Fouettés (fwet-ays)

Classical ballet is hard. Really hard. And one of the hardest moves is a series of multiple turns called fouettés.

I was never very good at them. I was more of a jumper than a turner, but that doesn’t really matter because, in ballet, you have to be able to do everything, not just the stuff you’re good at. You also have to do it on both sides, right and left.

I'm thinking about ballet more as I get older. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I'm realizing Savion Glover,a tap dancer, was right when he said,“The lessons of dance are the lessons of life.”

As a dancer, turning was always a challenge for me. It scared me and made me feel out of control. And I didn’t really know how to get better. It seemed to be one big mystery, — as though some people could turn, and others couldn’t. And I couldn’t.

It wasn’t until I started teaching dance that I started to figure it out. Not surprising since, as the philosopher Seneca points out, “ . . . men learn while they teach.” What I learned was that there were principles to movement, and that they worked for everyone, not just the chosen few. I started experimenting with my students as they were trying to master turns. I’d say, “Observe where you fall. It’s a valuable clue. If you fall backwards, try to lean forward more. Ditto if you fall forward (no one does), or  to one side or the other.” As we worked together to figure out where they were going wrong, what their bad habits were, they could adjust. It helped.

Fouettés are even harder than standard pirouettes.They are repetitive and exhausting.  The famous sequence in the classical ballet, Swan Lake, that every dancer dreams of or, in my case, dreads, has 32 consecutive turns on the same leg, which is accomplished in point shoes. 32! You might start off fine, but after about 16 it gets really tough to keep going, and at the end you are just holding on for dear life. Or, I imagine you are. I never got that far. I would always stop about mid way. No Swan Lake for me.

What I’ve been wondering these days, is how the dancers who can do 32 do it. I’m wondering that because I’ve noticed that life doesn’t get easier as you get older, — it gets harder. You may not worry about the same things you did at twenty- four, but if you haven’t gotten rid of your bad habits, they don’t just go away, and they can cause endless trouble.

So, I asked a friend of mine how she did it. How she learned how to get through her 32 fouettés on stage in front of thousands of people.

My friend’s name is Amanda McKerrow, and she danced Swan Lake many times while a ballerina with American Ballet Theatre. Here’s what she told me about getting to the point where she could do those turns:

“The theory goes that if you can do a few consecutive fouettés (even just three or four) you can do thirty two, but you have to build up the stamina and strength for them. When you get tired, the flaws in your technique become amplified. (That from her dancer-husband John!) You have to persevere and have consistency in your training. Practice is the only way.”

Few of us need to practice our fouettés, but we all need to  practice life. Especially the hard stuff. The stuff Seneca said he hoped would die before he did.

I love that Amanda said that if you can do just a very few, you can do all of them. If you practice.

I’ve been trying to practice the art of being kinder, less reactive, more patient with people who annoy me. I know that, when I get tired, have had a bad day etc., I am more apt to fall back into my bad habits: To be critical, or short tempered, or dismissive. But, knowing what happens when I get tired helps me adjust. I can see bad stuff coming down the road, and do something about it. If I want to.

The other day, a woman started yelling obscenities at me while I was doing my wash at a local laundromat. She was furious. Normally, I would react very badly to something like that but, after spending a lot of time trying to rid myself of that tendency, that flaw, I found myself responding to her in a gentle, sort of reasonable way. She didn’t change her tirade, but it didn’t matter. I felt almost calm inside, instead of out of control. It was a first for me, I think.

I consider that my 32 fouettés. There may not have been any applause or flowers to mark the moment, but I knew it had come from recognizing my flaw; deciding I didn’t want to be like that anymore; asking God for help in moving past an un-Christian habit; and choosing to stick with the pattern I had seen in others. Others who had succeeded at their own challenges. And then, I got to practice it on stage! Well, at the laundromat.

We all have our own 32 fouettés. The trick is to get into the metaphorical studio and get started. To listen to 19th century theologian, Henry Drummond, when he says that the “constituents of a great character are only to be built up by ceaseless practice.”

See you on stage !

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