Working Hard is our Fun

“Don’t you think it’s time you made this warm-up easier for us?” I ask Hama before we move to the choreography segment of dance class. And by “us” I mean the women and men who have taken his Advanced Jazz classes for twenty, thirty, forty years, the dancers in their forties, fifties, sixties and even seventies who have been followers since he began his teaching career in Hollywood in the seventies. I could never have imagined dancing at this level at the ripe old age of 59. Some of my fellow dancers pine for their professional days when their bodies were young and supple. Me, I’ve never danced better.

“You want it easier?” he asks, amused, as we walk over to the stereo to put the CD in. 

“No! I’m just kidding, do not change the warm-up one bit. Everyone loves your warmup. But I do wonder why this class is so difficult after all these years,” I say. Only my classmates can understand what I mean. We are united in effort, trying to understand the intricacies of the movement, striving to interpret music with our bodies, Santana, Sting, Aretha. We make beauty sometimes accidentally. The level of focus and energy it takes to meet Hama’s demanding standards, the level of fatigue experienced after completing ninety minutes in his classroom are what keep us coming back decade after decade. Three times a week, I drive home, peel my wet dance clothes off, take a shower and lie on the couch until my legs stop shaking. 

We just can’t quit him. This soft-spoken Japanese gentleman in his early eighties carries himself straight and tall and you can still see the strength in his arms, his shoulders, his calves. His assistants (myself and a couple of others) help with the heavy lifting, demonstrating most of the choreography while he corrects and instructs and lectures and makes jokes. When I do convince him to come center and show us how it’s done, “We need to see you do it!” he tells me “Don’t be a baby,” then strolls center floor and nails the combination, executing the technique brilliantly, power flowing up out of the floor and into his body, the connection between the music, the space and his muscles working together to create this dynamic, smooth energy. He hits his double pirouettes every time even though it makes him dizzy to turn in his glasses.

I’ve been dancing with Hama for 25 years. It’s crazy to think that he was the age I am now when I met him. I learned about his studio when I was searching for a dance class for my daughter Chloe, then five years old. A friend recommended Miss Betty’s Ballet/Tap/Jazz class at Hama’s Dance Studio in Glendale and I signed Chloe up. During her first class, I peeked in the door during barre work. Chloe’s right hand held the barre and her left arm was stuck out woodenly to her side. Her toes pointed the wrong direction in fifth position, and when she saw me in the doorway she scowled menacingly at me. In that instant I knew, “She doesn’t want to dance. I do.”

I unrolled the flyer clutched in my hand and saw MWF Int/Adv. Jazz listed on the class schedule and began to feel fear tickling my stomach. I was terrified to go back to dance class. I had put my dancing and acting careers on hold when Chloe was born and was working full-time teaching fitness in a hospital program. But I had begun to feel dead inside without a creative outlet. So I headed into the studio office to ask Hama if he would allow me to observe one of those classes. “You don’t watch,” he said. “You do.”

“This is crazy,” I said to myself as I walked into the studio a week later. “I’m almost 36 years old. It’s too late to go back to dance class.” But somehow I put one foot in front of the other and threw myself into the opening movement. I couldn’t stop tears from coming when Hama spoke during the warm-up. “Dance is not about what you look like,” he said. “Dance is about respecting the movement. It’s not about whether you can do the splits or how many turns you can do, it’s about challenging yourself, growing.” When the warm-up was over and I stumbled over to my dance bag to get a drink of water, I was trembling and sweating and thought I might throw up. The choreography was just as difficult and it took months to even begin to embody his technique. I would whisper to other dancers, “Could you just show me the first count?” I saw him watching me struggle week after week, working to understand my body and what it was supposed to do. I’d never experienced a technique like his. Twenty classes later, he walked up to me during class and confirmed quietly, “You can dance.” I knew even then that he did not hand those kinds of comments out lightly. That was all the encouragement I needed. 

I moved up to the Assistant position after about fifteen years, the length of time it took to learn his style. Hama informed me it was time for me to take more responsibility in class and instructed me to move to the front to teach the choreography. He shut me down when I tried to beg off by insisting that my technique was not good enough. “Stop it, Leslie,” he said. “That’s poison.” In his understated way, he taught me that pushing myself is growth-promoting, that challenging myself is fun, that a good work ethic trumps talent. I told him a few years back that I was thinking about teaching my own beginner jazz class, but was worried that my technique was not up to par. His answer, “If you don’t want to grow, don’t try it.”

A large group of us dancers celebrate Hama’s birthday most years by putting together a performance of some of his choreography at his studio. Rehearsals are fierce and exhausting because we know he may stroll into the room at any moment. Every dancer is nursing an old injury and we greet one another with, “How’s your ankle?” and “Did you see the chiropractor about your neck?” Some dancers can’t commit to the time demands, some drop out after they realize their hip can’t take the wear and tear. We adjust choreography, we trade sections with one another, we share our CBD cream and our energy bars, we cry. 

During rehearsals for the last show, I was forced to draw the line at four hours of rehearsal following the hour and a half of dance class. To get through rehearsals, I had to wrap my left foot with a gel pad under the ball of my foot. “Fallen metatarsal arch,” my chiropractor said. “Sudden increase in activity, leg muscles too weak,” my PT said.

After a particularly painful rehearsal a week before the last birthday show, I limped out the door of the studio, my dance bag filled with wet dance clothes and an empty water bottle. A gang of little girls waited at the glass doors to take their turn in the studio for ballet class. “Okay, ladies, it’s all yours,” I said, opening the door and stepping out of the way as they streamed in. Their teacher Julia, a statuesque Russian ballerina from Russia, who trained with the Bolshoi Ballet brought up the rear. 

“Hi Julia!” I said as I headed to the dressing room. 

“You are having fun?” Julia asked as she passed me. 

“Working hard!” I said.

“Yes,” she said in her Russian accent. “Working hard is our fun.” 

Dance has taught me to try. Sometimes when class starts, I think to myself, “I’ll never get through this.” Then, by the end, I’m panting and sweating and smiling. When I told Hama I wanted to drop the beginning dance class I was teaching and sign up for a writing class, he said, “Good. Do it.” I was so nervous about it, but I thought back to the day I walked into Hama’s class feeling so scared and vulnerable. Hama tells me regularly that what matters is respecting your art, respecting yourself, challenging yourself, growing. That’s where happiness is found. He scoffs at the people who want to retire to do nothing. Year after year, Hama finds ways to challenge himself and us. His class is difficult. And sometimes I feel like I never will really get it right. But my fellow dancers and I continue stretching ourselves, striving, reaching, sometimes falling. We wouldn’t want Hama to make it easier for us. We are dancers. That’s our fun.