Rebecca A Withey: Taking a step outside my comfort zone – and learning a lesson for 2025 (BSL)

I’m not a big believer in New Years resolutions. I prefer to start new projects or initiate changes in the Spring, when we’re getting out of the cold, bleak winter and the freshness of new life is upon us.

Yet with the buzz word of 2024 being ‘manifest’ and my social media feed currently inundated with ‘vision boards’ and plans for 2025, I couldn’t help but wonder how I would like the coming year to pan out.

The most common ambitions for most – I’m guessing – are for health, wealth, love, career success perhaps?

Yet for me, the one thing I’d like more of this year is ‘play’. That means returning to hobbies that I used to do for the fun of them, not for a particular purpose, just because I feel like it.

How could I do that?

Dance!

I spent most of my childhood at dance school, got a dance degree and even set up two companies, choreographing and performing around the country. Yet somewhere down the line it all got heavy, and I moved into drama, sign song and writing.

So, as I perused magazines to craft my very own vision board for 2025, I found myself drawn to images of movement; leaps, spins, joyful bodies in action.

The Law of Attraction must have been watching because as fate would have it – I then received an email inviting me along to a brand new Street class for adults happening near my home.

The only issue – I would likely be the only deaf person in the room.

I tried to persuade two other deaf friends to come along, but to no avail. ‘I have no rhythm!’ they assured me. ‘I can’t dance anymore!’ they wailed.

It became clear that if I was going to dance again, I was going to have to be prepared to feel uncomfortable and do things alone – like an adult. Eek!

With the words of inspirational guru Brene Brown in my head (‘I can do hard things!’) I promptly emailed the dance teacher to let her know I was deaf and explained what I would need.

I’m a lot deaf-er than I was growing up and can no longer rely on lipreading alone to get me through.

The dance teacher responded to my email in highly enthusiastic tones. ‘Of course it’s not a problem! I can do visual cues! You will be fine! Come along! It will be great!’

Those exclamation marks alone should have concerned me.Still,  I went along.

Waiting in the foyer for the class to begin, I started to wonder if I’d made a mistake. The other ladies all hugged as they greeted one another, chatted and laughed loudly.

Everyone – bar two other people- seemed to know each other. I knew no-one and I could feel a gnawing insecurity in the pit of my stomach.

Should I just leave and say ‘everyone was hearing, I couldn’t do it?’ Or stay and at least give it a go. My legs were glued to the floor and before I could move, the dance teacher arrived at beckoned us all into the studio.

I resolved to give it a go – at least.

Expecting to jump straight into a warm up and dance routine, I waited around as the other Mums giggled and chatted, making jokes (I assumed) with the teacher who laughed back.

I smiled and looked around expectantly but I seemed to be invisible.

Eventually, the teacher introduced those who were ‘new’ and after mistaking me for someone called ‘Amber,’ (?!) told the class that “Rebecca will need visual cues…”

Cue the sympathetic looks as they all clocked my hearing aid and smiled politely.

After what felt like an age of chit-chat we finally got onto the dance floor. The routine itself was simple enough. My rhythmical memory served me well and my body moved easily.

What was hard, however, was not having a clue what anyone was saying. Pretending I wasn’t bothered – that was hard. Making it look like I was happy to stand there clueless, was difficult.

It was probably just inane chatter that I didn’t really need to know about, but that feeling of exclusion really stung.

The dance teacher knew I couldn’t hear a thing yet in a group of people, she had forgotten all about me.

I attempted to chat to another lady, and made a light hearted joke to another but nobody – it seemed – was aware of just how isolated I was. Still, they stood around talking in between dance routines and I watched, none the wiser.

Now, I have been to the odd dance class over the years and I also regularly attend fitness classes – so I’m not a stranger to being amongst hearingies. But on that evening, I had never felt so excluded.

What made it worse was that the studio was not mirrored and the teacher preferred to have her back to us and dance along, rather than face us and mirror our actions. So I couldn’t see her counting in or lipread any instructions.

So much for the visual cues(!)

There was also far too much chat in the class and not enough dance. I thought it was a movement class I’d signed up for, not a social night?

As I drove home that night, I felt a mixture of emotions. I was proud of myself for doing something new but I felt an achy tinge of sadness that I couldn’t ignore.

Yes – stepping out of your comfort zone means entering new places and advocating for yourself and speaking up about your needs. But I suppose it’s also brave to recognise when it’s time to walk away and go elsewhere.

Certain teachers, when they know you’re deaf, will ask what you need to participate and will be conscious of that throughout the class. Their aim is to teach you as best they can and they use flexible, adaptable methods to include you in their class.

Others – like the one I met – will just carry on as normal and expect you to manage regardless. Once they are around others who are hearing – they become completely oblivious to your needs.

Now, I could return and attempt to ‘educate’ this new dance teacher and everybody else and just ‘suck it up’ when they’re all having group discussions (which they undoubtedly will!)

Or I could just accept that this particular class isn’t a match for me and look elsewhere.

There’s no need to tolerate environments that aren’t supportive, if you can help it, is there?

I guess that’s the first lesson of 2025 for me. What does everybody else plan to get up to this year?

I’m off to a line dancing class tonight – wish me luck cowboys!

Rebecca A Withey is the Assistant Editor for The Limping Chicken. She is also a script writer, BSL consultant and creative artist based in the Midlands. Rebecca is a Deaf, bilingual BSL user. Find out more at www.rawithey.com