When I started college, I made one solid promise to myself: no more physical activity. None. After years of traumatic experiences in high school gym classes and underlying struggles with body positivity and exercise, I would finally abandon movement altogether. I first set foot in a dance studio at the age of 20, when I registered for an Elementary Ballet class, based on a friend’s recommendation. She told me ballet’s tight clothing and the layout of the studio forced her to look at her own body in the mirrors for an extended time every week. She marveled at the boost in body image and self-confidence that this environment brought on, and it made me wonder, too. Could movement fix the issues movement created in me? For lack of a better idea, I chose to share everything with my ballet professor. After only knowing her a day, I told her about all the times I wasn’t fast enough, strong enough, muscular enough, the times I felt humiliated or less-than. We began redefining my dysfunctional relationship with movement through journaling and frequent check-ins. By the time my education moved online in March 2020, dance seeped into my daily life. I lost motivation for classes in my major and minor, but I found myself pas de bourréing to the laundry room, skipping in my steps down the hallway, or, when no one was looking, twirling and jumping on my way outside. Soon after my 21st birthday, I noticed I finally liked looking at myself in the mirror. On a whim, I decided to sign up for all dance classes for the following semester, and a year later I am graduating with a dance degree. My decision to try something new and give movement another chance changed my life forever. When I started college, I quietly accepted that I will never find joy in movement. As I begin a graduate program in Dance Education, I look back with disgust on educators and systems that raised me with a broken view of myself, that shamed me away from physical activity, that deprived me of the fulfillment and joy that I now find in dancing and moving. I wish to become a dance teacher to ensure that no other young adult waits decades to love themselves, simply because of their dysfunctional relationship with movement. I want to channel my frustration with my past and my current joy in dancing to convince my students that movement and physical activity deserve their attention, so that hopefully they enjoy it as much as I do, or even more.

When I started college, I made one solid promise to myself: no more physical activity. None. After years of traumatic experiences in high school gym classes and underlying struggles with body positivity and exercise, I would finally abandon movement altogether. I first set foot in a dance studio at the age of 20, when I registered for an Elementary Ballet class, based on a friend’s recommendation. She told me ballet’s tight clothing and the layout of the studio forced her to look at her own body in the mirrors for an extended time every week. She marveled at the boost in body image and self-confidence that this environment brought on, and it made me wonder, too. Could movement fix the issues movement created in me? For lack of a better idea, I chose to share everything with my ballet professor. After only knowing her a day, I told her about all the times I wasn’t fast enough, strong enough, muscular enough, the times I felt humiliated or less-than. We began redefining my dysfunctional relationship with movement through journaling and frequent check-ins. By the time my education moved online in March 2020, dance seeped into my daily life. I lost motivation for classes in my major and minor, but I found myself pas de bourréing to the laundry room, skipping in my steps down the hallway, or, when no one was looking, twirling and jumping on my way outside. Soon after my 21st birthday, I noticed I finally liked looking at myself in the mirror. On a whim, I decided to sign up for all dance classes for the following semester, and a year later I am graduating with a dance degree. When I started college, I quietly accepted that I will never find joy in movement. As I begin a graduate program in Dance Education, I look back with disgust on educators and systems that raised me with a broken view of myself, that shamed me away from physical activity, that deprived me of the fulfillment and joy that I now find in dancing and moving. I wish to become a dance teacher to ensure that no other young adult waits decades to love themselves, simply because of their dysfunctional relationship with movement.