On the first day of rehearsal, Reggie taught us a segment inspired by South African gumboot dancing. He quietly showed us a segment, counted down, and watched calmly as we produced a cacophony of unsynchronized sound. He showed us the segment again, and we slowly progressed toward coordination as a class. I grew extremely frustrated. I am on the Step team here at school, and when we are not together we all start shouting out the downbeats and the claps “BA DA DA PAUSE PAUSE BUM!” Reggie’s way of learning was so much more organic. I ended up making up a strict rhythm to shout in my own head, and I convinced myself I had mastered the combination.

            This is what has always been natural for me. I analyze and count first in dance, and then find ways to stretch the movements and pull time. Along with nearly everybody else here, I’m an overthinker and I get worried and nervous when I don’t have ideas nicely organized in my mind. This is what has made me a dedicated student- but it did not help with Reggie’s movement. I wasn’t sure what to think, especially when he started quipping and making fun of us know-it-all Yalies, overanalyzing and practicing with him as he demonstrated a pattern. I felt the same sense of shame I do when people ask me where I go to school. My firmly organized sense of being has always helped me: why not now?

            I started to realize what the problem was during a warmup. We were walking and I briefly thought about my math homework for the night. One of the hardest problems was as follows:

            Prove 2+3=5.

            I have to use several steps to prove this, and the answer draws upon Set Theory and the Peano Axioms.  Similarly, in ballet, walking is usually as a deconstructed, complicated step. Do you pull your foot through coupé? How do you roll through your foot? How are your arms held?

            It is so unnatural for us to just do. When Reggie says “go down,” we ask “how?” Our questions are scholarly and academic, not physical. We focus on shapes rather than movement. We want counts and rules. We are good at following rules. We are not good at just going down.

            But the best moment was when Reggie told us to “throw away the judge.” I had been caught in a circle! I was berating myself for thinking analytically, and trying to accurately identify a way to bypass that mental tendency. I think that this transition to a more organic mind process will be difficult and I will look like a crazy lady a lot this semester, but maybe it will help me find a different side of myself.

            If Reggie wanted to prove 2+3=5, while I sat there leafing through my textbook and muttering to myself, he would simply hold up all the fingers on one hand.  “This is five.”