Progress

Every dancer wants to make their teacher proud. To do something that makes them yell, "YES!" or other various things. I tend to go unnoticed by my teacher, which I take as a good sign, because if I do something wrong she does tell me. I try not to worry about where her attention goes and just work hard on doing the best I know how to do; to work hard enough that she has to notice.
I'm not one used as the example. I'm not extremely gifted or flexible or whatever. I'm average, working hard to be the best I can. I can tear myself apart in comparisons if I wanted to, but I don't want to--it's not worth it.
Yesterday there were only 5 of us in the advanced class. Since two of the girls were missing from the recital piece, she only ran it twice to help the girls remember and then we moved on. We did a lot of things across the floor, some proving to be challenging in that they changed up the way we're used to executing these steps. We tried anyway, doing our best--practice makes progress. We got to this one part where we did tombe pas de bourree, glissade, saut de chat, contre tout, tombe pas de bourree, glissade, saut de chat, contre tout, tombe pas de bourree, glissade, assemble, fire bird, step, step, fourth releve and hold.
Well, my friend I was going with apparently wasn't ready for it, and when the music started, she hesitated and I went anyway. Instead of freaking out by the fact I was going alone, I guess I had a moment of determination. I was going to do that darn fire bird whether it looked ridiculous or not. After I got to the first glissade, I could hear Jilissa yelling, "Good! Keep going!" and other encouragements as I took on the combination by myself--in the first group, I might add. I had no one before me to watch to see the correct way to do it or solidify the sequence--I just went for it.
Sure, I still can't do a darn fire bird, but part of that comes from needing strength still.
But, I think it showed growth to my teacher; the fact that I went for it anyway. She was proud of me, I could tell, and that means the world.