Comparisons between the school system and learning Kathak

Every Chemistry textbook, whether of a 6th grade student or 12th grade student, includes, in varying degrees of detail, information about the atom and its structure. Year after year, I have studied the definition of atoms, elements etc., but every year, there is some tiny detail which is added, and the chapter overall always has some new information. Learning Kathak, isn’t very different. Every year for the last 10 years, I have learnt the same movement I learned during my first Kathak class, but every time, there is a new aspect, a new detail to the movement, making the familiar movement unfamiliar as I try and explore it from a different angle. 

Before we started our formal education, we attended kindergarten and pre-school. In many ways, these years taught us how to learn, how to move forward in the education system. It took us so many years simply to learn how to read and write, and without that skill, it would be nearly impossible to learn Science, Math and English the way we do today. Similarly, the first 2 years of learning kathak, were simply about learning how to learn. How to listen, observe and slowly emulate your gurus words so that they reflect in your dance. If I’ll be honest, it took me, and many of my peers, way more than the assigned 2 years…in fact, these are still skills I’m yet to develop fully. 

A focused study into any subject is always a never ending process. There is always more to learn, a deeper hole to dig, no matter the mastery you have achieved in someone else’s eyes. Classical dance, again, isn’t very different. Time and time again I have been given the example of dance being like the ocean, no matter how hard you try, you can never empty it out, no matter how deep you dive, there is always something deeper. Every class acts as a humble reminder that I am only skimming the surface.