My sons have taken up the manliest, most epic pursuit known to boykind.

Ballet.

Yes. Ballet.

They are utterly convinced it’s the most rugged thing a boy can do, because their godfather Conrad, who owns the studio and teaches their class, is cool enough to make the boys consider it “legit”.

Conrad runs a boys-only class.

He picks my kids up from school every Thursday and drives them down to the studio in Santa Cruz blasting the stereo LOUD… Johnny Cash, Billy Joel, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Ya know… the classics 😉

Then they do an hour of ballet (which also involves military pushups and a ridiculous number of jumping spins, because, Conrad tells them, they need to be MEGA strong to one day throw girls up over their heads. This clearly holds appeal.)

Then, after class, they clamber over wet, mossy rocks at rising tide to a pizza place on the beach, eat their own body weight in carbs and cheese, and come home, wet, dirty, exhausted and happy.

They call it “Epic Thursdays”.

Conrad has tricked my kids into adoring classical music and ballet through the sheer genius of framing.

I'm so jealous of them.

At home they show me their wobbly Tour en l'air and their grand jetés and their pirouettes, with the swagger of small drunken fawns, and tell me how Conrad encouraged them on how much progress they’re making. It makes something in my chest tighten.

Because that was not my experience with ballet.

Last time I attempted ballet, I was six.

Reader, I was not a graceful child.

I was a tomboy, a bit clunky, and I have never been nor will I ever be a waif.

So, while other little girls were cooed over for their poise and their pretty twirls, in their immaculate pink tutus, I would THUD.

The teacher would visibly shudder.

The girls would snicker.

And I would go red hot with shame from my scalp down to my not very pointed toes.

Every recital, I was cast as the tree. You know…the one part that does not move.

I played a rather unreasonable number of trees, until one day my mother asked the teacher whether I might have a part in the next recital that was… well….marginally more animate.

Nothing big. Just something in the background with a pulse, perhaps?

The teacher, a petite Frenchwoman of tremendous drama, drew herself up. Pencilled eyebrows raised exasperatedly to the ceiling, her pointy shoulders drawn back. She gave a sigh you could have heard all the way over in Paris. And announced, at full volume, to a studio full of waiting mothers:

"Mais Madame, ce n’est pas ma faute que votre fille n'a pas de grâce… qu'elle… qu'elle bouge comme un bébé éléphant!"

(But it is not my fault, Madame, that your daughter has no grace, that she moves like a baby elephant.)

A Baby. Elephant.

The other girls giggled. Their mothers smiled sardonically and gave each other knowingly smug looks. I can still hear and feel it today, sitting at my computer with my now fully developed adult nervous system.

My mother, God love her, said something magnificently furious that I don't remember, took my hand, marched me out to the car, and told me I never had to go back. I cried the whole way home. I think it was mostly relief, but also a bit of grief. Because I'd understood, at six years old, that I would never be the graceful little girl other little girls seemed to effortlessly be.

And that baby elephant sentence did not fizzle away. It came home with me, moved in to my body, and never left.

To this day I avoid dance floors the way other people avoid tax audits.

Ohad, my husband, is pure joy on a dance floor… ecstatic dance, salsa, sweaty club… it doesn't matter. Hand the man some flowy trousers and a beat and he is GONE. While I stand by the bar holding his drink, because somewhere down deep, in a six-year-old's ears, a shrill French accent is still disgustedly calling me a “bébé elephant.”

Now. The reason I'm telling you all this. (I know, it does take me an absolute AGE to get to my point in these newsletters, reader, and I do love and appreciate you for bearing with me…)

The things we're told about ourselves when we're young do not evaporate. They settle in to our bodies.

"You're too much." "You're not very feminine." "Boys don't cry." "Man up." Even the supposedly kind ones… "our sensible one," "such a good girl/boy" — they all install a belief about who you're allowed to be and how much space you're allowed to take up.

And where do they do the most damage? In the places you're most exposed. In relationships. In the bedroom.

That's where my work comes in.

I go in layer by careful layer, through your history, your inherited beliefs, your ancient humiliations. Until we find the original splinter. And then we pull it out. Sometimes cleanly. More often in fragments, the way splinters tend to go.

The moment you can see it… the moment you know it's a splinter and not the plain truth about you… it starts to lose its grip. I've watched people meet their own bébé elephant sentence for the first time in decades and just… exhale. Or cry. Or shake. It’s all a form of release.

If there's a sentence living in your body rent-free, running the show without your say-so, that is exactly what we work on together one to one.

Come find your splinter with me. However many pieces it takes.

As for me and dancing? I’m very much still a bébé elephant, thanks for asking.

But these days, sometimes when Ohad hauls me onto the dance floor, I allow myself to be one. I’m under zero illusions that I’ll be on “Dancing with Stars” ever . I allow myself to dance badly and thud around with arrhythmic gusto. Turns out there’s a sort of grace in being graceless.

Do you have a bébé elephant moment? A sentence that's been living in your body rent-free? Hit reply and tell me. I won't laugh. I have been the stationary ballet tree, remember?

Lots of love, from the edge of the dance floor,

​
Sylvie

P.S. Last week I announced that I was giving a talk at the Women’s Networking Alliance Small Business Summit on October 2^nd. A bunch of you bought tickets (thank you so much!). If you missed that announcement but would like to buy a ticket now… you can find the link here:

P.P.S While I wasn't much one for pink Tutus... I did rock pink quite well on the ski slopes... where I am decidedly less elephant like, and dare I say it... quite graceful actually!