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Authors: Patrick Swayze, Lisa Niemi
Tags: Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Self-Help, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Motivational & Inspirational
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realized it was over. During a break in rehearsals, I talked to Cora Cahan. I broke down in tears, saying, “Cora, I don’t think I can do this anymore,” but she didn’t want to hear it. She tried to talk me out of leaving, but I knew I was done. I just couldn’t go on—not even for the chance to dance an important New York season with Baryshnikov. That week, I told Eliot I wouldn’t be going on the South America tour, and just like that, my career as a professional ballet dancer was over.
It’s hard to describe how devastating this decision was for me. I had worked so hard, and come so far, and just when it was all about to pay off I had to walk away. Even now, I get emotional thinking about it. With all the amazing experiences I’ve had as an actor, nothing really compares to the sense of joy and exhilaration dancing gives you. Leaving the ballet world created a void in me that I spent years trying to fill.
At the same time, I felt as if I’d let everyone down—Eliot Feld, the other dancers, my mother, Lisa, myself. I had wanted to be the best, and in the end it felt as if I had given up on mydream. Lisa tried to console me, pointing out that I’d gone incredibly far considering the injury and pain I was constantly dealing with. But it all sounded hollow, like lame justification. For so long I had been Patrick Swayze, aspiring ballet dancer. What would I do now?
Back when I was at San Jacinto Junior College, I’d had to deal with watching my dream of competing in the Olympics go down the tubes. That had been a huge disappointment, but it was not even close to the devastation I felt now. But fortunately, I had learned an incredible lesson from that first loss: When one dream dies, you have to move on to a new one. I could have fallen into serious depression when I left Eliot Feld, and very nearly did. But the lesson in self-preservation that I learned from that first disappointment saved me in the second one.
As I struggled to come to terms with my decision to leave the ballet world, two things kept me going. One was that I knew I had Lisa standing by my side, no matter what. The other was my growing interest in different spiritual philosophies, including Buddhist philosophy, which I had begun studying after I moved to New York.
Ever since I was a boy, I was always interested in the whole range of beliefs out there in the world. I’d gone to Catholic Masses growing up, and even considered becoming a priest at one point, but eventually I became disillusioned with Catholicism. The Catholic schools I’d attended were populated by the kind of mean nuns and knuckle-rapping priests you read about in books, which didn’t do much to lead me further into the faith, and I even got in trouble once as an altar boy for sneaking sips of wine in the vestibule.
I always was curious about spirituality, though, so I startedexploring other options. In high school I devoured Kahlil Gibran’s writings, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s
The Little Prince,
and Eugen Herrigel’s
Zen in the Art of Archery.
These books spoke to me in a way church sermons didn’t, and I drank them in like a thirsty man. And because I had studied martial arts for so long, I was also familiar with the notion of
chi
—the search to connect with your true self.
Once I left Texas, I continued on this spiritual journey, studying different belief systems and trying out new philo-sophies. New York in the 1970s was a hothouse of spiritual exploration—everyone was looking for something to bring meaning to their lives. Lisa and I spent a couple of weekends doing est—Erhard Seminars Training—which was a hugely popular, and controversial, seminar. Founded by Werner Erhard, the est system aimed to tear you down hard and then build you back up to be better than you were, by teaching you how to take responsibility for your own life and actions. The training was wrenching, not least, as Lisa and I later joked, because they wouldn’t even let you go to the
It’s hard to describe how devastating this decision was for me. I had worked so hard, and come so far, and just when it was all about to pay off I had to walk away. Even now, I get emotional thinking about it. With all the amazing experiences I’ve had as an actor, nothing really compares to the sense of joy and exhilaration dancing gives you. Leaving the ballet world created a void in me that I spent years trying to fill.
At the same time, I felt as if I’d let everyone down—Eliot Feld, the other dancers, my mother, Lisa, myself. I had wanted to be the best, and in the end it felt as if I had given up on mydream. Lisa tried to console me, pointing out that I’d gone incredibly far considering the injury and pain I was constantly dealing with. But it all sounded hollow, like lame justification. For so long I had been Patrick Swayze, aspiring ballet dancer. What would I do now?
Back when I was at San Jacinto Junior College, I’d had to deal with watching my dream of competing in the Olympics go down the tubes. That had been a huge disappointment, but it was not even close to the devastation I felt now. But fortunately, I had learned an incredible lesson from that first loss: When one dream dies, you have to move on to a new one. I could have fallen into serious depression when I left Eliot Feld, and very nearly did. But the lesson in self-preservation that I learned from that first disappointment saved me in the second one.
As I struggled to come to terms with my decision to leave the ballet world, two things kept me going. One was that I knew I had Lisa standing by my side, no matter what. The other was my growing interest in different spiritual philosophies, including Buddhist philosophy, which I had begun studying after I moved to New York.
Ever since I was a boy, I was always interested in the whole range of beliefs out there in the world. I’d gone to Catholic Masses growing up, and even considered becoming a priest at one point, but eventually I became disillusioned with Catholicism. The Catholic schools I’d attended were populated by the kind of mean nuns and knuckle-rapping priests you read about in books, which didn’t do much to lead me further into the faith, and I even got in trouble once as an altar boy for sneaking sips of wine in the vestibule.
I always was curious about spirituality, though, so I startedexploring other options. In high school I devoured Kahlil Gibran’s writings, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s
The Little Prince,
and Eugen Herrigel’s
Zen in the Art of Archery.
These books spoke to me in a way church sermons didn’t, and I drank them in like a thirsty man. And because I had studied martial arts for so long, I was also familiar with the notion of
chi
—the search to connect with your true self.
Once I left Texas, I continued on this spiritual journey, studying different belief systems and trying out new philo-sophies. New York in the 1970s was a hothouse of spiritual exploration—everyone was looking for something to bring meaning to their lives. Lisa and I spent a couple of weekends doing est—Erhard Seminars Training—which was a hugely popular, and controversial, seminar. Founded by Werner Erhard, the est system aimed to tear you down hard and then build you back up to be better than you were, by teaching you how to take responsibility for your own life and actions. The training was wrenching, not least, as Lisa and I later joked, because they wouldn’t even let you go to the
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