By Augustine Larson
“Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person’s skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding
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Tara’s mom owned a ballet studio while she was growing up. She remembers being really little and trying to mimic the ballet students from her view through the window. She’s been dancing since before she could remember. “I never went on summer vacation or any break—I was always in summer dance camps somewhere.” Tara’s passion for classical ballet developed early and propelled her into the world of professional ballet around the age of 16.
Tara studied in New York City at the Joffrey Ballet for a summer and then went to Switzerland to compete in the well-known international ballet competition, Le Prix de Lausanne. As one of the ten finalists, Tara was offered a scholarship, but she had already signed a contract with the Ballet de Genève and had to decline. Tara’s scholarship went to another dancer, and she started her professional career in Geneva.
When I asked Tara what she loved about ballet, she told me, “I was good. I wasn’t as good as Gelsey Kirkland, but I was good. It was something I was able to have confidence that I could do and I knew I was good at it. I’ve never put that much effort into anything in my life.” Her relationship with ballet was clearly a very emotional and fulfilling one: one that gave her confidence in herself. She described ballet as an art that grounds you and connects you so deeply through your body that you can’t focus on anything else. In other words, Tara experienced flow through ballet.
Tara’s experiences with flow came when she had rehearsed so much that each step became muscle memory. When she found herself on stage in costume, with the music, lights, and the audience, “everything fits.” She remembers one performance of Coppelia when she was touring in Oregon, USA; she did an arabesque en pointe and felt like she could stay there forever. She explained to me that she had to literally force her toes to move and come off of her pointe shoe box. At that moment, she felt like time froze. Tara’s professional level of dancing gave her a particularly kind of skill—one that she now says she could not attain again. Tara is now a chemistry teacher in Utah, and relishes the days when she danced professionally. “The thought of getting back on pointe shoes is like… yeah, no,” she told me, laughing. Dancing at the professional level takes so much consistent effort and practice that she doesn’t have time for anymore. But the emotion we both felt as we relived her ballet days together was palpable.
Flow is a feeling that ebbs and flows (get it?) through our lives. There may be times, like Tara’s case, in which we experience flow often and easily. There may be other times when it’s harder to find. However, we don’t need to be professional ballerinas (or to be professionals at anything, for that matter) to experience flow in our day-to-day lives. You can experience flow while gardening, dancing around your kitchen, or even while playing with your kids. MyBestSelf101.org has resources for cultivating flow in your everyday doings, and it may be easier to find than you think. Check out how to experience flow and exercises for producing flow on MyBestSelf101.org today. Happy flow-ing!
“The best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times—although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.
Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last block on a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage. For each person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves.”