I started classical ballet when I was four or five years old, and at my busiest I was going to ballet school six days a week. When I entered high school at fifteen, I quit ballet school, but I joined the dance club at school and ended up dancing almost every day anyway. Once I became a university student and later started working, I no longer danced regularly, but my love for dance never faded. (The photo of this blog is me in California Disney in 2018!)

As a child, I loved ballet more than playing with school friends, more than romance, more than cell phones, games, or manga. The books and magazines I read were all about ballet, the only thing I watched on TV was ballet, on weekends I spent time with ballet friends, and my favorite outings were either watching ballet performances or shopping for ballet goods. Every day was completely filled with ballet. At one point I dreamed of becoming a professional, but since ballet companies won’t even let you audition if you’re under a certain height, I gave up when I realized at around age fourteen that my height would stop at 154 cm.

It’s no exaggeration to say that dance and music have saved me. In my final year of high school, while studying for entrance exams, I experienced depressive symptoms. For about three months, nothing I did could lift my mood, and I started to think maybe I’d never recover. One day, on a whim, I went to a ballet studio. After just the first class, the moment I stepped outside, I felt so good that I wanted to sing, dance, and run all the way home. Even though it only takes about twenty minutes to get home, I couldn’t wait and immediately called my mom on the spot to tell her how amazing I felt. I still remember that.

My relationship with ballet hasn’t always been beautiful. Back then, it was normal for teachers to hit students’ bodies to correct posture, or pinch the fat on your stomach while saying “you’re fat.” The ballet world was fiercely competitive. There was a custom like everyone would vote on who the best dancer was (which also automatically revealed who was considered the worst), the best dancers always got the good roles, and teachers would say things like, “Be as thin as (your friend’s name).” The teaching style was basically to push students to improve through competition. I was toughened up mentally by very strict teachers who could be truly terrifying when angry.

Last month, in my third year living in Spain, I finally tried going to a dance school thanks to a friend’s recommendation. But this time it wasn’t ballet—it was contemporary dance. Of course, having done ballet and other physical activities made it much easier for me to learn than for complete beginners. At the same time, some of my ingrained ballet habits actually held me back, so during the first few lessons I felt a bit lost. But after the sixth lesson, I finally felt that incredible “dance high”! The moment I stepped outside after class, I wanted to sing, dance, and run all the way home again. I didn’t actually do it, but I might have been the only person in Spain grinning ear to ear while shopping at Mercadona that day.

Contemporary dance has been loosening up the unnecessary competitiveness and rigid thinking that ballet drilled into me. Of course, there are basic movement rules, but more important is moving as if united with your breath, letting gravity pull you, or dancing while imagining different images. You follow sensations and move your body in your own way. When we perform choreography in groups, my brain still sometimes slips into competition mode—looking for who’s the best, or thinking “that person can do this better than me.” But because the movement is so free, it’s impossible to tell who’s best anyway (haha), and I realize, “Oh right, I don’t have to compete anymore.” We’re often encouraged to improvise during class, too. At first, it felt embarrassing, but I quickly became hooked on the joy of it.

If I had to name one downside of contemporary dance, it’s that with two classes a week adding up to three solid hours of dancing, I’m always sore and it keeps me pretty busy! But anyone who loves exercise will understand—there’s actually something pretty great about waking up every day with that kind of muscle soreness (haha).