(Warning: this is a bit of a long post, apologies for that. I'm long winded and I just wanted to try to express myself more clearly, but I think I just ended up making things a lot more confusing. Oh well! Anyways, consider yourself warned lol! I wrote a little summary of all the things I wrote about at the end if you wanted to just look at that if you would rather not wade through the slog of words I've just written lol.)
I wanted to talk a bit about the conversation that the class had on Thursday. I thought it was a really interesting and important conversation and I'm glad that we were able to talk about things and have questions put to us to make us think. I just wanted to add 2 more cents to the jamboree and speak a bit more specifically about what you were asking me/the class.
I am a perfectionist. A massive one. I don't know what to attribute my perfectionism to, but I think a large part of it stems from my piano background. In piano, I think it's easier to achieve a sense of 'perfection' because there's a product at the end that's easily discernable as either 'correct', 'good', or 'poor'. There's the technicality in playing, i.e. not playing sloppily, following dynamics and other notes in the music. And then there's musical expression on top of that and your own personal interpretation of the music. If you execute all those properly, you are more in the ballpark of 'perfect.' While the musical expression bit is subjective, you can feel and hear when someone is playing with or without expression, so it's very easy to spot and determine the success of that expression.
I was surrounded by extremely proficient piano players all my life in my piano studio. All the recitals and group lessons I went to, all my peers were extremely talented and clean players. And that's thanks to my teacher. She is one of the craziest and loveliest people I've ever met, and I absolutely love her. But she's a hard teacher. Really hard. There were many a lesson I cried or was plebeian, but she got results and was an extremely formative and important person in my life. She held all her students to a standard and by god, we would accomplish that standard, or else we would not be allowed to play in competitions or the recitals. That's not to say that she wasn't a loving person, she was and is. But she is also butt terrifying when she wants to be.
Anyways. Liz (my teacher) created this standard and this level of excellence and 'perfection' that we all worked towards and, often times, felt like we achieved at some point. I understand the term 'perfect' is a very subjective term in how we interpret what it means to us, so real quickly; to me, perfect is when I feel I have nailed the technicality of what I am doing and I felt like my artistic expression (or my interpretation, if you will) accomplished the goals of what I wanted to accomplish in the piece and leaves me satisfied. If I've done something well, I feel it in my soul. If I don't do something right, or something's off, I feel that and I don't feel satisfied. That's what I deem as 'perfect'. When I have the correct technique and accomplish the goals of the piece in a manner that satisfies and cleanses my soul.
I hold myself to a very high standard. If I don't show my best when I perform, or even practice, that grates on me. A lot. I'm a people pleaser, and if I feel like I have presented something that is less than my best, I beat myself up about it. I remember countless recitals where I knew I hadn't accomplished exactly what I wanted and I would get very down on myself. Most people never noticed. It was only me that ever noticed, but it still affected me a lot.
It's a bit ironic, but I LOVE getting notes. I really do. I've always viewed notes as people helping me get closer to the finished 'perfect' product. Logically, I understand that there's no such thing as 'perfect' or a 'perfect product', but I really value notes in how they help me get better. I want to be the best that I can be, and there's a part of me that just wants to be the best. Period. Better than everyone else.
WOOWOO ok, I wrote that, and I know that that sounds SOOOO bitchy, and I fully understand that and accept that! But that's a gross part of me that is very real and I have to acknowledge that it exists. I know that I will never be 'the best'. There will always be people that are more proficient than me in so many ways, and that's awesome! Hooray for people being talented and hard workers! And it's unhealthy to want to be 'the best', since there's no clear marker of what that means. It's a vicious cycle that will lead to nothing but pain and disappointment. It's much healthier to try to achieve your own personal best. Be better than you were yesterday, not better than somebody else. But there's a part of me that just desperately wants to be it. I don't know if I can explain further than that, but yeah.
What you said about growing up in a small town really resonated with me. Growing up gay in the community that I did, I felt this deeper need to prove myself. I had to be the exception to the society norms because of how talented I was. I had to better than everyone else to show that I was still valid and of worth, even though I wasn't straight.
So! Relating this all back to movement! Movement is something that I don't have very much experience in. I have had a really fun time exploring new things that I didn't know my body could do, like in tumbling, but I have really struggled with the movement projects and the clowns. I know that I could have done better in my movement projects. There was something lacking and the projects fell flat in my stomach after I performed them. It's not because I didn't get a desired response or because someone said something negative to me, I just felt it. I just feel like they could have been better. And then with the clowns, I've been struggling figuring out ways to move or express ideas. What I'm doing in class isn't feeling right to me, and I can't seem to find the line that my clown needs to walk along. But the frustrating or hard thing for me is I don't know how to fix it. It's something to do with the interpretation and the 'musicality' of the work. I think I enjoy tumbling so much because it's technical and my body understands it better and I don't have to worry about the storytelling aspect of it. My body is less versed in telling stories through movement, and it shows. I'm a level 1 piano player in terms of interpretive movement. I'm struggling with interpretive movement and whenever I try something new, it feels contrived and I end up circling back to things I already know which makes it all feel very repetitive.
When I get embarrassed, or try to 'cover up' in class or in rehearsal, that's purely me trying to hide behind a veneer of pleasantness and relatability while I beat myself up on the inside. I'm embarrassed that I didn't do as well as I could have done. I want to do my best to show the professors I care and that I'm trying.
SUMMARY: Woo boy this is a long post and very all over the place, but here's the sum up. I'm a perfectionist. I hold myself up to a very high standard due to a lot of things, and when I don't meet that standard that I have set up for myself, I beat myself up. I value and enjoy getting notes because I feel like they help me get a step closer to my idea and goal of 'perfect.' I struggle with some of the aspects of moving because I have a lacking awareness of how to fix my perceived problems and mistakes but I desperately want to know how to fix those problems because I want to get better! I really do value this class and all that I've learned. I just wish I were better at it😂😂 But in all seriousness, I do want to get better and be good at movement. If I can learn how to master my own body in the utility of telling a story, that would be amazing.
Anyways. It's something I'm working on. I'm definitely in a better spot than I was a year ago about being 'perfect' when I performed. I won't go into detail cause that's a WHOLE other story and this post is already too long. But yeah, I'm working on it and trying to be kinder to myself. I have to remind myself that as long as I'm putting in the work, even if it's not perfect, it's enough and it's ok. It's still work and it's still improvement. So yeah. :) Thank you for holding the discussion in class the other day, it was really helpful to be made aware of my perfectionism and how it's not serving me. I haven't thought about it for a while, but I can definitely see how it's been standing in my way the last few weeks. So maybe if I work at it and be kinder to myself, perhaps I'll have some breakthroughs with my clown moving forward. Keeping my fingers crossed!
P.S. I have at least 2 other drafts of posts I've been writing up, but after the discussion on Thursday, I've been rewriting and re-evaluating how I've been looking at certain situations and there are a few things I want to try before posting the blog posts. Anyways. That's it for now. Thanks for all you do and have a lovely weekend!!
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