This was my 3rd speech, focusing on 'getting to the point', with a broad purpose and a more specific one, titled 'Dancing through life'.
I used to dance for money. Shocking!
Toastmasters and honored guests, it’s not what you think.
My
mom put me in Chinese folkoric dance classes when I was 5. From that young age,
I performed every year at the annual dance show, the televised Spring Festival
show, the Chinatown festival show....anything related to Chinese community in
Mauritius. Then, in my teenage years, I started performing at hotels on a weekly
basis for pocket money. Mauritius being a multicultural country, hotels aim to
showcase the diversity every night with a different cultural show. The Chinese
show was on every Friday or Saturday night and I did that for about 5 years.
What have 5 years of dancing for money taught me? Well, believe it or not, it
has taught me a few ways on how to cope with real life situations. Let me give
you 3 examples.
Performing the same routine every week does not mean you
have a flawless performance each time. In fact, you rely so much on muscle
memory and habit, that you allow your mind to drift away during the dance.
Countless times, I have missed a step or let go of my prop which resulted in me
seemingly doing my own thing on stage. Here comes lesson #1: if you do not know
where you are going or you have forgotten the next step, move in the general
direction everybody is going. Even if
you are not doing the same pirouette as others, the audience might not notice a
mistake if you are moving with the pack. In life as in a performance, we need
to know where to go, or anticipate the next move. Sometimes you feel out of
sync with other people or sometimes you feel like you are behind as compared to
others. The important thing to remember, is that it is okay to lag behind, as
long as you catch up with others, preferably before the end of the dance. It is
that much easier to fall back into the dance if you are already moving in the
right direction.
What happens if you cannot mask your blunder and you are
mortified with embarrassment? Lesson number 2 is to smile and keep moving.
Nobody will notice your mistake if they are too busy looking at your smile. A
professional dancer smiles even if she misses a step, it is the dancer’s ultimate
poker face. When a dancer makes a mistake, she has to fight her own panic-stricken
thoughts, quickly think of the next move, and force her body to move faster to
catch up while smiling brilliantly. Sometimes in life, we are
caught off-guard and we let our emotions show in that moment of complete panic.
I have learned to put a smile on even when I’m feeling lost and I’m put on the
spot. I’m not saying that you have to cover up every emotion with a smile, but
it does help to be able to ride over some difficult news with a smile while
your brain is still processing them.
Which brings us to the 3rd thing I’ve learned. So
what if you were not where you were supposed to be and you end up doing a solo
piece involuntarily? Or you have a wardrobe malfunction that embarrasses you so
much you think it is the end of the world? Well, it’s not. I once ripped my
pants while doing a split during a performance. Crack! just when the music
paused! My fellow dancers heard it and were fighting a fit of laughter. I was
livid and I thought of rushing off the stage in shame. But true to my training
and experience, I kept smiling and finished the dance while trying not to lift
my leg too high. It would have been easy for me to hash things over and over
and to be afraid of ever donning that costume again. But the following week,
the audience had changed, my fellow dancers forgot about it and nobody who
cared for me cared that I made a fool of myself. The lesson: the dance will
end, the audience will change and you will get another chance to prove yourself
as a dancer.
You know the saying ‘dance like no one is watching’? Well
that is complete absurdity! Dance like you know SOMEONE is watching. Because in
the performance called Life, someone IS always watching. Do not worry though,
you now have 3 coping mechanisms to help you: 1, if you do not know where to
go, move with the flow until you figure out the next step. 2, smile while
dancing it makes all the difference especially if you make a mistake and 3,
even if something goes wrong, tomorrow is another day, another audience. If none of this works for
you, just remember that no performance is ever complete without a beautiful
reverence at the end. That is your opportunity to dazzle and leave a lasting
impression with your audience.
*make a little reverence*
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