My favourite podcasts about ballet and contemplation

Now for a more practical blog: what podcasts would I recommend? I have started to listen to quite a few podcasts that inspire me a lot! Many of them are about ballet, kind of obviously ;-) But I think also the ballet ones teach me quite a bit about life in general. Let me walk through my current facvourites, sorted by topic:

Picture  by Michel Le Photography 
at Morlaix Ballet camp

Contemplation

- Mind & Life podcast (I was super-honoured to be featured on this one myself!) in which people are interviewed that work on the intersection of research and contemplative practice. I find these always such fascinating conversations!

- Open Question by Elisabeth Mattis-Namgyel, an amazing Buddhist teacher who presents a no-nonsense approach to asking deep questions in life

- The kind heartfulness podcast by Gomde Austria, an interesting series of conversations with Buddhist teachers and practitioners.

Ballet

- A dancer's mindset by Isabella McGuire, who talks about the mindset that is required to be successful at anything, but especially from the perspective of ballet. Lots of good advice, although I don't always agree with everything. I think she forgets that not everything can be controlled

- Athletistry by Shane Wuerthner, another ballet mindset podcast, which is also useful to anyone engaged in a difficult pursuit, such as academia

- Ballet Rising by Casey Herd: fascinating stories about people trying to bring ballet to the communities that not always get access to it, e.g., ballet in India and Africa

- Hard Corps podcast by Romee Adair, who talks with guests about the general dance industry and especially challenges within it. It's fascinating to learn more about how the dance industry works.

- The adult ballet studio by Elisabeth Blosfield, a series of conversations with people trying to make a space for amateur adult ballet dancers. So inspiring!

- The balanced ballerinas podcast by Georgia Dostal, a series of interviews with so many amazing people in the dance world. Again, so many interesting things to learn!

- Artists Becoming, another series of conversations with dance professionals, but this one is specifically focused on bringing out the artists, and challenges to that

- Moving Moments by Alicia Graf Mack: more conversations with dance arists. I just love hearing the person behind the dance artist!

- The turning: Room of Mirrors: a really interesting deep dive into the ballet choreographer Georges Balanchine. Very interesting although this one is a bit on the sensationalist side

- Broche banter by Julie Gill/Leung: all things adult ballet, including interviews with adult amateur ballet dancers. Lots of insightful stuff about how adults learn ballet

Academia

- Degrees of freedom by  Tassos Sarampalis and Marcello Seri: lots of philosophy and practical tips about teaching in academia.

I hope some of these are inspiring to you, and maybe you find some new ones to listen to!

Happy new year: let's make it the year of interconnection

 In the last few days I have been reflecting on the past year. I don't really like to list my achievements of the past year because I think it encourages an unhealthy comparison mindset. In today's society it's so hard to not forget that the most important is not what you do, but how you are. In the past few days, I co-led an online winter retreat, and in my part I taught analytical meditation. During these sessions we explored the idea of interdependence. I think today's world is more interdependent than ever (a beautiful quote by His Holiness the Dalai Lama about that: "In today’s highly interdependent world, individuals and nations can no longer resolve many of the problems by themselves. We need one another. We must therefore develop a sense of universal responsibility to protect and nurture the global family, to support its weaker members, and to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live." (from the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Chapter 3).

interestingly, many people say they feel disconnected, while objectively speaking we are more connected than ever through the media, and through the evermore complex production chains of goods and services. So why do people feel disconnected? I think it is because we don't spend enough time being and reflecting on our situation. Another answer, offered by Dutch comedian Micha Wertheim last night was that we all consume (social) media that are so hyperpersonalized that we don't have too many common experiences anymore. And we are no longer so used to seeing things that we don't like.

Picture from Morlaix ballet camp by Michel Le Photography

Whatever may be the cause, my hope for the next year is that I will get to experience the deep interconnection of ourselves and others more in the coming year. Because I found that when I manage to experience the interconnection of myself with others, nothing can be an enemy anymore, and this reduces my stress so much. When things are overwhelming, it helps me a lot to focus on how they are all part of a web of contingent relationships that allows everything to appear and disappear. Moreover, when i experience the deep interconnection of myself and others, the competitiveness no longer exists either. The challenge is just not forgetting this...

Like with everything, not forgetting means to again and again try to remember, while the rest of life is trying to distract you. First you will forget most of the time, but the more often you remember, the more easily it comes. The trick is also to find "hooks", small reminders. I found a wonderful one recently in ballet class with Broche ballet, where Julie, the teacher said: imagine that you are massaging the floor as you are doing tendus. Thinking in this way frames ballet not as an activity that I do by myself, but rather as a cooperation with the floor, and of course the rest of the world outside it as well.

Every moment of remembering is a moment of mindfulness, and every moment of remembering also makes that moment sacred. Thich Nhat Hanh talks about the notion of interbeing, where we see that the cow that brings the milk that produces the yoghurt that we eat produces the lesson we teach, and therefore the cow is in the lesson. In this way, everything is a seed for everything else. Every breath we take, we breathe in the oxygen produced by the plants, which connect us to the cosmos and to all other beings. If only I would not forget that, and if only more of us would realize that..

Cross-training for an adult ballet dancer, aka, how did I get such big arm muscles?

I discovered I can do ballet on
my balcony here at IIT
Roorkee in India

 Today I am writing a bit of a different blog: one in which I discuss my cross-training regime as an adult amateur ballet dancer. This blog is inspired by some funny experiences I have had. For example, last Summer, when I went to the bloodbank to donate blood, the lady behind the desk asked me whether I go to the gym a lot because I have such pronounced arm muscles. I told her that I mainly do ballet, and actually never set foot in a gym (other than to do ballet when I am travelling). She probably was not quite expecting that answer, and the next time I showed up to the blood bank she remembered that I was the ballet person. But all jokes aside, I do know I have quite pronounced arm muscles, quite unintentionally actually. How did this come about?

I think the story started many years ago when I still took class with Kip Martin in Philadelphia and I took a conditioning class for dancers. I noticed I sucked at pushups, so I figured I had to get better at those I just had to practise them. So I started to do about 18 pushups every morning (don't know where I got the number from, but somehow this is the magical number). It's great for several reasons: first of all, it's good to do something you don't really like first thing in the morning--then it can only get better from there and it trains your willpower (although the science on willpower is shaky, so I don't want to make claims that are too confident). Secondly, it's a great way to quickly warm up your body, especially on a cold day. And of course, slowly you will get better at it, and develop some muscles. It's amazing how far a little every day can go. 

In addition to this, I also work on muscle strength with a weekly ZhemFit class. ZhemFit is a type of fitness developed by Alexander Zhembrovskyy, former principal dancer with Dutch National Ballet (among others). It's a very challenging class, especially because you repeat the exercises many times. This has the advantage that you not only work the muscles, but also have the time to figure out the mechanics of movements. I found it to be very helpful to learn to better control my legs. Note that these classes are not just for dancers--in fact when I take an in-person class it consists of mostly non-dancers. But I am very happy they now have a website where you can take video classes.

Apart from ZhemFit, I also regularly like to practice Kniaseff floorbarre. My teacher India Rose likes to say it's a bit like programming your body into the right patterns so they are there when you stand up and actually practise at the barre. Also in India's class I very much enjoy the fact that she repeats the exercises a lot so that you not only get warm, but also have the time to figure out the coordination, which she facilitates by giving lots of detailed instructions. India teaches Zoom classes, and she also has a few on-demand classes with Broche Ballet.

Finally, I like to do prepointe classes with Broche Ballet, even though I have been on pointe for many years. Prepointe teaches a lot about how to use your toes, how to strengthen your toes and ankles, and how to coordinate all of that, Sometimes I feel like it's such a long way from my brain to my toes, and it's fascinating how hard it is to figure out these coordinations. But of course, everything gets easier with practice. So there you have it: my cross-training regime!

Some tricks for managing strong emotions

 I think the next Lojong slogan, number 58, is the reason that the stereotype of a Buddhist is a very peaceful person. This slogan namely says "don't be temperamental." An important Buddhist value is being relatively equanimous, which means you don't easily get angry or display other strong emotions. Just like the previous slogan, I think it is important to avoid suppressing emotions, because in the long run, that is not going to fly. Nevertheless, it is beneficial to try to avoid getting too much caught up in the emotions.

The dancers of Morlaix Ballet Camp putting on 
a chuckle at the end of the first act of Napoli
Picture by Michel Le

In my previous blog I mentioned how Khandro Rinpoche talked about keeping it short when emotional reactions come up. For me there are two strategies I use to shorten when emotions come up. First of all, I literally dance with it, if I am in a place where that's possible. Secondly, I will use the Buddhist teachings on emptiness: examining the nature of circumstances you see how these emotions are just ever-changing manifestations in a continuous dance of things rising and ceasing. Whatever evokes the emotion is usually conveniently put in our mind as the only cause of our anger, but if you think about it, they are also at the mercy of all these circumstances, so it is actually quite unfair to point at them for being the only cause for these emotions. Probably somewhere in there we too are to blame as well. Somehow changing perspective this way really helps me create some mental space, and frequently a chuckle as well.

It is worthwhile to think about how to manage your strong emotions, because they can create a lot of trouble. For example, for me, when people get angry I get quite stressed, and cannot think so well anymore. There is interestingly also some research on this, showing for example how more angry managers in companies were associated with reduced ability to learn from failure. This is quite consistent with my experience, where an environment where a teacher explicitly says it is OK to fail helps a lot (thanks Julie Gill for mentioning it is OK, and even good to wobble and fall over in balancing class because this is how our body learns). In short, managing strong emotions takes quite some effort, but in the end it makes our life a lot easier.

From the dancer's face to the sticky mind

One of the interesting terms I learnt this Fall was "dancer's face" from a video by Allie Christensen. She referred to the idea that dancers have learnt to not show on their face how difficult the dancing really is. I very much recognize that. One funny sight at the ZhemFit classes (fitness classes with a bit of a ballet background) that I like to take is that you can easily tell the ballet dancers from the non-dancers in that they do not wince, no matter how hard the exercise, unlike basically all the other participants in the class. 

A clear case of dancer's face at Morlaix Ballet Camp
Picture by Michel Le

This makes me think of Lojong slogan 57, which is "do not be reactive" or "do not be irritable" or "do not be jealous". In all its incarnations, the slogan reminds us to not react too strongly to what happens. Of course it is also important to not suppress emotions. So the amazing Buddhist teacher Khandro Rinpoche uses a phrase that I really like "keep it short." You can feel whatever you feel, but don't waste too much energy in it. Try to drop the emotion whenever you can. This is of course easier said than done. 

In my lab, we are very interested in studying this kind of mental reactivity, which I like to call "stickiness"--not letting go of thoughts of often emotional reactions. In fact, the most reliable way to induce such sticky thinking is to evoke people's hopes and fears, for example in a social stress test, which we have used here. We find that after a social stress intervention people have more trouble concentrating on a task than after a therapy intervention, and that they also tend to be more stuck thinking about the past. In another study we have been developing machine learning tools to help classify when a person is stuck in their thoughts. Interestingly, we found that on a person-level, classifying whether people are prone to this kind of sticky thinking can be done more productively on the basis of just 5 minutes of so-called resting state EEG (where people are just sitting there without a task) than on the basis of a specific task we have to measure mind-wandering. Hopefully this research will help us understand how our mind becomes reactive and sticky, so that we can find ways to reduce this tendency.

Don't forget to play!

 One of the most delightful things from my travels in the past year was hanging out in-person again with my Tibetan monk colleagues at Sera Jey monastery, and also at a Mind & Life meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The most important reason why I enjoy so much hanging out with them is that they have so much humor. In our interactions, you can see how they never take themselves too seriously, so they very quickly shift between intense concentration and laughter. We also see this when we study their monastic debate practice, where one moment you see them shouting angrily at each other, and the next moment their are joking. I think not taking yourself too seriously is a very helpful life skill, not only to make your life more pleasant, but also to allow for more mental flexibility. And this is the topic of the 56th slogan of Lojong: "Don’t take what you do too seriously."

Some playful movement at the conclusion
of the ballet Napoli at Morlaix Ballet Camp
Picture by Michel Le

In fact, I think not taking yourself too seriously is also closely related to play, and as researchers are starting to investigate play more, they are finding that play is a very efficient way to learn. For this reason, I started to follow Julie Gill's advice in the Broche ballet classroom to play whenever necessary. It is very nice that some classes in the schedule are now even dedicated to play--for example playing with balancing in the centre, where it is OK to fall, because that's how our body learns, and playing with standing on pointe in the centre, shifting weight in different ways to get more comfortable with those sensations.

Meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama

This makes me think: would there be a way I can get my students to play more in my own classes? I feel it's increasingly hard, because students feel under so much pressure that they feel little space to play. Similarly, play can also be helpful on the spiritual path. Actually some visualisation practices in the Tibetan tradition could be viewed as a kind of play (I hope I am not insulting anyone here...), where you feel what it is like to embody a particular deity to try on those mental patterns. And for me one of the most helpful meditation advices is "be like an old man watching children play". Another good reminder!

Can you turn criticism into a prompt for exploration?

As a scientist, I like Lojong slogan 55 quite a bit, since it says "Gain freedom through discernment and analysis." Trying to analyze and discern is what I do on a daily basis. Having said that, of course most of my analysis is on the external level of phenomena outside myself, like a pattern of data, rather than my own thoughts and emotions, as this slogan is talking about. In a way, you could say the slogan encourages us to engage in analytical meditation. For example, rather than simply going with a feeling of stress, we can also investigate why we feel stressed, and try to look at it from many different angles and perspectives. What do we feel is making our life stressful? What would be the perspective of those people around us; our co-workers, our boss, our family and friends? Actually one of the things I often find when I switch perspectives is that the things that seem very dramatic to me are probably not even noticed by someone else, and besides, they're probably way too involved with their own drama! 

Lots of emotions in this image from Morlaix
Ballet camp by Michel Le

In general going in analysis mode is very helpful to go out of wallowing in self-pity, especially when you get negative feedback. A common occurrence for this is when, as happened to one of my PhD students today, you get reviews from a journal where you've submitted an article. Sometimes these can be quite negative and your first reaction is want to curse the reviewers and feel very sorry for yourself that they are so stupid they don't understand your brilliant work. Of course that is not going to make anything better, so another approach would be to explore whether you can see it in any other way. For the reviews that's actually quite easy because after being an academic for so many years my standard response is: congratulations, you have not been rejected, that is amazing! But for other rejections, such as grants, it can be a lot more difficult. Instead of focusing on the emotions themselves and all your justified reasons for feeling this way, you can also try to explore with curiosity what is really going on: how are you feeling? And what can you actually do about the rejection? Even if the reviewer does not understand your paper, other future readers may similarly misunderstand, so it's good to think about how to rewrite the paper to deal with that. Such an action-oriented attitude tends to feel much more powerful and is also more productive, although obviously it's important not to neglect your feelings. 

I also try to experiment with this approach in ballet class where every correction is a chance to explore how to tell my body how to get the movements right. It very much helps when my teacher Julie Gill from Broche Ballet phrases corrections in terms of questions: can you make your leg longer? Can you turn out more? In this way it does not feel like you are an impossible ballet student (it's easy to feel that way as an adult dancer with a body that is not always cooperating) but rather as a starting point for exploration and mindfulness of my body's sensations and possibilities. In short, this slogan is a great reminder to focus on learning and exploration rather than drama.

How to be lazy while being busy

One of the most challenging things for me is the concept of "active laziness". This is the idea that you do many things to avoid doing the main thing, which usually is also the most challenging thing. I think Lojong slogan 51 is also exactly about that. It says "this time, practice the main points." In the Buddhist realm, practising the main point would refer to making sure you don't forget to practise, and when you practise, to ensure the practice is about reducing your self-importance rather than for example showing off what a good Buddhist you are.

Picture of being busy with lots of mostly 
meaningless stuff in the ballet Napoli
at Morlaix Ballet Camp. Picture by Michel Le

But of course this idea also applies to academia, where it is extremely easy to spend all your time doing things that are helpful, such as reviewing papers or reading other people's papers or improving your lectures, but do not move your career ahead and do not move your research forward. I think it is really challenging to decide what the most important contribution is that I can make in a given day to science. Because even if reviewing a paper on the short term helps science, getting my own ideas into the world also helps science.

Also in ballet it is important to think about those things, because it is really easy to just follow ballet classes and hope you will improve. Because as Julie Gill says in this episode of her podcast, it is important to analyze what are the most important things for us to work on, and then target those more specifically. Sadly those things, which include posture and foot strength, are much less exciting than twirling around a big bright studio or a stage in a tutu.

Finally, I don't think main points are always the same. The trick for improving in any area of your life is to regularly ask yourself what your main gaps are and what small goals you can set to move closer to these goals. For example, in the Buddhist context rather than abstractly going for "enlightenment" and doing an indiscriminate amount of practices, you can instead analyze your main problems, e.g., being too busy, and then focus on regular short meditation practices to calm your mind, and commit to ending interactions with other people by wishing them well. And once you have made progress in those, you can move on to another goal that addresses the main point. 

An amazing ballet adventure with some unexpected connections to Buddhist philosophy

 I am writing this on the way back from ballet camp: nine days of dancing with amateur adult ballet dancers from across the globe. It was such an amazing experience that I want to try to capture some of it by writing it down in a blog. The adventure started with a quite disastrous train journey from the French Alps (see my previous blog) to Morlaix, in Bretagne (France), since my train from Geneva to Paris had more than one hour delay, which caused me to miss my connection in Paris, and hence I was two hours delayed and missed the welcome party of the ballet camp. Thankfully the people in Morlaix are very nice, and my bed & breakfast host was willing to welcome me more than an hour after the check-in time ended, and the ballet camp people came to pick me up by car from the train station. It was such a warm bath after such an exhausting journey. Nevertheless, it was already very exciting to meet people from across the globe who all had been making their way to ballet camp. 

a view of beautiful Morlaix

The next day, after enjoying the delicious breakfast made by my B&B host Nicholas (which included crepes and all kinds of cakes), we were called to go to different studios in the city of Morlaix, where we did our first class, and then different people started to learn their first pieces of the ballet. This part was a bit disorienting as some people seemed to already know variations, and it was a lot of sitting around. Nevertheless, this was also a great moment to chat with the fellow dancers and get to know them. And before I knew it, I had learnt my first pieces, so in the time that others were learning I could work on practising my own variations or chat with the others. It was so interesting to hear everyone's stories! It was also beautiful to see how everyone was helping one another. In this ballet camp, we were also accompanied by two professional dancers who were dancing the lead roles, and they were so incredibly nice and welcoming. They were curious to talk to us, were clearly helping with rehearsing and dancing alongside us, as well as spending time with us. It was so heart-warming to feel this spirit of everyone being welcome, no matter their level of ballet experience.

The place where we were practising was a fascinating place: an old tobacco factory that had been turned into an arts space with lots of performances and other happenings (and a ballet school). The only challenge at this time was the floor, which was very slippery, at both of the studios where we were practising (more on this later). At the end of the first day I was so nice to come all together for a class with the organizer, Julie Dupas, who led us in a sequence of ball rolling exercises to massage our muscles, and then it was time for dinner. I mostly walked everywhere during the week, which was a great warming up at the beginning of the day, and cooling down at the end.

As the week progressed, learning got more intense, and in the 2nd and 3rd day, it became quite stressful, as I felt like I was not remembering anything. Thankfully the teachers, Alex Negron and Laura Poikolainen, were very patient with us, despite us messing up for the hundredth time. But slowly, slowly the ballet became more and more familiar. Having said that, the days were pretty intense, starting at 9:15 in the morning on most days with a ballet class, then launching straight into rehearsals, which lasted until lunch around 1 pm, after which rehearsals continued until the muscle relaxation class at 17:00. Sometimes we had a break in the middle when we had to change studios with a short walk through the lovely city of Morlaix. We avoided doing pointe work since the floors were so incredibly slippery. After a few days, we started to rehearse in the actual theatre where the show would take place, and this had an actual marley floor, which made us so happy since it was slippery. However, after only about one day, disaster started to strike as also the marley floor became slippery! It became scary to dance, so rehearsals and classes were very nerve-wrecking... (even more than they already were anyway because it was such a challenge to memorize all the steps...). Amazingly enough, I did not have major muscle ache--maybe the tough zhemfit classes I had been doing were paying off!

Then came the day of the dress rehearsal. Everyone was freaking out, but the teachers went to their last resort: spraying the stage with 7up. And yes: that worked! We had a squaky and sticky stage (of course squaky was not intended, but at least it allowed us to dance without being afraid to break our legs). It was quite nerve-wrecking to do a full performance after having rehearsed it only for a week, but somehow magically I made it through without major mistakes. At times I had to pinch myself that I was there: for the first time of my life learning an actual ballet from the classical repertoire, surrounded by dancers, wearing a tutu and pointe shoes! And then the next day, we had the actual show! I was quite nervous, but also so excited to dance this happy ballet with my new ballet friends. Although this vacation was clearly not stressfree, it feels so good having done it and created this beautiful piece of work together! (see my instagram for some pictures).

For the regular readers of my blog, you know that I am working through the Lojong challege. Lojong is a set of slogans for training the mind from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. In the Lojong challenge, I go through each of these slogans and see how they apply to my life. We are now at slogan 45: Take on the three principal causes. This means that we are encouraged to take on the three principal causes for enlightenment, which are working with a good teacher, cultivating a pliable mind, and creating life circumstances conducive to training our mind. I think that when applied to ballet, this post shows how in the past week, I definitely experienced all three conditions. However, I think the learning process of the past week was to some extent also a mind training in the sense of Lojong, because the kindness of people encouraged me to also practise kindness, and the performance process itself was a great invitation to let go of all judgment and simply be in the moment, like for my last performance. Moreover, ballet performances are also a moment where it is important to let go of your own bubble and to open up yourself to the full interdependent circumstances that create the performance together. If you are in your own bubble, it does not work, because you will then easily end up being in the way of others, or failing to react to what is going on on stage, including unplan

the whole group

ned things. So the Buddhist views of interdependence and selflessness are very helpful here. Sometimes ballet training and Buddhist mind training have quite some overlaps!

Using Buddhist slogans to inspire a conducive mindset for a ballet performance

Picture by SBS foto marketing.

 In the last few days, I had the good fortune to participate in ballet performances. Finally the pandemic is allowing us to experience those again! As it turns out, the mental side of it was a pretty experiencing journey, which is also relevant to the next #lojongchallenge slogan (slogan 42) which is: whichever of the two arises, be patient. The idea of this slogan is that we constantly tend to want certain things and avoid certain other things--trying to get things we want and avoid things we do not want. I can tell you that definitely happens during a ballet performance, where there is the fear of making mistakes, or even worse, falling and injuring yourself, and the hope of shining and having a good time. Thankfully in the ballet school where I dance in Groningen, we have three shows, so when on Friday I felt quite engrossed in these thoughts about being afraid of failure and not so much able to enjoy the moment, I could play around with my mindset for the next two shows.

I realized that for me it was important to return back to my body, because our body is an anchor to experience, rather than the thinking-about-experience. What really helped me was to take time before the performance to really connect to my body by putting on my noise-cancelling headphones and doing an online class by Broche ballet. The teacher has a very calming and non-judgmental quality, really inviting dancers to inquire into their sensations and movements, rather than focusing on a correct or incorrect end-product. I also found that the beautiful music of the barre helped me to get into my happy space as well. 

View from the dressing room where I was warming up in my happy space (picture by Kelly Jennefer)

Then during the performance, I consciously practised appreciation. Rather than thinking about who was good or not good, I focused on the beauty of everyone at their own level, and consciously opening up myself to the connection with everyone who was putting together the show--in Buddhist terms: the interdependent circumstances that come together to create the performance, where everyone has their role to play (see also this quote for a beautiful description of that idea). It was amazing how much this changed my mind, because suddenly I shifted from a focus on myself to a focus on the system as a whole.

And when I was no longer overly focused on myself, I also was not drawn so much into judgments and thoughts. Because those judgments were exactly what was causing my frustration, because I started to make mistakes that I wouldn't make in class. Then the most interesting experience happened at the beginning of the last show, during a very happy tarantella dance. Somehow I sumbled over something and fell, right in the middle of the dance. Thankfully it was not a bad fall and I got up immediately and continued dancing straight away. But because now I had literally gotten back on earth, my body took over without too much jugdments and thoughts, and I enjoyed it like never before, I guess it also cannot really go down much from there! The show ended up the best one I did, simply because my mind was no longer seeking out any particular experience and rejecting others, but simply tuning in with whatever was there. In the end, I think my mindset work was almost the most fascinating part of the whole experience! 

Picture by SBS fotomarketing

In the dance where I fell flat on my face

One step forward, one step back: lessons from an injured ankle

It's been quite a while since I last posted. I have been extremely busy with teaching and supervising students in the last few months. On top of that, I have been struggling with an injury in my ankle that made it difficult for me to do ballet. Since ballet is one of my main outlets at this time, that has been quite a challenge. Ballet is not just exercise for me, but a way to express myself and my emotions.

I am not quite sure how the injury came about. It's probably some inflammation that resulted from overuse. Every time I came down from standing on my toes (which you do a lot in ballet...) I would feel a tremendous sharp pain. I had been feeling it for a while, but then it got really acute in March while I was running. As a result, I took it a bit easier for a few days, but then I had an online performance, which I still did because it was so special. Ever since, I have been trying to figure out a way to do something like ballet while still allowing my ankle to recover. Now it's July and I have not yet fully recovered. But finally this week I started to feel substantially better. I have taken off another week from doing any ballet, and this helped a lot (in the intermediate months I would just avoid the movements that caused pain, but clearly that was not good enough). This blog lays out some strategies i used to deal with this challenging situation and lessons I learned.

floorbarre

The first thing I learnt was that I had to accept that I had an injury rather than trying to work through the pain, as I usually do. What consoled me a lot was the first noble truth proclaimed by the Buddha: that life is suffering. Sometimes suffering comes your way, and that is a natural part of life, it's not like you are doing something wrong. And it's OK to feel frustrated and sad about that for a while. This situation also made me realize that while I am incredibly active, I am also getting older, and maybe my body cannot always keep up with my desires.

zhemfit abs challenge

Secondly, I needed to focus on what I could do, rather than what I could not do. When I paid too much attention to the things I could not do, I got very frustrated. When I managed to instead refocus on other things, I felt more fulfilled. I made use of the time to work on learning how to better turn my legs out, to get to know my core muscles better, and to figure out how to use my calves rather than my feet to point my toes. It is invaluable to do floorbarre classes in which you do ballet exercises on the floor rather than standing up--a great suggestion by my wonderful ballet teacher Wanda Kuiper. My favourites are a DVD by Stephane Dalle, and youtube videos by Hikaru Kobayashi and Joy Womack. I was also very grateful for the #21dayszhemfitabschallenge, a series of classes to get to train your abs (the other zhemfit classes are also pretty great and useful for dancers and non-dancers alike). I had never figured out this whole "core thing", and now I feel like I can finally feel how to use my ab muscles, and moreover, these classes result in visible changes to your body, which is very rewarding. As I was dabbling with various youtube fitness classes, I also realized how annoyed I get when I see all these fitness influencers not stretching their legs and pointing their toes, so I became quite a fan of Maria Khoreva's workouts (Maria Khoreva is a first soloist with the Maryinski theatre). Another thing I discovered about doing these workouts is that I could use them as mind-training as well: as much as possible, I try to do them with an attitude of loving kindness for myself and others, especially when they are a bit painful: just sending kindness into the world with each repetition.

The third lesson is one that has been my mantra throughout this pandemic: just to focus on one day at a time, rather than speculating about this future that is exceedingly uncertain. This has been particularly true with my ankle: while it is now substantially better, it may also get worse again and I don't know how long it will take to finally heal. And in this process I have to balance giving my body time to heal with my mental need for dancing. A few days ago I went back to a ballet barre after not dancing for a week to finally let me ankle heal, and it was just so joyful! (see videos below) So we keep going, one day at a time...

My working-from-home strategies

It's been 7 months since the start of the pandemic and working from home. I thought it would be nice to share how I have been holding up with that. For me there are several tricks that I learnt:

- start the day with a little dance. I have several choreographies that I like to practise for upcoming (we hope!) performances. These are nice little dances, but everything can work. I think this helps to nicely demarcate your working day. Also, remember how we used to write in our poetry friend albums: "begin the day with a little dance, begin the day with a smile, whoever is happy in the morning, smiles the whole day"

- sit on a slightly unstable cushion that requires you to make micro-movements all the time and thereby keeps your spine mobile. I am using a balance cushion to sit on, which also has little spiky things that serve as a great "butt-massage" to calm these overworked ballet turnout muscles ;-)

- insert a short mindfulness break. Just practise for a few minutes, either with an app such as ==InsightTimer or ==Headspace, or just by yourself. It is a great tool to let whatever you are working on settle and also sometimes this brings to mind things you have almost forgotten.

notice spiky cushion on the chair

- sometimes when I am attending a meeting where no camera is required, I like to do some stretches during the meeting so I can keep moving. See the short video clip as an example

- finally, I like to take little dance breaks. Sometimes I just put on some music I like and dance for a few minutes. Sometimes I use a bit more structure and follow a short 5-minute workout. My favourite is this one from Lazy Dancer Tips.

I hope this helps. How are you doing with #workingfromhome?

Looking for focus: a case for just being

The next slogan in the #lojongchallenge is number 27: "Work with the greatest defilements first." Of course the whole Lojong programme is about working with our emotions. A wonderful thing of this programme is that is has a fantastic array of methods. This is at the same time a challenge, because we can get lost in it and not end up making substantial progress in any of them. I notice this tendency most strongly in ballet classes I take: when I strongly focus on fixing one bad habit (such as forgetting to suck in my tummy or not stretching my legs fully) then I make much more progress than when I focus on whatever is that day's teacher's particular focus. The same applies of course to working with your negative emotions.

Just being happy with flowers. Picture by Anna van der Meijden https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/ 

How do you know what is your most insistent emotion or habit? One clue is to look at what you tend to put off, because that is often where the strongest obstacle is located. The good news, according to Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, is also that all the different emotions are in some way related to self-cherishing. If you deal with one of them, then the others will automatically be improved as well.

For myself, I definitely recognize this tendency to try out many different things and not persist on one path until the end. It is just too easy to get lost in doing, instead of spending time in being--doing nothing in particular but just being with what is and seeing what emerges. Sometimes just being can be the most productive because, as Khandro Rinpoche says, it allows the natural compassion to shine out. It is also where we can drop our competitiveness and instead just connect.

Maybe this is for me the greatest obstacle or habit: to get lost in the doing. Getting lost in doing is an easy way to avoid facing things, and at the same time it is also often driven by the need for recognition--recognition by others for all the amazing things you are doing. This is just one manifestation of what Buddhists call "attachment"--in this case attachment to praise. But when you think about it from the Dzogchen perspective: you are already totally fine. Your nature is the Buddha, and if you only let it out, it will shine all by itself with brilliant wisdom and compassion. If only it weren't so hard to trust that... 

More thoughts on self-criticism and other-criticism in life and ballet

The next slogan in Lojong is number 26: "Don’t ponder others’ flaws." This is quite similar to the previous slogan, but whereas the previous one is about acting out your criticism in terms of speech, this one is about merely thinking about the flaws of others. For me that is a much stronger temptation than speaking of other's flaws. You may think "thoughts don't harm, right?" And indeed, they don't do so directly. But they are not particularly pleasant either.

The moment you start criticising others, first of all, doesn't really feel that good in the long term. In the short term, it may make you feel better about yourself, but to maintain this feeling better, you have to keep comparing yourself to others and that is pretty exhausting. One domain in which I am quite prone to mentally comparing myself to others is ballet. This is completely unnecessary because I am way too old for a career, so I am just doing it for fun. And yet, this is my mental habit. A few weeks ago I did a kind of home-made ballet intensive during which I stayed in Amsterdam for a few days and took many classes. This was my chance to play with these feelings! I found out that when I was doing a tough conditioning class, one strategy is to handle the challenge by comparing myself to others. As I just indicated, this is a quite a stressful strategy. Alternatively, I could just try to stay with the moment--with the unpleasant feelings of a tough exercise but not thinking about how long it's still going to last (long!) and not thinking about how well it's going--just staying there non-judgmentally. When I was able to do that, the whole experience became like a meditation, and quite relaxed (at least from a mental perspective). Moreover, practising in such a mind state feels so much more satisfying.

Picture by Anna van der Meijden https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/?hl=en

I will end with one more tip that I found in Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche's book "Intelligent heart", which I found quite helpful. He said that if you are dealing with a very difficult person for whom criticism almost naturally arises, then try to realize that it's just your perception. Everyone perceives people differently, and there may well be people who see this person as amazing. The same is true about yourself by the way: the way you see yourself is probably quite different from the way others see you.

Your brain on ballet

A few months ago I attended the lecture-performance "Dancing and the Brain" at Nationale Opera and Ballet in Amsterdam. I thought it was really cool to discuss how dancing affects our brain, and join lecture with dance demonstrations. Inspired by the lecture, here is my version of dancing and the brain, with an emphasis on ballet, the form of dance with which I have most personal experience.

Cortical representations of hand and foot in Meier et al (2016)

To understand how dancing affects the brain, we need to start with discussing what dancing really is in general, and then how ballet differs from that. In general, dancing can be defined as a combination of movement, often with music, often in the service of artistic expression and conveying a certain aesthetic experience (but sometimes also a social action). As such, dancing inevitably is a training of motor coordination, which is requires coordination between many brain areas, including the parietal and premotor cortex (Cross et al., 2009). Each type of dance has a specific movement vocabulary, and when dancers watch their "own" type of dance, their ventral premotor cortex gets more active than when they watch other forms of dance (Pilgramm et al., 2010). This suggests that dancing helps to set up specific motor programs (for example, in ballet dancers it has been shown that the area of motor cortex associated with the foot has increased; Meier et al., 2016). Dance has also been shown to be associated with more sensitivity in the recognition of other's movements (Sevdalis & Keller, 2009).

In my home office

Now let's move on to the specific form of dance that is ballet. What is unique about ballet is that it consists of a very specific movement vocabulary that has changed little over the centuries. A strong emphasis is placed on the lines created by poses and movements. As such, I would expect that this is associated by a very strong sensitivity to small differences in the production and perceptions of these patterns of movement. A lot of this sensitivity is visual because ballet dancers perfect their movements largely with the help of mirrors. This is probably different in many other forms of dance that do not rely so strongly on mirrors. Moreover, because ballet involves the precise repetition of a relatively fixed movement vocabulary, this is associated with increased ability to memorize movement sequences (Smyth & Pendleton, 1994). This often happens by chunking a series of movements into bite-size pieces, which ballet dancers have been shown to be relatively good at Foley et al. 1991 . I am very curious whether this also transfer to better memory in general. I would not be surprised if ballet were a good training method for memory and cognitive control (see also van Vugt (2014) for similar ideas).

Apart from training memory and cognitive control, ballet is likely to be also excellent training for your attention. When you are in the studio, you need to focus on many pieces of information at the same time: the series of movements you are supposed to produce, the muscles you are supposed to be tensing and relaxing (while dancers have been training for years to automatize those patterns, they keep honing them every single day of their careers).

During an EEG experiment at the Night of Arts & Sciences, 2019

Apart from those technical aspects, ballet is most importantly an art, so the best part for a dancer usually comes when they can forget about the steps and totally inhabit the character or the mood that comes with the dance. They then typically forget everything around them and enter something like a flow state. I would not be surprised if ballet dancers are very good at imagination, but I have not found any studies that test that. I would predict this would lead to a strengthening of a set of brain areas called the default mode network, involving the posterior cingular cortex, medial prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobe, which are all involved in creating stories in your mind, and disconnecting from outside distraction. While there have been

claims that ballet improves creative thinking, i am not so sure about that, and I think this is mostly true for those dancers who have specialized in improvisation (indeed, all the dancers in this study did, including some ballet dancers).

But ballet is not typically something you only do by yourself. In fact, one of the most beautiful things about ballet is when the corps the ballet moves in perfect synchrony, such as the entry of the shades in La Bayadere. To make this happen, dancers need to be highly aware of the dancers that are in front of them, to the side, and behind them. In fact, they are even told to breathe together. As such, I would strongly suspect that not only their bodies synchronize, but even their brains synchronize (here is a video where I talk about inter-brain synchrony in dancers.

A final unique aspect of ballet is the extreme balance expertise required, Women even balance on the tips of their toes! Recent research has shown that dancers are better at balancing than non-dancers (Burzynska et al., 2017). Such balancing expertise was associated with changes in dancers' hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus (thought to be crucial for orientation in space), insula (thought to be important for feeling sensations inside your body)Dordevic et al., 2018).

Brain areas larger in ballet dancers than in controls (from Dordevic et al., 2018)

, and cingulate motor cortex (

In summary, dance, and in particular ballet, is great for lots of things. Indeed, I found that in the last few weeks, when I was stuck at home due to the covid-19 situation, ballet was really my outlet and saving grace. The good news is that dance in general, and ballet in specific is nowadays also used in interventions for diseases such as Parkinsons (read more here). It has also been found that people who have been dancing their whole life tend to suffer less from dementia and age-related cognitive decline (Verghese et al., 2003). So, keep dancing!

when you really need to dance... resources for doing ballet class/fitness at home

The holidays are coming up, which means that a lot of ballet classes are sadly not happening. Where can I still get my fix? For those occasions, I like to do ballet classes or workouts at home.

This is me doing a ballet class in the fitness centre of a hotel.

Since several people asked me about it, here is an overview of resources I really like for that:

• Lazy Dancer tips is a youtube channel with a lot of nice workouts, including this ballet barre for fitness and some 5-minute-beach-abs workouts. Good for dancers but also suitable for non-dancers
• For $15 you can buy a download of the barre and the centre this class by Kat Wildish, a ballet teacher from New York City specialising in adults. Her style is very easy to follow and focuses a lot on correct placement.
• Another youtube channel is Kathryn Morgan, who has some good workouts such as a pointe barre workout and a workout to strengthen your feet. She also holds online ballet classes, of which I really like the free stretch and strength class
• If you would like to improve your core and your form, floor barre is excellent. Yumiko sells a wonderful DVD
• On youtube, you can also easily dance along with Pacific northwest ballet school's Balanchine-style class
• Another DVD that I like a lot is one with Andrey Klemm, which is quite easy to follow, a good workout, and gorgeous dancers
• If you would like to improve your turns, then Finis Jhung has some good DVDs, although those are pretty pricy. I like the intermediate-advanced turning class, which unfortunately is no longer available

And of course, sometimes the most fun thing to do is just to put on some music that moves you and dance! 

the gift of broken ankle

It's been a long time since I've last written and many things have happened, including papers being published, travels to various places and so on. Probably the most significant event was that, as the title says, I managed to break my ankle in ballet class, about three months ago. Interestingly enough, this was not only a bad event, but also a tremendous lesson. Something as invasive as breaking your ankle requires you to complete rethink your life, because all the things you used to take for granted, climbing stairs, cooking, carrying a cup of tea, and so on, are suddenly difficult or impossible. Moreover, you have to remove the words hurry and haste from your dictionary. Yet, a broken ankle can also be a gift. I realised how lucky I was to not only have dancing but lots of other nourishing activities that I could do, no matter what: my science and my spiritual practice. During my time in the hospital I was especially grateful to have both a stack of papers to read to distract me and my spiritual practice to calm my mind and feel supported by the buddhas and bodhisattvas (visualising them can be a tremendous source of refuge and potentially also help recovery--see the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn). The people around me were amazing and helped me with everything, from grocery shopping to doing my laundry. It is wonderful to see how a handicap can bring the best out of people. Even complete strangers would sometimes come up to me to help me by opening a door, or asking what had happened to me.

Now, about 3 months later, I am still recovering and trying to get back into ballet. There were two tools that I found incredibly helpful: during the whole time of my injury, especially during the no-weightbearing portion of it (first six weeks), I practiced floor barre, ballet exercises that are performed lying down on the floor, or sitting down. They help tremendously in maintaining and strengthening your turnout and flexibility in general. They also help to acquire a good posture in ballet, with the back very straight. Later in my recovery period, i.e., now, I am practicing the New York City Ballet workout, which consists of floor exercises to strengthen abdominals and upper body, floor barre, as well as elementary ballet exercises like tendus, plies and simple jumps. Because these exercises are very simple, they are a good transition into actual ballet class. Now let's hope that I will be back on pointe soon!