Natural Talent?

I wonder whether “natural talent only gets us so far” or “we can only get so far until we take advantage of natural talent”?

The dancers that I see every night don’t seem to change very much, and they usually dance how I’d expect. But they didn’t always dance that way.

They started off sucking and working hard…until they could finally worry about who they were and forget about the steps that got them there. They needed a solid foundation before they could start being an individual.

It’s very difficult to teach any more than the fundamentals. Some people pick that up really fast, whether it’s multiplication tables, big words, or dance steps. But at a certain point the math geeks stick to math, the poets write a lot, and the good dancers stand out. And these are often not the people who started on the right foot.

A lot of it is natural talent that finally kicked in. At a certain point skills just click, at which point one can begin to experiment. To improve from that point is what takes the most effort and patience. Most never get from the foundation to sophisticated personal expression.

It’s hard and it’s frustrating. Knowing that my orientation will never be as complex as Ian’s or that my feel will never be as grounded and centered as Chiles is difficult for me to accept. I feel like they’re dancing how they see the world and there’s nothing else to it.

My partners see my world, too, but it’s not as fluid and predictable a place as I’d like. My thoughts are often difficult to follow. I jump to conclusions. I get stuck on one thought and have trouble holding onto the rest of the conversation. I don’t know that I was meant to dance.

But my talents have gotten me further than most. I didn’t start off as a natural but I’m working on honing who my character tells me to be… on the dance floor and in the real world.

I’m not a natural, but I guess I could be. It’s worth a try…