Life in a Leotard
Not just any leotard. A pale pink cap-sleeved leotard. I don't remember buying it. I don't have it any more. But that leotard saw me through my first back-walk-over. It stood by me as I nervously took my shorts off for the first time and stood tall and proud with me as I walked, freed legs and all from event to event from then on. Me and my pink torso. I only went to class once a week in the beginning, and I always wore that pale pink cap-sleeved leotard. It eventually changed. I eventually changed. We both had to. It had to change because I had to change. I made the Developmental Squad and with that came the Level 4 team leotard--no-sleeved; blue with white trim along its v-neck. At Level 5 it grew sleeves, turned to white and the v-neck changed to a blue mock-turtleneck. Level 6 it stayed the same. By Level 8 we had a new coach, and the white our previous coach preferred because it showed our musculature changed to black with three patches of faded pink and blue squares at the neck and wrists. There was a hole in the front and the back. But then it was back to white by Level 9, white velvet with a burst of pink, lavender and sea green dripping down the left shoulder. It was the first time I learned about the nude camisole. I had to wear one underneath.
Those were performance leotards. Those were "serious" leotards. I remember feeling ready to compete with those long sleeves streaming down my arms. I felt secure there. I felt confident and focused and, well, I felt like a gymnast ready to face the judge and salute. I felt ready, because I knew I looked it. I didn't have a black or white practice leo. My leotards, those that saw me through practice after practice, five times a week, four hours a day came in many different colors and patterns and styles. After each meet, no matter how many first or how many last places I received, I would get the chance to look among the leotards for sale in the lobby. Rack after rack, those hanging leotards would become spandex and cotton-blended golds. A new me waited to be discovered in those exotic lines and shapes and styles. All I had to do was look.
I remember never liking solid colors. There is something incongruent in the solid-colored leotard and the gymnast. Especially this gymnast. If it didn't have a pattern, it didn't find me. I had green-paisley, blue-striped, gold, pink and purple flowered; there were pale yellows and oranges and florescent flying squares; there were yellow spirals and teal zigzags; there was fruit and butterflies and squiggles and puzzle pieces. But green was my favorite. Green velvet. In my six-year career as a competitive gymnast, I had only one solid-colored leotard. It was in my last year as a gymnast. It was green. It was velvet. A dark forest green. Soft. Mature. I had become one of the "big girls" by that time. This leotard demonstrated it.
I cannot recall any moments associated with a specific leotard that last year in gymnastics. Not even when I got my Suke on vault; or my double-back on the trampoline. Not even when I got my full twist on floor. All I remember is warming up on the sprung floor of this new, brilliant gym, with its tumble track and two huge foam pits, its new beams, new bars, new vaults; my knees folded on the floor by my ears, my coach commenting on my flexibility as he pressed--I cannot say gently--on my lower back, covered softly in crushed green velvet. I wish I could remember what leotard I was going to wear the day I did not go to practice. The day I simply said, "I don't want to go to gymnastics today" to my grandmother who took me that summer, knowing it
wasn't just that day. I did not ever want to go back.
But that green velvet leotard stood by me. It walked with me from the gym; it proudly climbed over pink tights and stood by me at the barre. It was my only solid-color leotard. And it was unmistakably different from the others worn in class. It had a hole in the back with a plastic clasp; it wasn't black; it didn't have skinny straps. It was velvet. And it was green.
I remember dreading those Saturday morning ballet classes in my green velvet leotard that seemed so bright and unnatural against the wooden floors and shiny mirrors. I remember feeling torn by dance as something that innately drew me in, but also as something that I felt differed from who I was. Something at once so natural to my body and so foreign to my brain. It is amazing how others recognize who we are before we do. I had only danced on floor with the routine my Russian coach choreographed. But it was never my tumbling that won me first place
trophies.
My colored and patterned leotards now reside in the first gym bag I was ever given. Now my wardrobe consists of leotards of a different kind. Thick straps, thin straps; no sleeves, three-quarter sleeves; black, lavender, blue and brown; "princess seamed" and backless.
And though I have cut most of these leotards and wear them as tops with flowing, (brightly) colored dance pants, and though I wear mainly solid colors now, I have not lost my penchant for patterns. I am still discovering them in myself every day whether I dance myself, teach others, or create. A few weeks ago at rehearsal, the choreographer I work with exclaimed with no little surprise, "Oh--Stephanie's wearing a leotard!" Well, of course. I always have been.