To Fat to Dance…

To Fat to Dance.

 

As she looked at me and examined all the things she saw wrong, she finally formed the sentence “ You’re to fat to dance here, you have to understand, if I let you in I would have to let other fat people in.” Shock hit me… I have never heard these words before; I’ve never thought these words could be spoken over me.

Let me back up a little and give you some contexts, when I was younger I wanted to be a dancer.

Well I talked about being a doctor, ballerina, and teacher… I’m pretty sure those were the three but I loved dancing. As a teenager I struggled with an eating disorder. I was obsessive about my weight. I remember sometimes weighing myself 10 plus times in a day praying I had lost weight. I would look online seeing how much a ballerina should weigh and I was not even close to that. I would imagine what it would be like to weigh just ninety pounds, some of the girls I knew weighed that much and would talk about how they needed to lose weight, then I would go home and look at my weight and would get so frustrated. If they needed to lose weight then I could only imagine how much I needed to lose. I never was able to take dance as a teenager.

When I got to college I found out they offered ballet classes, you can imagine my excitement. I was so giddy going to the ballet store to pick up my leotard, tights, and shoes. I had so much joy every class, I would day dream that I was in New York getting ready for my next show. It was magical. I started to do a lot of dance in college; I took some swing and lindy hop classes and ended up being a swing instructor for a while.

Dance has always brought me so much joy. I even took my ballet slipper with me on the World Race and taught some ballet in a few small villages and orphanages. Dance brings Joy.

Coming here to Guatemala I have seen so many children who have to work all the time, they don’t really get a childhood. I know there are people here trying to help these kids really feel like kids, and that has really touched me heart. Many of the boys here get an outlet with soccer, they get to go and play like kids and have fun in the most popular sport around, but then there are the girls, what is there for the girls to do?

 Recently I have been thinking a lot about doing a small dance ministry for girls who work at the central park with their moms all day. I know I would need to start small, and I already have a lot of big ideas so there was just one thing left. I need to brush up on my ballet, it’s been a few years since I have taken a class and I want to make sure as I am teaching, I am offering these girls the best class possible. So in an effort to be the best teacher I can, I want to first be the best student I can be. After a lot of research I finally found a ballet studio near me (since I live in Latin America its all salsa here) I was so excited, I could not wait to go and talk with the instructor and get signed up for some classes. The day finally came where I showed up at the right time (they have such strange hours), I rang the doorbell and the lady answered, I told her that I wanted information on their classes. I get invited in and I see a ballet bar and mirrors, excitement is welling up inside of me, we sit down and the instructor starts to tell me about the classes and their hours, she tells me that because Idon’t do point I would have to be in the younger kids class. That really does not bother me as I am not looking to become a professional, I just want to brush up, I can rock it out with the little kids. The she looks at me with a concerned look and tells me, “ Your to fat to dance here, you have to understand, if I let you in I would have to let other fat people in.” I could not believe what was happening, the joy was gone and anger was welling up inside of me. She told me if I could lose enough weight in the next month that I could be accepted into her class. As I sat in disbelief she just kept telling me about how I was to big, everything in me wanted to blow up or cry… or both, but I held it together and finished the conversation and walked to the door and thanked her for her time.

As I left I was infuriated, I could not believe that she gets to tell young impressionable girls all the time that they are to fat to dance there. At an age where you can either build a girl up with confidence in who she is or tare her apart, this woman gets to tare girls down. It was an amazing reminder of how powerful our words are. It made me more passionate about choosing my words more carefully because you cant take then back, once they are said you can’t remove them. What was spoken to me hurt, even though I know it’s not true.

 

The story does not end there, a few weeks later I went to a salsa class in this cute little studio with some friends. I was in love with how amazing this place was and how many walls had mirrors. After the class I asked our instructor Gloria where I could buy a mirror, if I could not do ballet in a studio I was going to figure out how to do it at my house. She asked me why I needed such a large mirror, so I told her what happened at the ballet studio. She looked at me in disbelief and gave me a hug, she then told me that I could come dance at her studio whenever I wanted. So one beautiful Friday I traveled to the studio and danced… she left me there and told me to lock up when I was finished. Doing ballet in Guatemala did not look at all like I thought it would, but through it I have been able to connect with such an amazing woman and I get to dance at this beautiful and wonderful studio.

 

There are two things I really take away from this experience. Firstly, your words affect people; it can either be a negative thing or a positive thing. Your words can either bring life or they can bring death. Every time you open your mouth, you get the choice of what you are going to speak. Secondly, when one door closes another one opens. Sometimes its soon after that first door closes and other times it takes some time. The Lord knows the passions of your heart, He knows them because He has placed them there. Don’t give up on the dreams and passions that have been placed on your heart, they are beautiful and wonderful.