Becoming Who She Needed

1991.
Six years old.
Pushing splits on a cold tile floor.
I can still feel it in my bones.

It was the 80s and 90s, in rural Northern Ontario. Dance felt a little rough around the edges. A little unpolished. We did not question much. We showed up. We stretched. We pushed. We performed.

And somehow, that was enough.

Watching my daughter, who is the same age I was then, fall in love with dance has brought me back to that little girl I used to be.

But now, I stand on the other side.

As a dance educator.

As an adjudicator.

As someone who has spent decades watching dancers grow, struggle, achieve, and search for their place within this art form.

And I find myself wondering:

When did enough stop being enough?

When did the joy of learning begin to compete with the pressure to achieve more?

More flexibility.
More tricks.
More difficulty.
More, at a younger age.

I think about that little girl on the cold floor.

Who she was.

What she dreamed of.

What she believed dance could be.

I think about the dancer I became because of her, and perhaps also in spite of her.

Because she gave me resilience.

She gave me discipline.

She gave me a love for movement that has carried me through every chapter of my life.

But she also carried lessons that I now understand differently.

Lessons about pushing.

Lessons about worth.

Lessons about what it means to be enough.

Now, as I watch the next generation begin their journey, I wonder what it would look like to bridge the two.

To honour the dancers we were while creating something more thoughtful for the dancers coming after us.

To preserve the magic.

To keep the joy.

To value growth without losing connection.

Maybe this next chapter is not about becoming something new.

Maybe it is about returning to what mattered all along.

Maybe it is about becoming the teacher, mentor, and guide that the little girl on that cold tile floor needed.

Maybe it is about becoming who she needed all along.

In Dance,
Ashley