I had a student the other day, she was a Japanese woman about 28 years old. She was feminine in the way Japanese women seem to be expected to be: she was petite, quiet, a little shy, and all of her habits, mannerisms and actions were executed with the maximum possible cuteness. Even her voice was wispy, delicate, and so high pitched that I thought it was she was joking at first.

Because my primary job there is to make small talk, we chatted about her job, her family, and her pet. And each time there was something moderately amusing, she responded with a set routine of giggling, daintily covering part of her mouth with two fingers, and returning to her initial pose. Everything about her seemed soaked in cuteness and about two inches deep. But then something interesting happened.

I found out that her hobby is ballet. Not only watching ballet, or reading about ballet, but actually practicing ballet. Like, for the last six years. She studies dance routines, breaks down the mechanics of different dancers' moves, and does weight training to strengthen her leg muscles. She could probably leg press as much I can. Her favorite part of ballet is the jumping. She actually studied how NBA players strengthen their legs and adapted some of those techniques to her workout. And this is only her hobby. She started about fifteen years too late to even think about being a professional.

When she was talking about dance, her body language began to change. She stopped tucking her elbows into her lap and keeping her hands on her knees, she began looking directly forward instead of tipping her chin down and looking up. Even the giggling became less frequent; she actually laughed about things. Even though her voice was still more easily heard by dogs, she spoke with more assertive forms and fewer qualifiers and modifying phrases. And she mentioned casually, but with all seriousness, that she would like to have been born a man because they get the bigger, more dramatic leaps. But there was no real regret in her voice, just an idea about how she could have enjoyed ballet more.


Sometimes humanity leaks out of places where you don't expect it.