Words by Farrah Faust Photos By Elixir Black
How to cope when you realise that your Siren goals are changing.
Change can be scary. As a person with anxiety, I tend to feel change very deeply and I often perceive it as being negative. Even positive life changes – like taking up an exciting new hobby or making a new friend - can be stressful at times. Therefore trying to define these experiences as either ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ can sometimes be unhelpful, and I prefer to divide the changes that I face in my life as being either from within myself – such as alterations in my thoughts, feelings, or personal boundaries - or from without – such as changes caused by outside forces over which I have no control, like being served an end of lease notice by your landlord, or suddenly being forced to work from home during a global pandemic.
Change caused by outside agents can be very difficult to deal with, but so too can adjusting to changes that have been brought about within yourself by growth and alteration in your own feelings and aspirations. The internal ones are the changes that I personally struggle with the most. In the hopes of helping out some other babes who might share this struggle, I’m going to be exploring some coping mechanisms for how to deal with changes within yourself in this piece
Change is a part of life, and a lot of changes that can initially seem so frightening often pan out to be for the better. Life is a constant ebb and flow of differing circumstances and situations, and like the moon in the sky, each phase of your life is just as important and as beautiful in its own way as the last one, and the next one to come.
But how do we start to identify when our feelings are moving in a new direction, or our aspirations are suddenly different to what we’d previously been working towards? And how do we cope with that? Instead of digging in your heels and refusing to acknowledge change, or running away from it, here are some ways that I’ve found to identify and cope with changes that come from inside myself.
Check in with yourself frequently. Am I still enjoying what I’m currently investing myself in, or is it time for a new approach?
If you devotedly stick to the levelled classes in your apparatus/es (Pearls, Emeralds, Rubies, and above!) with new trick goals every week, are you still finding fulfilment in this or do you feel worn down by the expectations that you’ve set yourself? If you prefer the choreography based classes (Vixen/ettes, Down & Dirty, Bend & Lap), are you still enjoying learning the routine each week, or is it no longer challenging you in positive ways?
When I first started at Sky Sirens I was one hundred per cent certain that I wasn’t “a dancer”. This negative mindset came from some bad experiences in previous dance classes, as well as a lot of internalised and misogynistic preconceptions about what “a dancer” is and isn’t (for more info on this aspect of my journey you can have a read of our International Womxns Day blog post here!). So my first few terms of pole class at Sky Sirens were spent with my eyes firmly on the prize of building up strength and unlocking new tricks, rather than learning a routine. In fact, majority of the time, I actively disliked the choreography aspect of my classes. Not believing that I could properly execute a leg wave or a body roll made me feel silly and sheepish, whereas nailing that invert and finally being able to get into a leg hang made me feel strong and accomplished.
But somewhere along the line I started to see the merits of the choreography. Being able to execute a trick perfectly was one thing, but being able to put it into a combo alongside other tricks AND have the stamina to continue dancing an entire routine both before and after became a new challenge. So I enrolled in Vixenettes Pole, and I found that I loved it! It erased the frustration that I was beginning to feel when I wasn’t yet able to unlock a new move that we were learning in the levelled classes. It also taught me new ways to move my body, which in turn helped me to hold my poses more cleanly and confidently in the tricks that I was working on. Sure, maybe I felt like I wasn’t building much strength rolling around on the floor trying to look sexy, but I was still learning new things, and I realized how much fun I was allowing myself to have without the undue, self imposed pressure of constantly levelling up.
So if you’re starting to feel like your progress in your levelled classes has stalled, why not try a choreography based class, or even give a new apparatus a go? Or if you’ve always stuck to the choreo classes because you feel like you’re not strong enough to level up as quickly as other babes, why not give that level you’ve been avoiding another chance? Everyone learns and grows at different rates, and our priorities can often change while we do so!
Remember that progress is not linear!
We all do it sometimes; we beat ourselves up because we’ve been healing from an injury and now we’re unable to do a certain move that once felt easy. Or maybe you took a break from aerials and/or dancing during 2020 (understandable!) and you don’t feel as strong as you were a year ago. Maybe you just haven’t been feeling quite like yourself lately and your freestyles or flow aren’t looking as polished as you’d like them to anymore.
Try to remind yourself that progress is always a journey of ups and downs. Just look at the history of erotic dance itself! Many ancient cultures held in high regard priestesses whose duties included dancing provocatively during religious rites. With the rise of patriarchal monotheism, female sexuality was widely repressed and even regarded as dangerous for many centuries. This is not to say that erotic dance stopped happening! It was simply driven underground and societally condemned. Then in the late 1800s, vaudeville shows began pushing the boundaries of prudish social convention with the re-emerging artform of striptease, which in turn spawned burlesque, can-can dancing, and eventually pole dance. During this time, alarmed conservatives quickly enacted so called ‘decency laws’ to quash these acts of sexual empowerment and rebellion, and push erotic dance back into the dark. But by the 20th century, dedicated strip clubs were becoming normalised and today are considered fairly mainstream.
Today we see strippers and sex workers proudly speaking out in the media about their culture and careers, while many ‘civilians’ enrol in pole dancing classes without fear of social stigma, and huge swathes of popular culture voyeuristically revolve around strip club culture. The story of erotic dance - once seen as a sacred rite, then a shameful act of transgression, making a comeback as a titillating new artform only to be repressed again, until finally re-emerging triumphant in the modern era - is the same story of non-linear progress that we all endure throughout our dance journeys.
It proves that just because you’re having a bad day, a bad week, or even a bad month, that doesn’t mean you should give up on reaching for the stars. Setbacks are inevitable both in life and in dance, but maybe trying a new approach will open up some different skillsets that you can transfer back to your original goals once you’re ready, or even inspire some new aims for you to strive for.
Accept that we as people constantly change and it’s ok to move the goalposts for yourself.
Sometimes we can fall into the trap of focusing so hard on smashing our goals that we forget sometimes those goals change while we’re learning and growing as people, and that’s alright. It isn’t a failure to look at a goal that you haven’t yet been able to accomplish and say, “Hey, that’s no longer a top priority for me.” It doesn’t mean that you’ve failed or let yourself down in any way, it doesn’t mean that all the work you’ve already put in was for nothing, it just means that you’re embracing the changes that inevitably move throughout all of our lives. Be grateful to your past self for setting those goals and pursuing them. Be proud of all the hard work you’ve already put in to get to where you are.
Like I said, when I first started at Sky Sirens I did not see myself as a dancer. And I certainly had no intention of dancing on stage for an audience, even though I have a background in theatre. The mere suggestion would have seemed ludicrous and terrifying to me at the time! But now my Sirens goals are different; I’m working towards choreographing my own acts – solo acts! – with the intention of one day performing at a Heartstoppers or a Glory Box. Nowadays, my focus is on choreography and flow rather than strength and tricks. Perhaps for you it’s the reverse. Either way, your new goals are just as valid as your old ones and the hard work that you’ve already put in will help you on your journey towards those new dreams.
Taking an active role and openly participating in the changes that are happening within yourself can be both satisfying and reassuring, as it allows you to re-establish your own agency in the process. So embrace the change! In the immortal words the David Bowie classic Changes, “turn and face the strange!”
So if a certain nemesis move in Lyra is really getting you down, why not try Sling next term instead! Not feeling splitty enough to perfect your leg waves or fan kicks? Enrol in your first Sexy Flexy class! Feeling like your freestyle just isn’t flowing like it used to? Challenge yourself to work on building strength or stamina for a little while rather than trying to force creativity. Struggling to feel sexy in Vixenettes? Slow it down with a bumping and grinding Burlesque class instead. The world truly is your oyster. Trying something new will give both your brain and your body time to refresh and reset, as well as offering all the physical & mental benefits of cross-training and beginning a new adventure! And you never know, you might just find a whole new love for dance in the process.
If you’re willing to take a step in a new direction but you’re feeling like you don’t know where to start, try talking to your fellow Sirens students or even your instructors! Have a chat about what other classes your peers are enrolled in and what they like best about them. Figure out what you love about your current classes and then ask for advice about what else might offer similar positive experiences, or help you to overcome whatever setbacks you may be experiencing.