Former Dancer Reveals the Hardest Adjustment to Joining the Amish Community (Exclusive)

Kendra Bates is one of six individuals who gave up their modern lives to join the Amish community on TLC’s new show Suddenly Amish.

The 33-year-old has pursued a professional dance career in Los Angeles for the past nine years, but after finding her faith as a Christian, Bates began to reject her former path. However, during the premiere of the reality series — which aired on Tuesday, Jan. 13 — her nearly decade working as a performer proved to clash more with Amish tradition than Bates expected.

The first episode sees an Amish leader, Bishop Vernon, questioning Bates about her short skirt and plunging neckline. She explained that as a dancer, she’s accustomed to wearing revealing clothing, and she broke down in tears after the Bishop chastised her for a lack of modesty. After their meeting, Bates emotionally proclaimed that she “wasn’t expecting it to be that hard.”

Speaking to PEOPLE, she reiterates how past experiences made her feel somewhat indifferent about dressing in more revealing clothing.

“I’m used to being put into tiny outfits, not even in a sexual way. That’s been such a norm for me from the age of 4 and 5. I’m used to that. I grew up like that,” says Bates. “Even with living in L.A., people dress like that all the time.”

Joining the Amish tradition may seem like a dramatic change for someone like Bates, but she’s actually much more familiar with restrictive lifestyles than the typical outsider. Just a few generations before her, her family was part of the Mennonite community. While Mennonites tend to accept modernity more than the Amish do, there’s a significant overlap in beliefs and practices.

So when Bates saw the casting ad for Suddenly Amish, she felt “really excited” to get in touch with her family roots. Still, rethinking her typical wardrobe and leaving modern technology behind proved to be even more of a culture shock than she could’ve expected.

At first, she says life without a cell phone was disorienting, since it’s something most people hold “in our faces” every day, as Bates puts it. Quickly, however, she started to see the upside of the dramatic unplugging.

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“I will say, the Amish have it fantastic. Being in the Amish community, my stress was gone, my anxiety was gone. I felt so much more present in the moment,” she reflects. “I think that’s the beautiful thing about going into this is you do get a different perspective and then you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, what’s normal to me might not be normal to everybody else.'”