We know how many dancers around the World are struggling right now mentally due to lack of motivation or inability to practice. Even though we are not able to solve all the problems in the world, we just would like to share with you our practice experience during March and April 2020, first two months of COVID-19 lockdown.
In our case we found ourselves in a very tough situation in the beginning of March 2020. Moving from New Jersey back to California and arriving just about one week before stay-at-home order was announced by the Governor. We had no studio to practice, no work and even no place to stay. A perfect scenario to feel miserable. Our inner Ukrainian spirit helped us a lot.
Have been living in a post-soviet country we are used to take it one day at a time. More like in a survival mode rather than at peace when things are planned many years ahead. While people around us were freaking out we used this precious time to analyze our lives, career and different decisions we have been taking for years. Some of them were smart while others - not so. It became very clear for us that no matter the circumstances we are dancers! We absolutely love what we do!!! There is nothing else that we can do better than dancing, teaching and competing! After all we have to keep on doing what we know best.
Within a short period of time we finally found a studio where we can be alone and safe. As we started we realized how before we were only practicing for the sake of competing and never for the sake of dancing with each other, expressing ourselves or developing some creativity in our dance. We used to compete at over 20 competitions a year but then we had that off our shoulders. We gained a lot of time to work on the information that was in our heads for ages but was never really practiced and applied properly. That awkward moment when “you know, but you don’t do”. And there were many moments like that… Almost every bar of every dance… So we followed the advise of one of our teachers to do first three bars of Waltz until we are happy. Oh gosh! It took us exactly 4 weeks before we were happy with our Spin turn and Turning lock in Waltz. 4 looooong weeks. Mainly at that time we were locked in with our mechanics but every day was getting us closer to leave that cage and start expressing ourselves and becoming more creative. One of the assets of our couple is good posture, so we felt like that should not be our main focus, instead we felt the necessity to work on timing and clarity of the body and leg actions to improve coordination. That is a lot of hard work and normally takes hundreds of hours of practice. Thanks God we had all the time in the world.
Where many people were complaining we saw an opportunity that almost no dancer during a career has - to have a break! Normally a break in the middle of a competitive career would mean hard consequences, but “March 2020 break” was what you made of it. You could take a rest, be upset and demotivated or you could regroup and come out even stronger. We chose the last option! In our case all the answers were inside. We just needed to listen to our inner self and follow the Path that was the most instinctive for us. And it worked!
Up to this moment (November 2020) we still never had a chance to compete and it makes us sad but we are very happy to know that we have never wasted a day during a lockdown without developing ourselves through dance. And as soon as we have a chance we are ready to go.
This post we would like to dedicate to all the dancers who love to compete and miss it as much as we do!
Guys, let’s stay in touch! Let us know how you feel during the pandemic, are you able to practice and how do you keep yourself motivated? Leave us a comment and don’t forget to fill out the form below to subscribe to our website for free so we can share more things with you