On being told what to do with our souls

It's not given to us to know what is in another person's mind. We sometimes think we do, but when any means of checking happens to occur, we turn out to be wrong as often as not.

You often get a strong impression of someone's personality by dancing with them. Somebody's dance is bound to express their personality - it isn't exactly going to express someone else's. Even if they are the sort of person who tries to imitate someone else, they'll only ever succeed in looking as though that's what they're doing; I don't really suppose it's possible to imitate the way someone else feels, unless by sheer accident. You do feel a strong sense of personality, and it may well be pretty accurate, as far as it goes. But it's never the whole story. There's a lot more to people than expresses itself in their dance.

In dance classes we sometimes get told what to do with our souls, whatever that means and whatever those are: a daft and impertinent instruction, in my view, but not necessarily useless, if you like that sort of thing.

If you're worried that you don't give your "soul", or your "whole self" or your "hundred percent" to a dance, whatever any of that is supposed to mean, and you feel a bit inadequate and as though you might be Not The Right Sort Of Person, or perhaps even Not The Right Nationality, and perhaps you should just give up and go home because you'll never ever be accepted here, or if you feel as though you're being asked to be less than yourself or to pretend to be something you're not, stop. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to create imaginary demons (still less borrow someone else's) and let them beat you up.

It might be better to ask yourself what you've got. I bring what I've got. Some of what I've got is:

A willingness (in this context) to feel the fear and do it anyway
A sense of humour
An emotional connection with the music
A strong disinclination to take any crap from anyone at all
A Bullshit detector
Patience
A lively curiosity to know what other people have got.

This seems to be, at least, a pretty good substitute for whatever some people call, soul. At any rate, it seems to be good enough for them. And perhaps it is the same thing. That's not given to us to know, about ourselves or about anybody else. Be honest and be brave, concentrate, do the best you can, be willing to make mistakes, and I reckon it'll be all right.