Safety on Dangerous Ground

Sooooo. The hair saga continues. I saw y’alls comments and I was inspired by them so talked with my teacher who was like “definitely try it down again” and she didn’t think the volume was a problem SO I cumulated all that into this!

Loads of products were used to reign it in but the quantity of my hair proved to not be the problem. It’s how tamed it is in any given moment. This is heavily tamed. Or else it would go out and frizz.

^this is the line up of products I used. The first four are my usual go-tos for hair care when I want to care how my hair looks.

I have 3 cut donuts of various sizes to keep it from being super flat in the back. So far there’s only one major flaw.

I can’t really see my headband from head on and my poof is already about as small as I can reasonably get it so 🤷🏽‍♀️ I’ll ask my teacher and if she doesn’t care, I won’t care.

Having the donuts underneath is really handy because I can actually pin stuff into something other than my scalp and it pulls a lot of the length of my hair up so it’s not just dangling halfway down my back.

My biggest problem with my hair is that it is really long rn. My last hair cut was in December 2016. I don’t want to cut it but like

^that was my last hair cut length

^a couple months later, like April 2017? Still pretty short compared to…

^July 2018, a little messy but the length is, well, longer. My hair now is a wee bit longer than that.

The problem is I have no where to put it but I don’t want to cut it just for the sake of the little competition I’m doing rn. It’s too much for a bun, but down is perhaps a little too much volume for me to be swinging around. Even the cute front style I tested was too far in my eyes so. Idk. Help. Pls.

At the “rock bottom” phase of my dancing career I was struggling with extreme anxiety and was burning up with fevers on a regular basis. I was missing lots of school, lots of dance classes, and couldn’t make it through a single feis without feeling like everyone I knew was watching me and waiting for me to fail miserably. Although I don’t know if anyone actually felt this level of animosity towards me (I suspect they did, but also anxiety is weird so idk), I do remember being constantly on the verge of panic attacks at feises, was generally a basket case on the way home, and was overall miserable 24/7 because the one thing I really loved in life was turning into something I hated. I ended up telling the school I was dancing with that I was quitting due to some very vague “health issues.” It was just as well, I’d been sick for awhile and if I didn’t start showing up to class regularly soon, my teachers would have given up my spot to a new transfer…… because apparently getting sick and taking time off to take care of your mental or physical health isn’t an option once you hit a certain caliber of competing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

Sooooo I guess this is a very long response to say, yeah the state of how we treat dancers’ mental health is pretty shitty….I wish there was a way they could incorporate a general knowledge of non-abusive teaching methods and mental health section on the TCRG exam (as well as a physical health / safe training section), but goodness knows CLRG can’t be bothered to do anything useful with their power. 

I guess I kinda want to clarify, this isn’t necessarily about teachers having to give individual attention to the mental health of all their students. It just- very hard for me to articulate but I’ll try lol.

I suppose part of my experience is that one of my teachers put mental health above all else and it completely changed, quite honestly, my life. Regardless of how much time we had, she took the time to make sure we didn’t have obstacles on our mind effecting our dancing. Not only did it help me individually, but it helped me to connect with my classmates and open up to people in a way I never expected. Those chunks of time that some people would have seen as “wasted” were eye opening to me and helped me far beyond dance. 

The thing is, I and everyone else in that class danced better when we didn’t have other issues bogging us down. Even if it was just “I had a crappy day at school”, getting it out helps.

It’s something I’ve seen filtering into the sort of older style dance schools. Just at the last workshop we had, we had a talk about mental preparedness at competitions. It’s encouraging to me that the future of ISD will be healthier, it just so hard for me because its like I had a taste of the perfect way to handle it all.

I in no way want to come across as accusing anyone of being bad teachers or anything. Just to be very clear, this is not what this is about. 

I’m not sure who’s here or who reads this anymore, but hello!

It’s been busy - Since my active time on Tumblr I’ve gone through the process of opening my school, building my business, workshopping, and other exciting things. 

I’m in love with Evelinn’s hair in this photo. It looks like a fierce lion’s mane. 🙌