Why a Dress Code is a Good Thing

image courtesy of 5minutesformom.com

Wow, it's been a while since I've blogged. Sorry about that. My only excuse is that teaching small children roughly equates to teaching adorable petri dishes full of highly contagious germs.

Anyway, I love having a dress code. I have a friend who thinks that ballet is just a ridiculous collection of rules. Okay, I can see his point, but a lot of those rules serve a purpose. And a dress code serves many purposes at once.

I like uncluttered dress codes (think the opposite of Fame) because, as a teacher, I get a clear view of what's happening on a body. I don't know if you're really stretching your knees if they're always hidden under baggy sweats; I don't know how your posture is if you're wearing a giant shirt stolen from your dad's closet; and those wide-necked shirts that make you stand just a little off-kilter to keep it on your shoulders make you look like maybe you should be evaluated by a medical professional for scoliosis/kyphosis, etc.

Asking students to secure their hair (and I do love a nice bun) is not me being all control-freaky. Little kids especially, but everyone to a degree, have a hard time concentrating if their hair is always falling into their eyes. Hair in a ponytail can whip around and smack you in your eyes when you turn--and it hurts. Hair that falls out halfway through class is a huge distraction to everyone, mostly because I am expected to put it back up again when what I'd really like to do is teach the class. (Also, I am awful at doing hair. I should be your very last resort ever. EVER.)

Don't even get me started on why big jewelry in class is a very bad idea.

Right. Those are very practical reasons. But there's another reason I love having a dress code. These clothes are a uniform. Wearing the clothes designates to everyone that what we're doing in class is not by accident. We came to the studio to do something specific. The dress code helps everyone focus.

These clothes are also a costume. We don't wear them to school, or church, or to the movies, or to the park. (Okay, some little kids do and I think that's adorable, but you get my point.) When we put on the clothes we transform. Instead of being "a person taking a ballet class" we put on the costume and become "a dancer". We all genuinely dance better when we dress the part. It's as if we have set an expectation for ourselves and then live up to it.

Dress codes transform class. 

P. S. The very best way I ever heard to get your reluctant dancer to wear her ballet clothes is to blame "ballet". As in, "Ballet says you have to wear tights." This way mom and dad aren't the bad guys, and neither is the teacher. This nebulous, centuries-old "ballet" has set the rules and we all have to follow them. Many thanks to my friend Mary for the tip!

Misadventures in Leotard Shopping

You guys. I cannot believe how hard it is to get the leotard I want. I can't tell if I should laugh or scream. Mostly I'm just sitting here dumbfounded.

A few months ago I decided that I was going to replace every leotard that I got in high school. (It is embarrassing how long ago high school was. It was time to let them go.) So each month I have been getting one new leotard. I now have a beautiful charcoal gray one with cap sleeves and an asymmetrical neckline, a black one with lace (not the oh-so-popular lace-back one you're thinking of), and a lovely slate blue one with a cowl neckline. But every time I shopped for a leotard I just couldn't forget the green one I once saw.

I get Pointe Magazine's e-newsletter and they often feature new leotards. Months ago they featured a beautiful emerald green leotard from a new company in China. When I first saw it I clicked on the link to buy it, but there must have been some error in translation because the website wanted $3,000 for it. It didn't seem worth the bother to work out the issue. After all, how hard could it be to find a beautiful emerald green leotard? 

Answer: so hard! Nothing I've seen has compared to that lovely leotard and, since I am replacing my very last high school leotard this month, I decided I was going to figure out a way to get it. (Short of maxing out several credit cards, that is.) Googling "Chinese leotard companies" wasn't helpful. Neither were "emerald green leotards" or "sweetheart neckline leotards" or any of the other search terms I entered. So I went to my email account and pulled up every Pointe e-newsletter I had. I started with January of 2012 and worked my way closer to the present. At last I found the link to the leotard I wanted. (Bonus: the link still worked. I took that as a sign that the company was still solvent.)

They still make the beautiful leotard. But there was no "add to cart" option. No "buy it now." For the first time in the history of the internet, no one was willing to take my money. I clicked over to payment options, only to find they didn't accept credit cards. Nope. If I wanted to do business with this company I had to either wire the money through Western Union or open a bank account in Hong Kong. I'm still wrapping my brain around it.

Another peculiarity: the preferred way to contact the company is to post a message on their message board. I am entirely too lazy to do that because that would require me to check back again. The onus would be on me and I just don't think it should be that hard to offer someone my money.

(Note: I'm still not entirely sure how much one leotard will cost me.)

I am astounded.