Winning wasn't the point

I recently participated in a ballet competition in Helsinki with the rep groups of our ballet school. This time was quite an adventure for me, since I ended up injuring myself the morning of the competition by falling down the stairs and spraining my ankle. (Yeah, seriously, lol.) I danced anyway and my ankle got badly swollen, and I walked with sticks for a week afterwards, but a month later I'm fine and back to dancing. :)

We did really well in the competition and brought home three golds and three silvers. One of the silvers was from my solo, and we also got gold and silver for two small group dances I was in.

There's one little detail people like to take special note of, though. There weren't too many participants in the adult category, which a lot of our dances were in.

In the solo category there were only three adult participants, and even so they were divided into two categories: 20+ and 30+. I got silver in the 20+ category with only one other competitor who was also from my school and got gold. Naturally, the only participant in the 30+, also from our school, got gold as well.

In the small groups adult category, there were only three numbers as well. Two from us, and one from another school. We placed gold and silver.

When people hear this, they tend to be a lot less impressed with us, than they initially were. Suddenly, my solo isn't the one that was second best anymore. It's the one that placed last.

I get it. They see that our medals were a guarantee, so it's nothing impressive in their eyes.

However, there are a lot more layers to this whole thing than they understand. And I'd like to pay attention to something else, another detail that they seem to miss entirely:

All the adult competitors were from our school, except for one. All the three solos, and the majority of the small group numbers, came from our school. There are a lot of children and teens competing in this competition, but so few adults.

There are a lot of adults doing ballet as a hobby in Finland. But for some reason very few of them participate in competitions.

So, I don't think the important question is whether or not we won. The important thing is that we were there.

Three years ago when we first participated in the same competition, we were the only adult group in the entire competition, and our category was canceled. (We were put together with the teens, the most demanding category and we still got bronze, so that's actually nothing to scoff at.)

Since then, there have been a few adult groups or solos (we haven't been to every competition but the adult categories haven't been cancelled since then, that I've heard of.)

So, to me it's pretty obvious, that the most important part that we're doing is being there. Winning isn't the point. Being there, to represent adult amateur ballet dancers, and hopefully encouraging them to participate more in the future, is the most important thing, at least to me.

I don't know why adults are not participating. It might be that they don't feel confident enough, or it might be that their school doesn't even have a performing group for adults. Whatever the reason, I think it can change if enough people get inspired to take the opportunity to perform and compete, and stand for the fact that adult ballet is not useless or in vain, and even people who start ballet as adults can become confident performers with good technique. (I know a few living proofs of that.)

There definitely is a negative bias against adult ballet, and I think it's safe to say that adult dancers have also internalized some of it themselves. Professional ballet is so much about the right technique and perfection in every aspect of the performance and your body as well, it's a harsh world, everyone knows that. But when you do ballet for fun and for yourself, it shouldn't be about that. It should be about the joy. And I wish that adults would claim their space, and their right to express themselves exactly the way they are. As well as anyone.

So, when someone scoffs at our medals, I could get annoyed and tell them that if you look at our written feedback and the points we got from the judges, you'll see that we still could've placed well even if there were other competitors.

But I would rather point out that winning wasn't the point. Because your right to participate is NOT dependent on who you are, how good you are, or what you look like.

So, if any adult ballet dancer happens to read this, my message to them is: When there is an opportunity for adult dancers to participate, please take it. The more we take them, the more opportunities there will be in the future.

And don't worry about not being able to do something, or not looking right. Be happy and proud about everything you can do. In my eyes, that's the true victory.