Today on the show, I chat with Madame Olga, a celebrity teacher in New York City and online on Instagram and her streaming service Madame Olga Television.

She is known for her true Russian style of teaching, but even more so for bringing humor to the ballet studio to help dancers find their perfect 5th position through love, light, and positivity.

If you haven’t experienced a class with Madame Olga, I highly recommend that you hit pause, go to Instagram.com/madameolgav or search Madame Olga on YouTube and watch a few minutes of class with her before continuing. And then, after you listen to this podcast, you should definitely dance along with one of her classes!

Enjoy!

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Madame Olga: Hello.

Julie Gill: Welcome to the show. I'm so excited to get to chat with you today.

Madame Olga: Me too. It's wonderful to be here.

Julie Gill: You've been teaching in New York for a very long time. But now we have all had the wonderful pleasure of getting to dance with you on Instagram and now on Madame Olga TV through this difficult time, so I can't wait to hear about your story and why you spread so much love and positivity to all of us.

Madame Olga: Absolutely. I would love to share anything I can.

Julie Gill: So tell me about what your ballet training was like? Madame Olga has so much positivity to share with us all. Were you trained by positive and optimistic teachers?

Madame Olga: Oh, not exactly. Not exactly. My training was very rigid, structured. Hard-core Russian technique. Like the real deal, you know, strong, heavy, very serious. Very serious. I did not has the positive energy. It was not terrible and negative. It's just wasn't exactly the way I teach. I has developed my own style, I believe. But it was very tough, very tough. Hard. I mean, I got hit with a stick. I got hit with a stick. Yeah. And lots of yelling. Lots of "Get it right this time" "It has to be perfect." And this is important yes, to maintain this structure, that ballet is nut no, I did not has as much positive energy when I was child.

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““Yes, I think you can do it through love. I think you can teach the perfect fifth position. Through love.””

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Julie Gill: So what inspired you to spread ballet through so much positivity?

Madame Olga: Ah, I think I reached a point where I thought you know, I believe I can get the same results from the students without torturing them completely and destroying their self esteem. Ballet can really destroy your spirits. It can break you down and make you feel like zero like nothing. Like you feel you have no self worth. Yes, you dancing, but it's never good enough. It's never good enough. You're never... you're never perfect enough. Your body's never perfect enough. You didn't do perfect performance, something can be better. Part of this is inside of me all the time. Always. Once you grow up like this, it's really always there. But I thought, you know I can be.... I don't has to be like this. I feel the voice inside of me that's telling me to do something different. It really is a voice inside of me that I don't even know where it's coming from. I don't know who's talking to me. I don't know if it's the gods or the spirits or the energies or something is telling me "Olga, do this today." Or “Olga, think this, say this.” I just…. I'm trying to always learn and expand and how I can be better. I don't think I have to be a monster to be good teacher.

Julie Gill: So when when a dancer is not yet perfect, you believe as a teacher, your philosophy is that they can become perfect through a loving environment and that you don't have to tell them that they're bad. And you don't have to tell them that they're negative in order for them to learn anything. You think they can learn it through this positive environment.

Madame Olga: I absolutely 100% believe this is possible. Yes, I think you can do it through love. I think you can teach the perfect fifth position. Through love.

Not “PERFECT 5th POSITION YOU STUPID!” You tell this to a child? To a 10 year old little baby, you’d say this? “You're stupid. You don't has what it takes!” I don't believe in this. I'm sorry. I will not do this. You know. And the reason I know this is because it's happened to me, it's happened to all of us. Even the best, the best has gotten beat down. And I choose not to teach like this. I've seen many, many dancers crumble and disappear. Poof, they're gone. Because they go crazy. They lose their self esteem and they cannot… they can no longer has the confidence to perform with the confidence to cast a career if they if they feel like sh*t. I'm sorry, my language. If you feel like poopoo. You can delete this one. Yes, I'm sorry.

Julie: Why didn't you quit?

Madame Olga: Why didn’t I quit?

Julie: Yeah, why didn't you quit? Why did you stick with it?

Madame Olga: Because it's my calling. It's my it's…. The God told me to dance. The gods blessed me with the ability. And there was no there was no choice. I just, I was dancing when I was eight months old. My mother said I was dancing before I was walking. So I didn't quit because I don't… I don't quit. I just change. I just choose another direction. Another possibility, another road. I don't quit. I just reinvent myself or try another way. You know?

Julie: Well, this year is certainly a testament to that you've tried. You've you've totally changed everything about how you teach. Tell me about that process.

Madame Olga: Honestly, I did not even plan I nobody knows what was happening in the world. Nobody still knows, you know, back to March, everybody's completely lost. Now it's December. Everybody's still completely lost. Yeah, it's just, you know, what the hell is going on? But, um, the teaching, transformation reinventing online on social media. I didn't plan this this. If I remember, my friend said “Olga, you should do this. You should do this now.” Like, “Let's reach people Let's meet people around the world. Instagram Live is a thing now. It's this opportunity.” She said, my friend said “Do it.” I didn't even think to do I just I don't really think very often I just do things I just feel I feel and I listen and I just create or whatever. So it was accident. Instagram Live was total accident. I just started and I was like, “This is nice. I like this.” I love connecting to the people around the world. It's beautiful. It's a strange blessing for the difficult things that the planet is experiencing right now.

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“Instagram Live was total accident. I just started and I was like, “This is nice. I like this.” I love connecting to the people around the world. It’s beautiful. It’s a strange blessing for the difficult things that the planet is experiencing right now.”

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The Instagram Live to connect to people. It was a blessing somehow that happens.

Julie Gill: You give us all light and positivity in your classes who who gives it to you who helps who helps you maintain your positivity and light through this time? Who's your inspiration?

Madame Olga: You know, I has to admit it's called to maintain the positivity and positivity and light because I cast you cast this if I'm going to give this so I every day is I guess to say “What do I need today to find my lights my positivity so I can give.” I meditate, I pray, I look to my family for love. My mom, my friends are incredible. They're all so happy, happy people, I surround myself this happy, positive, funny, people. Funny. My friends are hysterical. So this is a way to look to keep in the light and keep in the place of love and not fear in the darkness. No.

I try to read books, maybe people that I believe, know more than me, I believe you can learn something from everybody. But if there's like a motivational speaker, or meditation, meditation CDs, I try to do lots of different things, I really do find that meditating kind of just really calms me down, not like I'm calm. But if I just do even just two minutes, if I just do two minutes, and I stop, and I just get quiet.. You know what I do, I learned this from a book, they said, very simple. You can pick a