All Articles by truth

Theresa Ruth Howard Dancer/Writer/Teacher Theresa Ruth Howard began her professional dance career with the Philadelphia Civic Ballet Company at the age of twelve. Later she joined the Dance Theatre of Harlem where she had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Africa. She has worked with choreographer Donald Byrd as a soloist in his staging of New York City Opera's Carmina Burana, his critically acclaimed Harlem Nutcracker, as well as the controversial domestic violence work The Beast. She was invited to be a guest artist with Complexions: A Concept in their 10th anniversary season. In 2004 she became a founding member of Armitage Gone! Dance. As a writer Ms. Howard has contributed to Russell Simmons’ One World magazine (art), and The Source (social politics), as well as Pointe and Dance Magazine. While teaching in Italy for the International Dance Association she was asked to become a contributor for the premiere Italian dance magazine Expressions. Her engaging, no nonsense writing style caught the eye of both the readers of Dance Magazine and its Editor in Chief who not only made her a contributing editor and has collaborated with Ms. Howard in See and Say Web-reviews. Her articles about body image prompted her to develop a workshop for young adult (dancers and non-dancers) My Body My Image that addresses their perceptions both positive and negative about their bodies and endeavoring to bring them closer to a place of Acceptance and Appreciation. She recently launched a blog by the same name to reach a broader audience (mybodymyimage.com) As a teacher Ms. Howard has been an Artist in Residence at Hollins University in and New Haven University in addition to teaching at Sarah Lawrence College, Marymount, Shenandoah, and Radford Universities, and the historical American Dance Festival. As a result of her work at ADF Ms. Howard was invited to Sochi, Russia to adjudicate the arts competition Expectations of Europe and teach master classes, and in Burundi, Africa where she coached and taught the Burundi Dance Company. Currently she on faculty at The Ailey School but also extensively throughout Italy and Canada. Ms. Howard's belief in the development, and nurturing of children lead her to work with at risk youth. At the Jacob Riis Settlement House in Queensbridge New York, she founded S.I.S.T.A (Socially Intelligent Sisters Taking Action) a mentoring program for teen-age girls where she worked to empower them to become the creators of their destinies. In addition she developed a dance program, which lead to an exchange with the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Through her teaching and travels Ms. Howard began to observe a universal disenchantment and disconnection in teenagers that disturbed her, thus she set out to address it. Combining her philosophies of life and teaching, with the skills she garnered through outreach programs with diverse communities, she developed the personal development workshop Principles of Engagement: Connecting Youth to the Infinite Possibilities Within which gives teens a set of workable tools to increase their levels of success at tasks, and goals not only in dance, and all aspect of their lives. Theresa Ruth Howard is certainly diverse and multifaceted as an artist, and is moved to both write and create work; however she sees every student she encounters as a work in progress, and the potential to change the world one person at a time. The only was to make this world a better place it to be better people in it!

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Build a Healthier Body Image: Fill Your Toolbox

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ToolBox

 

 

 

 

 

 

If we are going to build a more positive self image then we are going to need the right tools to do it. Let’s get started on our new Project –Ourselves!!

The first tool in your body image tool box is:

Stop the intake of negative images, perceptions and standards of the body. If looking at the  models in magazines make you feel bad about yourself because there is no way you can match that standard, then stop looking at the magazines. Pick up a book, or something that is going to make you feel good (period) be it about your body or anything about yourself or your life. Instead of taking information that makes you question who you are, and if you are good enough, take in something that will make you better. I have started to listen to numerous podcasts when I travel, from Quick and Dirty grammar and money tips, Radiolab‘s, Marc Maron’s WTF , and I LOVE Dr. Drew. the time I spent flipping through a fashion rag on the way to work I now spend learning something, or laughing!! I always feel smarter and better!

Check out the video to get started there will be another tip coming soon!!!

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Just another girl on the IRT

Theresa Ruth Howard

 

 

 

 

I was having one of those days. I got dressed, looked in the mirror and said” Damn, I look good!” As I made my way to the subway, the men on the street concurred, “Baby I’d drink your bath water”, “Darlin’ next time I’ll bottle it for you”, I replied. On the train, I strategically took a seat across from a window as to gaze at my lovely reflection, only to have my view obstructed by an even lovelier view. She was stunning, I mean, absolutely, hatefully gorgeous. This girl didn’t belong on a sub way but on a runway. The type that made you wonder, “What does it feel like to be that beautiful?” She looked airbrushed by God. I put my shades on so I could study her unnoticed, and hide my homeliness. As my insecurities strangled me, my heart began to pound, I began to sweat, I even contemplated getting off the train to escape her. I was undone, wrecked! I had to work hard to maintain my pH balance (playa hatin’ balance). I didn’t get off the train. I forced myself to give her mental props. I even thought of telling her but …

I complement women all the time. I love to see the look of surprise and gratitude they get, like they’ve just won a prize, and they have, in the acknowledgment and approval of a peer. Let’s face it, women dress for (or against) other women. Their opinion counts even if we can’t admit it aloud. But Physics tells us: two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Is that true of beauty? What about intelligence, or talent?
Was her beauty really clouding mine? Was I not the same beautiful, smart intelligent, sexy, witty, and charming and dare I say modest woman that left my house? . Of course it helped that she got off at 72nd Street and I was going downtown.

Well that’s my two cents; you can keep the change!

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Biggest Loser Winner – “Maybe I was a little too enthusiastic…”

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Rachel Fredrickson shocked everyone at the finale of the biggest loser when in her final reveal she had wizened from 260 lbs to an alarming 105 lbs. Well in the aftermath of the backlash Fredrickson is speaking out and had admitted that perhaps she got carried way. In this week’s cover story for People Magazine she says:

“Maybe I was a little too enthusiastic in my training to get to the finale,” she tells PEOPLE exclusively .

Asked point blank whether she has an eating disorder, she replies, “I am very, very healthy.”

 

The interview took place three days after the finale, and apparently Frederickson looked “much more healthy, she looked like she had a little bit more of a glow to her.” according to reporter Michelle Tan.

Senior Editor Michelle Tan remarked, “She really was taking responsibility for the fact that maybe she was ‘too enthusiastic’ about her workout,”

The weight loss franchise, or at least Frederickson’s trainer Dolvett Quince seems to want to make sure she is healthy and on the right track, Quince has states the he plans to work with her on “finding a balance” for her fitness routine. That means going from working out six hours a day to 90 minutes a day.

OK OK…

Well I supposed it’s good that she (or someone) is willing to admit that there was something wrong here. It was just as I stated before in the previous post :

“Personally I think she might have gone too far. It’s that thing that happens when you start to see improvement, and you are not yet used to your new self, you just want more, and more, and it can (if not checked) move into addiction , and in this case a disorder be it eating or exercise addiction.”

The point is  that if in fact she has “gone overboard” that she get the support and help she needs to find her center. Then I think  the show needs to look at whether or not they were somehow culpable in her taking it too far, and if they are promoting not only the contestants on the shoe, and viewers to to the same? Only time will tell, Biggest Loser, it’s your move!

Dance Studio

Tips on How Not to Get Cut at an Audition

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Pointe Magazine:

Company Life: Don’t Get Cut!

Candid audition advice from a dancer who’s been on both sides of the table
By
Published in the February/March 2010 issue.
Theresa Ruth Howard dancing with Armitage Gone! Dance

Photo by Julieta Cervantes

I remember it clearly: I was 8 years old, on the way to audition for Dance Theatre of Harlem’s two-week engagement of Doin’ It. While pulling on my tights in the back seat, to my complete horror, I discovered an inch-wide run on the upper thigh.

 

For 188 of the 200 children who tried out, the audition ended in heartbreak. Yet despite my holey tights, I made the cut. Oddly, I wasn’t nervous that morning. It may well have been one of the last times that pinning on a number didn’t fill me with anxiety.

 

As dancers, we train to dance, not to audition. You worry about the height of your leg, your weight and how many turns you do. But you seldom think about your “energy” or authenticity as a person. Yet years later, when I helped run auditions for Karole Armitage, I learned that these elements are what make you stand out in a sea of bodies.

 

Let me let you in on a dirty secret: So you think you can dance and that is what it’s about; well, it is, but that’s not all it’s about. While I wasn’t stunned by the politics behind the table, what surprised me was how many of the deciding factors had nothing to do with the dancing. You’d be shocked at what gets discussed in those hush-hush huddles. There is the girl who, despite the “general” comment to stop looking in the mirror, keeps peeking at herself. Then there’s the guy who thinks he has an “in” because he knows someone in the company, but forgot that the last time they worked together he got fired for partying too hard.

READ on to get the Tips!!

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What Price Beauty? Miss Venezuela hopeful sews plastic to her tongue..

This is crazy!!! WTF for real!
The BCC aired a documentary titled Extreme Beauty Queens: Secrets of South America, the things revealed in it are unbelievably disturbing and scary. Venezuela has long been famous for being one of the capitals of plastic surgery. They have some of the most beautiful people in the world, add many of them have been modified so in a way it is not surprising that the young women vying for the coveted Miss Venezuela crown wouldn’t hesitate to go under the knife to increase their chances of winning. Where it becomes scary is when they are encouraged to do so by the country’s “King of Beauty”, 67 year-old Osmel Sousa who oversees the pageant.

Sousa has a very discerning eye and does not hold his tongue when telling contestants to get surgery, fix their hair, and even have their front teeth filed down . Speaking of tongues, there was one contestant who has plastic sewn onto her tongue to make it harder to eat so that she could lose weight…

18 year-old contestant, Maya Nera, has revealed that not only did she get a boob job AND a nose job to try and win the crown, but she has also has a piece of plastic SEWN to her tongue to make it harder to eat food. Here is an excerpt from the documentary (at 2:38 Maya talks about all of her procedures and at 3:25 she reveals her slim figure is due to mesh sewn onto her tongue)

I find that this story, and the Biggest Loser scandal involving winner Rachel Frederickson losing 60% of her body weight and returning to the finale grossly underweight have a few troublesome things in common. The main thing is the actual competition aspect- one based on beauty, the other based on weight loss which in our society equals beauty. When we create competition out of genetics, there are no winners. There is a distinct difference between competitions based on talent or skill,  take sports: basketball, golf, tennis etc. or  art: Vocal and instrumental, dance, fine art, writing, drama, where the latter are more subjective and less clear cut then a score board declaring the victor, there is a criteria that is based on training and skill. Where genetics do come into play in sports and art competitions, the playing field can always be leveled by hard work, determination, and a work ethic that lead to mastery and superiority. Some might challenge that plastic surgery or extreme dieting are par for the course in a dedicated  beauty contestant’s “training”, no different from a ballet dancer losing weight, or Michael Phelps eating a high calorie diet required to fuel his body for his vigorous workouts. The difference might be found in what the subject of the competition creates or contributes to society. Team sports and the training creates an ability for participants to learn how to work as a team and yet perform as an individual, it teaches players to support one another while striving for a common goal. It also fosters mental and physical strength fortitude, determination, and perseverance. Most importantly not only only how to win (graciously) and how to lose (graciously). Sports and Arts both build self esteem and self confidence by making participants feel capable, when they progress, and advance. With each marker pass they see their growth, strength and their development. These are character building qualities that run more than skin deep and last a lifetime. When a person exhibits a skill, or talent their looks fall to the wayside and their true value of their person is acknowledged.

I  am sure that participants of beauty pageants would submit that their industry does the same thing, however when the starting criteria based on beauty, that superficiality creates exclusion and a sense of physical inferiority, after all they are not called intelligence pageants. That is not to say that the contestants are not smart. When the desire to win moves in to the realm of physical augmentation or extreme dieting it works against the empowerment of women. When young women are being told that they are not enough, when they are made to feel inadequate in their gender this is becomes detrimental to the women that it is supposed to glorify and promote.

In regard to the Biggest Loser and show of that nature I find it a gross contradiction that while promoting health and fitness, they create almost a hostile environment for contestants (that obviously have some deep seated issues) to lose weight in. The training moves easily from encouraging to debasing and shaming.

Jezebel.com writer Golda Poretsky, wrote on the subject and I thought that what she pointed out was  right on target:

Freaked Out By Rachel Fredrickson’s Biggest Loser Win? Read This.

Freaked Out By Rachel Fredrickson’s Biggest Loser Win? Read This.

Here is what The Biggest Loser is NOT about:

  • Health.

Here is what The Biggest Loser IS about:

  • Shaming fat people.
  • Promoting diet products.
  • Promoting other merchandise tie-ins.
  • Manipulating viewers into thinking that their show is “saving lives.”
  • Ruining the physical and mental health of contestants season after season.

 

I would say that were beauty is a commodity it is not a skill. Beauty is a Noun not a Verb, is is not something you DO…

She is calling for the show to be canceled. Read her article here and you be the judge.

Personally I think that we really need to take a look at where we are going with this. Obviously the world of pageants has changed with the prevalence of plastic surgery, and injectables. It completely changed the game, raising the stakes and making the physical requirements more extreme. Some one has to say enough, someone has to set a boundary. Young women should not have to self mutilate, even under the guise of upgrading, to gain an opportunity in life….

What are your thoughts?

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Did the Biggest Loser lose TOO Much?

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“The Biggest Loser” contestant Rachel Frederickson, who weighed 260 pounds when the show began, shed 60 percent of her body weight during the show and ended at 105 pounds. Since she’s only 5’4”, that puts her body mass index at 18 — below what the National Institute of Health considers a healthy minimum. The first image is when she began the show, the second was the weight she was before she left the show to continue to train and shed weigh on her own at home. But did she take things too far?

 

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This is the reaction of coaches Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper. They looked like they were masking horror. Check out the contestant in the Red shirt behind them she is just out and out horrified…

 

Now here is what the trainers said…after the backlash:

Dolvett Quince Rachel’s trainer and show cast member took to his Facebook page”

“Last night’s ‘Biggest Loser’ Finale has sparked a huge reaction and I do not want the day to end without addressing it,” her trainer and show star Dolvett Quince wrote late on Wednesday. “‘Biggest Loser’ is a journey which has its ups and downs. Please try not to look at one slice of Rachel’s journey and come to broad conclusions. Rachel’s health is and always has been my main concern and her journey to good health has not yet ended!!”

Fellow “Biggest Loser” trainer Jillian Michaels said on her own Facebook page that she and co-star Bob Harper did not feel “comfortable commenting on Rachel’s journey” because they did not work with her directly on the series.

Frederickson was given a 1,600-calorie-a-day eating plan on “The Biggest Loser” and said she continued to follow it after taping the series.

“I am extremely proud of the way I lost the weight,” she said. “I did everything so naturally and the athlete in me came back. To just work extremely hard and eat healthy, I’m definitely going to continue on this path with the support of everyone at The Biggest Loser and make them proud while I’m in this maintenance mode of life now and finding balance with exercise and putting in work and eating. So absolutely I’m going to continue being healthy.”

The T’ruth of the Matter:

Personally I think she might have gone too far. It’s that thing that happens when you start to see improvement, and you are not yet used to your new self, you just want more, and more, and it can (if not checked) move into addiction , and in this case a disorder be it eating or exercise addiction. I think that she does look a bit too thin, and she technically is underweight, however we don’t know HOW she got there. We know what she says she did, in terms of following the prescribed diet and fitness plan  but did she add to those workouts  or eat just a bit less? Who knows. It could have been that she wanted to win the $250,000 and went to far. I have a feeling that when we check back with her in 3 months she will have leveled out. I think the larger issue is the idea of making weight loss a competition, it could inspire people to so things that are unhealthy and have long term adverse effects in order to win. Health is not competitive!

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Response to Jen Carson’s xojane Yoga article: It Happened To Me…

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You might have read about this: Skinny white girl Jan Carson writer with XOjane.com penned a heartfelt revelatory experience she has in yoga class when a heavy set black woman came into her class and made her feel uncomfortable in her skinny white body… here is a taste to what she wrote

xojane.com

It Happened To Me: There Are No Black People In My Yoga Classes And I’m Suddenly Feeling Uncomfortable With It

I was completely unable to focus on my practice, instead feeling hyper-aware of my skinny white girl body.

Jen Caron

January is always a funny month in yoga studios: they are inevitably flooded with last year’s repentant exercise sinners who have sworn to turn over a new leaf, a new year, and a new workout regime. A lot of January patrons are atypical to the studio’s regular crowd and, for the most part, stop attending classes before February rolls around.
A few weeks ago, as I settled into an exceptionally crowded midday class, a young, fairly heavy black woman put her mat down directly behind mine. It appeared she had never set foot in a yoga studio—she was glancing around anxiously, adjusting her clothes, looking wide-eyed and nervous. Within the first few minutes of gentle warm-up stretches, I saw the fear in her eyes snowball, turning into panic and then despair. Before we made it into our first downward dog, she had crouched down on her elbows and knees, head lowered close to the ground, trapped and vulnerable. She stayed there, staring, for the rest of the class.
Because I was directly in front of her, I had no choice but to look straight at her every time my head was upside down (roughly once a minute). I’ve seen people freeze or give up in yoga classes many times, and it’s a sad thing, but as a student there’s nothing you can do about it. At that moment, though, I found it impossible to stop thinking about this woman. Even when I wasn’t positioned to stare directly at her, I knew she was still staring directly at me. Over the course of the next hour, I watched as her despair turned into resentment and then contempt. I felt it all directed toward me and my body.
I was completely unable to focus on my practice, instead feeling hyper-aware of my high-waisted bike shorts, my tastefully tacky sports bra, my well-versedness in these poses that I have been in hundreds of times. My skinny white girl body. Surely this woman was noticing all of these things and judging me for them, stereotyping me, resenting me—or so I imagined.
T’ruth’s response:
Okay there is so much that is offensive about this disillusioned white woman, perhaps her blood sugar is low from not eating. Is that how she stays so thin? What I find interesting is how she made this racial, even more than physical. Why did she feel this hostility from this heavy set black woman whose body was “not built” for yoga, when I am sure that there have been several heavy set white woman who have had equal difficulty with the practice. Did they too have contempt in their eyes as well? or had she noticed. Note yoga is for the human body, it is not contingent on size or shape, you work with what you have and where you are. It is not about aesthetics it is about spiritual and physical health and well being. Now Western folks have made about how you look in your LuLu Lemons but that’s not what it is about.
Carson’s  preoccupation with this woman is bizarre, but I find that it reveals more about the author, and her perception of what that woman was thinking,  then what might have really been going on. Carson’s ego (which oddly has no place in the yoga practice) had her spiraling and she did what I like call The Help, where she places her self in the mind space of a person she has no clue about, and projects the feelings she thinks they must be having based on her own perception (much like the book The Help when the white author endeavors to enter the psyche of Black maids…) And she is probably way off base.
I was an avid Bikram yoga practitioner for 5 years. It’s the hot yoga where everyone is half naked most of the time. I practiced in Harlem and the studio was highly diverse not just racially but in body type and age as well. Now yoga is hard, especially for people who have not been in their bodies, are not used to moving and stretching, or who are out of shape (heavy, inert, or not flexible). It can be a misery, and when you put that practice in a room that is over 100 degrees, it’s literally hell. I am fit and strong, and flexible, and have stood in front of many a new comer, fat and thin white, black, latina, Asian and other, and yes I seen the panic in their eyes when they are asking themselves “What the fuck was I thinking?” I have seen them at time look at me but I never felt contempt, from them or jealousy, maybe awe, like “How the hell is she so calm I want to die!!!”. I usually try to do the best, most disciplined practice as an example of what is possible if you just hang in there. I try to do a generous practice, if we catch eyes a slight smile with the energy of “Come, you can do this” as encouragement. Often after class they might come up and ask me or other practitioners how long we have practiced and every one always tells them that it kind of sucks in the beginning but if you hang in there it get better.
Jen Cason is so self absorbed that she really thought that woman was worried about her “skinny” ass. She was probably trying to manage her sore hamstring.
What I find really interesting is that Carson ASSUMES this heavy black woman wants to look like her..she assumes that she is the ideal for this woman, that she came to that class hoping that it would transform her into a skinny white woman… She takes societies concept of beauty (white, thin, blonde) the thing that she herself is in hot pursuit of and assigns it to this innocent woman. I feel like Jen was having a fat day and she needed to feel better about her self, and she saw that black woman and said to herself “Well I may not be Giselle but at least I’m not fat and black” and then hung a “Poor here” sign around the black woman’s neck. AND because she want’s to feel like she’s evolved she pens this essay about how yoga needs to be more inclusive.. I say come to Harlem, on second thought DON’T
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It’s not about what YOU think but what I FEEL

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Theresa_1191

The way we feel in and about our bodies is incredibly subjective, as is our body image. Oft times we don’t get why or how others can feel the way they feel about themselves. Not only that, but we often in those moments we a have need to express our personal feelings about their bodies-that are opposing theirs. For me, (depending on who it’s coming from) it can feel like a negation. Sometimes when you are commenting on yourself, others will project that opinion onto themselves in the form of their perceived idea of judgement you have of them. “If you think you’re fat, then what do you think of ME!?”  and it kinda doesn’t work that way. I talked about it in Not Fat Not Thin: The Murky Middle Ground of the Body Image Issue.

Nell Carter a reader commented:

his is an excellent article. As I was reading it, I questioned whether I had responded to anyone describing issues with their body by saying, ‘you look great’ –essentially saying you have nothing to complain about. When people who are either middle ground or thin complain about their body image, it feels incredibly awkward for the onlooker (regardless of the onlookers body type). There is this human urge you get to rescue so to speak. You don’t want this other person (friend or stranger) to feel flawed. Without thinking, you jump to the rescue saying what seems good and correct. Now to think you are stifling those emotions doesn’t cross your mind. How many times do we ‘rescue’ others? What is the best thing to say and do when someone is describing dislike towards their body? Obviously listening is best, but if you don’t respond beyond listening, it could be portrayed as you think the person is flawed.

 

 

This perspective is a much more compassionate place, and quite real as well… I like it and because I have not felt that way in those moments, should it come up I will try to shift to that concept!!!

Thanks NELL!

check out the video

 

 

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Scandal Creater speaks out when receiving the Director’s Guild of America Diversity Award

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Ok anyone who is friends with me on Facebook knows where to find me on Thursday nights at 10pm. I have a standing date with Olivia Pope, a glass (bottle) of wine and my timeline!! Well this past weekend Shonda Rimes the creator and writer for Scandal (Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice) created a “scandilito” while accepting the Director’s Guild of America Diversity Award with the show’s executive producer Betsy Beers. Here is what she said:

“When I heard I was getting a Diversity Award, I was really, truly, profoundly honored. I began to get calls from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, etc., and I was asked to comment on the award. Asked how good I felt about the award. Asked if it made me feel like I was doing the right thing. Asked if it had been a struggle making diversity happen on my cast and crews. While I’m still really and truly profoundly honored to receive this award, but I was also a little pissed off. So was Betsy. So over many, many, many bottles of wine we discussed this.

We’re a little pissed off because there still needs to be an award. Like, there’s such a lack of people hiring women and minorities that when someone does it on a regular basis, they are given an award.

It’s not because of a lack of talent. It’s because of a lack of access. People hire who they know. If it’s been a white boys club for 70 years, that’s a lot of white boys hiring one another. And I don’t believe that that happens out of any specific racism or sexism or prejudice. People hire their friends. They hire who they know. It’s comfortable. You want to be successful, you don’t want to take any chances, you don’t want to rock the boat by hiring people of color because, well, look at us. Both Betsy and I like the world that we work in to look like the world that we live in. Different voices make for different visions. Different visions make for something original. Original is what the public is starving for.”

WORD!!!

She closed her speech with:

“Betsy and I are truly honored and humbled that the DGA would thank our efforts. And yes, we’re a tiny bit pissed off that there needs to be an award. We’re also proud that the DGA recognizes a problem and are trying to fix it. The DGA, by the way, is the only Guild giving out this type of award in an attempt to draw attention to the problem, which I think is kind of badass.”

Then Dropped The Mike!!!

Okay I’m  not so sure about that part!!!

Habitat for YOUR Humanity, In Your Words, Uncategorized

Not Fat Not Thin: The Murky Middle Ground of the Body Image Issue

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I have been writing this blog for a while now and I still find it interesting that when discussing body image the focus tends to swing from one polarity to the other, obesity to being too thin. When I looked it over I found that most of the articles and stories I post deal with being over weight, weight loss, or the images of women in advertising being too thin and not setting a realistic or healthy body image for females both young and old. It started to bother me, why is it always about the extremes? Why is the middle ground so murky especially when the majority of us fall into that category?

When you are neither fat nor thin, but somewhere comfortable in the middle as far as societies standards are concerned you reside in what I call Body Middle-Earth. However being neither/nor does not exempt you from the same feelings of inadequacies that women on the extreme sides of the subject have. I live in this Body Middle-Earth. To people looking at me I am certain that they might never suspect that I don’t like my body, or at the very least have issues with parts of it. It takes me back to when I first started the blog I did a pre-screening of sorts to friends and co-workers. Upon viewing the “About Me” video in the introduction one person commented, “I found myself re-watching the video to see to see those gorgeous pictures of you, which I don’t think is your point” Where I was flattered that they found them “beautiful”, The pictures were of me dancing the voice over spoke of my feelings of displeasure with my body and the contradiction housed within it. My legs went up, I could jump, and I had power. My body has always complied with my demands but I just never liked what it looked like doing it.” I thought the juxtaposition was the point- Often people think that we look good, but we hate the way we look!

I understood the note, but I chose to leave the video the way it was mainly because the t’ruth of the matter is that you don’t have to appear broken to feel broken, damaged, or inadequate…the evidence is not always visible to the naked eye.  Somehow we can understand a person having body issues if they are a “misfit” (to heavy, short, dark, light, lips too big, breast to small etc.) because they clearly stand outside of the social aesthetic,but if a person is okay (looking) if they are average-or above then it gets harder to imagine that they too might harbor insecurities. Very few of us look like the models in magazines. We are all inundated with those images, it is conceivable that we all (regardless of what we look like) are affected by them, the inhabitants of Body Middle Earth as well, we too should be able to enter into the conversation, it’s not about competition but recognition.
Why is there no space, no acknowledgement and little compassion for those who don’t necessarily look the way they feel? Can’t pretty people feel ugly, can’t thin people feel fat, and can’t successful people feel like failures?  Well of course they can, and they do but people just get annoyed when they talk about it publicly, and if they do they are seldom met with empathy, but they are treated like they are fishing for a complement or worse, as if they are trying to make other people feel bad about themselves (We all know those types of people) when all they really wanted was to share be heard, and supported.
A while ago I had an exchange yoga studio dressing room a month or so after I started the blog that illustrated my point:

It was after class, and we were all waiting to shower so it was a cornucopia of naked bodies of all shapes and sizes in the room. I was having a discussion with my friend Myrna about how I needed to reign myself I because I was starting to plump up again. It was a personal/private conversation we were having in public (we have all done it) A women interjected saying “your crazy, you have a beautiful body, if you think you’re fat what am I?” I was incensed! First of all no one was talking to her, and second of all NO ONE WAS TALKING TO HER! Now, where I wanted to say that to her, I chose to use it as a teaching moment, “Look,” I said trying to temper my tone,

“The way I feel about my body has nothing to do with the way I feel about yours. The way you feel about your body is a personal thing.”

Where I completely understood where she was coming from, (I have felt the same way myself when friends who are thinner than myself say that they are fat) but I was irritated by the fact that somehow I with my “beautiful” body was not allowed to feel a certain way, and I was definitely not allowed to verbally say it in mixed body company. Living in Body Middle-Earth can be quite isolating. We all have our own internal barometer for the way we feel, and the way we like to feel in our bodies, and that is not for anyone else to judge. It is not to be negated it is not a comparative conversation; it’s a personal one.

There was a similar situation that transpired between the Editor in Chief of Dance Magazine Wendy Perron and myself. She had assigned me my second article on body image. My concept was to talk to dancers about how they felt about their bodies and what were some of their issues. My idea was to interview Wendy Whelan of New York City Ballet because her body is a constant topic of conversation in the dance world as she is extremely skinny. I wanted to know how she felt about her body. I also wanted to talk to American Ballet Theater soloist Misty Copeland (the now it girl) who is not only a ballerina of color but she is curvy as well, I knew there was a story there.  Sadly Perron informed me that Whelan had been featured too often in the magazine and she doubted that ABT would let me talk to Copeland especially about her body. Body talk in the dance world is like Wikileaks!

So I came up with an alternative in Maurya Kerr, of LINES Ballet.  Maury is a gazelle-like beauty and had been a Poster Girl for much of her career but I knew that she was recovering from hip surgery and I thought that process might make a great angle. When I ran this by Perron her response was “Was she ever fat?” I was bit perplexed and informed her that perhaps we were talking about two distinctly different articles. Once again the idea of “body issues” and the visible “flaw” was the expectation, the people in the middle were once again going to go unaddressed. I was not interested in doing the typical article about misfits, the people who clearly don’t fit into the standard: the flat of foot, tight of hamstring, or turned in. I wanted to highlight the fact that regardless of what you look like (whether it is the preferred aesthetic or not) you can still have issues with your body. This is not a criticism of Wendy Perron it’s just the way that we tend to think about the issue. When we discussed our divergent concepts she thought the angle was important enough to go with.  Ironically when I interviewed Kerr for the piece she spoke quite candidly about her battle with eating disorders. Although she was very thin, she had breasts and in the ballet world of flat chested dancers her breasts made her feel “big”, subsequently she stopped eating in an effort to look like the other girls. The article, Learn to Love your Body (not my title) was published in the October 2009 issue. http://www.dancemagazine.com/issues/October-2009/Learn-To-Love-Your-Body.

When discussing the topic with my friend and former student Erika Hand (she too is tall and of average size) she shared that often she felt “dismissed” when talking about her body issues with women, hence feels that isolation, and invalidated. Often the dismissal will come in the form of people saying “You’re crazy” or “There is nothing wrong with you” that may well be true but it doesn’t make you feel acknowledged or heard.  What it does is make you feel sorry for sharing such intimate, and sensitive feelings. Just because people think that you “shouldn’t” feel a certain way doesn’t mean that you don’t, and it doesn’t mean that your feelings are less valid. In short, often it’s hurtful.

The middle body ground is murky and filled with such subtlety that it is hard to define, defend or discuss. If you live in this grey zone you may find yourself on the outside of both sides of the issue. It’s like the Occupy Wall Street movement, in reality it’s not purely the 1% versus the 99%, there is probably 20% of the people who are middle class, they may not be “down and out” but the disproportionate distribution of wealth affects them as well.  Now imagine if that 20% were not allowed to add their voices to the protest just as passionately as those who are more greatly effected, would they change it to 1% vs. the 69%? I don’t think so. The Body issue discussion in my opinion is no different. I always say,

“If you have a body, the chances are, you have some issues”

they may not be to the degree of some other people but they are yours, they are real and they deserve to be acknowledged and addressed equally.
Theresa Ruth Howard