Words by Lottie Lamont | Images by Suzy Lafosse

Like many people, before I first touched a lyra I imagined I’d be amazing at it. After all, it didn’t look that difficult. But then I enrolled in Babydoll Lyra, where I spent most of my first lesson just trying not to get stuck in the hoop and suddenly realised that maybe aerials weren’t going to be a walk in the park after all. Not the greatest beginning, particularly for someone with a tendency to quit things whenever they get too hard. It’s not exactly a trait I’m proud of, but historically I’ve preferred the novelty of something new over mastery of a skill. In other words: I’m a quitter.

When I was young, I did highland dancing, something I seemed to have a natural talent for despite minimal practice. Early on, I won or placed in every competition - but as I got older, talent became less important, and I found myself losing to dancers who were willing to put the work in. I’d love to say this inspired me to work harder and I went on to become the Australian Under 13 Highland Dance Champion, but the truth is that once I stopped winning, I decided it wasn’t worth it anymore and quit. I knew that hard work led to success, it was just that success wasn’t motivating enough to make me continue. Sure, I liked the idea of being good at something, but if being successful meant I had to train for hours and win every competition, I simply wasn’t interested.

But what if I hadn’t decided winning was the only measure of success?

One of my favourite childhood stories involves a time when I measured success in a very unique way. In primary school, I had a brief foray into competitive swimming. I was coming first in a race, after already placing second and third earlier in the day. But halfway through, I suddenly slowed down, intentionally finishing in a respectable fourth place. Why fourth place? Well, having already received a green and red ribbon, I decided that the white fourth place ribbon would match my others better than blue. For me that day, success meant having ribbons in colours I liked, not how fast I swam. It won’t surprise you to learn that my competitive swimming career ended not long after that – but I’ll never forget how happy I was on the drive home from the pool with my matching ribbons.

You may be wondering how this all relates to lyra. Or, you may have been so caught up in my fascinating tales of childhood that you completely forgot I was talking about lyra at all, but either way - allow me to circle back again. 

I’ve recently returned to lyra after a year off and it’s been a struggle.

As with most things in my life, I stopped being motivated with lyra once it became too hard. I did everything I was told to – I didn’t compare myself with others, I set small goals and focused on the little wins – but just showing up to class became a huge achievement in the end, because I wanted to be there so little. So, I stopped. I took a break and hoped maybe with time I’d fall in love with it again.

When I started taking lyra classes again this year, I told anyone who would listen that I was doing it “for fun”, without worrying about improving my skills or even getting stronger. Everyone else was wonderfully supportive, but in the absence of any traditional markers of success, I had to fight against the belief that I was wasting opportunities.

Each class that I didn’t push myself to achieve was a class where someone else could have benefitted more from the space I was taking up.

Each class that I decided I was too tired to run the routine, instead sitting on my mat and cheering everyone else on, was a class that I didn’t deserve to be there and should have let another person book my spot instead. I was stuck in a strange kind of limbo, where I didn’t want to push myself, but without goals to achieve I felt aimless. So, I thought back to my childhood, to that time when an aesthetically pleasing colour scheme mattered more to me than winning first place and realised for the first time that success can be anything. It can be those small wins. It can be working on your fluidity, your dancing, your stamina. And yes, it can even be having fun. 

Since that realisation, I’ve given myself permission to truly take lyra for fun. Some classes I work hard learning new skills and trying to regain some of my lost strength. Some classes I’m really not feeling it and I spend half my time just sitting in the hoop.

But my primary measure of success each class is did I have fun today?

If the answer is yes then I achieved my goal, regardless of how hard I worked, and I’ve slowly but surely begun to fall in love with lyra once again. In fact, I’ve recently noticed that I’m starting to feel ready to push myself again. I want to be as strong as I was before I stopped, and I want to have the same fluidity in the hoop I used to have. But no matter what other goals I set for myself, from now on the most important one will always be to remind myself to actively choose to have fun. That is how I want to measure my success. And with that as my goal who knows? Maybe my quitting days are finally behind me.