At Tournseol there is more to progressing from level to level than moving up based on just what physical skills you have learned. Here, as a school of dance, you should also be progressing through various mindsets from the complete novice (or debut dancer) all the way through advanced. Think of these just like ballet building blocks, we don’t ever achieve a stage and leave it completely behind, but rather we explore it deeper and add to it as we grow. 

For our beginning dancers (Debut level – 2B), we know you are brave because you are here with an interest to learn something new! You have a level of curiosity and an open-mindedness that is crucial to being a newbie at something. Here we have our “embrace curiosity” as well as a little of “embrace the suck” type of mindset. We aren’t saying YOU are bad at ballet but as humans we are typically not experts the first day we try something new. Someone who is ready and willing to try something as new, rewarding, albeit challenging as dance has a certain level of perseverance that we want to continue to see as you level up!

Now, for the advanced beginner (levels 2C-3B), you already know a lot of the building blocks to what makes up a ballet class. You have heard some of the same corrections a lot and might be getting a little mental frustration starting and wanting to try more advanced moves but also feeling like it’s taking longer than you thought to improve. It is important here to have the mindset of improving our basics so that we CAN move on to more technically challenging parts of ballet. Stay in the curious mindset! Focus on progress, NOT perfection. How far have you come since your first day of the debut program? Would you tell yourself on that first day of class the negative things you’re thinking about yourself in this moment? No! Because that version of you would be so proud about how far you’ve come already! It is easy to get discouraged when you’re starting to move through levels but still see how much more there is to learn. Understand that mistakes are part of learning, you would never get corrections to grow if you never messed something up. Every difficulty is a chance to learn something new!

Intermediate dancers (Levels 3C-5A), we know you can see just how far you’ve come but I also know that many of you are starting to feel frustrated with the division between mind and body. How many times have you thought, “I know what you WANT me to do, but I just can’t make my body do it”? Setbacks, even mental ones, are all part of the learning process. We need to celebrate small victories, remind ourselves of how our single pirouette was once something we thought was a long way off and now fine tuning our turnout AND spotting in 3c might seem like we are slowing down or “picking on the small stuff” but it is the only way to be technically aligned in order to make those multiple turns appear effortless.

Now, the advanced dancer (Levels 5B – 6). You versus you is the biggest mindset battle you are facing. You need to balance embracing curiosity and bravery like a dancer stepping onto marley for the first time with the dancer who truly has taken on the ability to correct themselves mid-exercise and therefore becoming your own worst critic. Here is where we may need to work on shifting our feelings and leaving an exercise behind mid-class. How quickly can you let things frustrating you in class go? How long can you hold onto a win from something you’ve been working on for ages? So often advanced dancers see progress as expected and they don’t celebrate themselves when something is accomplished. While still celebrating progress you need to have a focus of continuous improvement as opposed to “once I can do THIS, then I am really an advanced dancer.” At advanced stages, consistency remains key. Even experts continue their practice regularly, as learning is a lifelong endeavor. Focus on the joy of the learning journey itself, not just the end result.

For all dancers:

• the temptation to rush ahead can be strong at almost all stages, but it’s essential to be patient with your process of refining and deepening your knowledge. 
• the “outside world” can impact our performance in class. At Tournesol, we know that we are all adults with lives (baggage, injuries, a messy day at work, maybe sick kids) and dance is where you come to find some joy. Sometimes, you need to tell yourself what you did well even in plies to remind yourself you aren’t “sucking out loud.” And here is where we also ask that maybe you consider giving your teacher a head’s up before class. Letting us know you have an injury or a huge mental load for the day allows us to know how better to show up for you.