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What's Attention Deficit Disorder? I never knew until a couple of years ago. What's it like? I have always been conscious that everything comes much harder for me than for most people. As a small child, I was reading at the age of four and assessed with a much higher than average IQ, yet everything always seemed so difficult. I was pushed by my parents to excel, and lived in an extremely regimented and disciplined household.
In Catholic school, it was impossible for me to pay attention for long. My parents assumed it was because the work was too easy for me and that I was lazy. In reality, I found math and science extremely difficult. I almost always felt utterly incompetent.
To just sit still, without feeling like there was too much electricity inside -- that was absolutely impossible for me. If you, too, feel like that, you might want to try ballet.
Getting a grip: discovering the barre
I began ballet a little more than six years ago, as an adult. I hadn't even known before then that there were classes for adults, and a diverse, interesting group of women (and a few men) who take class -- at all levels of proficiency.
My first two years were difficult: I was constantly being yelled at for not remembering the barre and center floor exercises (I would forget the exercise between the time the teacher showed it, and when she turned the music on). The more I struggled to concentrate, the worse things got. But, I found that when I physically did the exercise as the teacher demonstrated it (leaving my mind completely out of the equation), I could much more easily remember the work, and I began to make progress.
Then I happened to read a book about adult ADD -- attention deficit disorder. Ninety percent of the symptoms and profiles fit me so well that I was afraid to believe that this could be the explanation for a lifetime of trouble.
From duckling to swan
Armed with the ADD knowledge I continued to gather, I decided that ballet could be the perfect arena in which I could try to find ADD coping mechanisms. I had already learned that it helps me to be doing something physical as part of the learning process. Ballet is great for this. As I'm moving, I can learn without my mind struggling. I also sought and found less-punitive teachers, who correct and motivate with kindness, not insults.
This brings me to another reason that ballet is so wonderful. Many ADD adults have low self-confidence and self-esteem caused by years of being told that their way of being is totally wrong. There are years upon years of struggle to keep a perpetually wandering mind on track, and what seems like years trying to retain information that others seem to master without thinking. For me, ballet is the perfect antidote.
You have the opportunity to repeat what is essentially the same sequence of barre exercises over and over at each class, until the movements seem somewhat effortless -- yet, the barre exercises are new each time, since the way the teacher gives them and strings them together will be a little different each time. Then, you take those basic movements and chain them together to make dance combinations in the center and moving across the floor. So there's the wonderful, comforting sense of structure, but also the excitement of something new. Result: The ADD mind stays engaged by the process rather than turned off by boring repetition. And self-confidence is engendered, since, in time, you begin to feel a true sense of mastery and accomplishment.
Just move!
Of course, for a scattered, overactive person, the chance to move that comes with any form of dance is perhaps the most important thing. There's a very deep sense of "getting it out of my system" and a feeling of peace that comes over me after class. For me, there is a very deep sense of dancing the devils out. And, in order to develop stamina for dance, I've had to learn to breathe throughout every movement. (Before ballet, I think that I took my last deep breath at the age of three!)
My message is that, if you can identify an art or an activity you love, that pursuit can teach you what you need to know about coping with ADD. In dance, we consider our bodies (and minds) our instruments. It's the job of a lifetime to communicate with this instrument and work with what I've been given so that it will help me, not hinder me. With the help of dance, I've been able to move away from the anger of "what's wrong with me?" and "why is this so hard?" to learning the ways of the particular instrument I have been given. Your body and mind will tell you a great deal if you find a way to ask for the information. So far, I've been able to dance professionally, and do many things that I could never have anticipated six years ago.
For another view on ADD and structured movement as therapy, see a recent New York Times feature on karate and ADD.
