If you have been around rpm dance for any amount of time, you have heard the Simone Biles story. All of my COMPANY dancers are now lovingly rolling their eyes as they read this post. So at the risk of being redundant, and for posterity’s sake, I will share it here with you one more time. I love to watch competitive gymnastics so I am a Simone Biles fan. I read an article once in which her coach was interviewed. They asked the coach what she told Simone Biles before she went out to perform her gold medal floor routine, in front of the world. The coach replied,
“I told her to do it for the joy of it.”
This makes so much sense to me, and it is a principle that I teach our performers every day. As a Rockette the expectation was simple, “Be perfect.” If I let my head get too caught up on the many mistakes I could make, before going out on stage, it was suffocating. I learned to take a breath and say, “I do this because I love it, and because God gifted me to do it. Let’s go! “And then I smiled, took a breath, and entered with confidence.
Many years ago my husband Steve saw me agonizing over the responsibility of teaching technique to our students. He calmly asked, “How are you going to teach performance? That is what you are good at. Have you figured out how to do that yet?” Effectively, he was saying, you are spending too much time on one thing (technique), at the expense of the other (performance). He was right. But it was easier to stress technique, because it is more teachable. In other words, how do you teach joy?
Joy comes from within. It’s a gift. We strive to create an environment where joy can grow, much like a garden. Then, we train the performer to let it out. Performers should walk on stage, and give, because it brings them joy. While applause, or even fame, may be the result, it can’t be the reason. It is fleeting. Sometimes the applause comes, sometimes it does not. But when we dance for joy, because it is in us, as something that has been given to us as a gift, it satisfies us. We are no longer looking for approval. We are expressing ourselves, and sometimes, even worshipping as we do it. One of the greatest gifts I can give our students is to teach them to perform “for the joy of it.”
In the movie, Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell said this,
“God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.”
God made ME, to be in motion. And when I move, I feel His pleasure.
