further. Only when I was able to let go of that stress and be myself on the stage did success and an honest feeling of accomplishment come to me. And that truly was the best feeling in the world.