Category Archives: life

Aerials: When “Can’t” Becomes “Can”

May 24

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(Also highly relevant to dance, btw.)

I’ll start with a caveat.

As we are very fond of saying at the studio:

  1. Bodies are different.
  2. Bodies are weird.

…Which is a long way of saying that “Can’t” is okay.

As a dancer, gymnast, and equestrian, I’ve experienced a lot of that “No such thing as can’t” conditioning — I still wrestle with it frequently, though for me, it’s usually on a mental-health level or a neurological-weirdness level rather than on a physical-performance level.

Aerials have taught me that, really, the proportions of my body — which are great for dance and for most things in aerials — make some skills really hard, even potentially impossible. It’s also teaching me that, you know, that’s probably okay.

I haven’t hit a skill yet that’s really, truly impossible, but I can tell you that T-rex arms make doing a half-Russian out of a half-mill pretty freaking hard. I may or may not ever find a way to make it happen smoothly; I may have to work on it until my body finds its own special way of doing it.

That’s okay, though. Half-mill into half-Russian is one skill out of a zillion. There are other skills I can use instead.

That’s not quite a true can’t, but it’s an indication that part of me is willing to move towards a world where can’t is as okay for me as it is for other people.

We’re allowed to have can’ts. In fact, we probably should have can’ts. If we were all equally good at everything all the time, maybe there wouldn’t be room to appreciate artists, spectacular surgeons, and for those people who are amazingly gifted in the realms of the heart.

There’s some real truth to the idea that the shadows allow us to appreciate the light (and vice-versa), and while some of the can’ts in our lives hurt too much to think about them this way, others sting a lot less when we come to see them that way. (That doesn’t mean, though, that it’s wrong to fight to overcome your own personal can’ts. Probably the middle road, some of each, is the healthiest approach.)

Basically, everyone has a can’t somewhere, and that’s okay.

~

That being said, there is something I love so very, very much about aerials, and it’s this.

Every now and then, there’s this magical moment when something that used to be a can’t suddenly transforms into a can.

Of course, that’s not really how it happens.

What really happens is that you practice that skill, or other skills that train the same muscles and build related neural pathways, and then a moment arrives when, Boom! It all comes together, and it seems like a miracle.

Or, like, maybe it just is a miracle. Empiricism is great and all, but it isn’t everything.

Anyway, I had one of those moments today in mixed-apparatus class. We were doing vine climb to crescent moon (here’s an image [opens in new tab]).

This, by the way, is one of the skills that are more challenging for me because of the way I’m built. The last time I tried it, my body basically didn’t “get it,” and I haven’t done it since (not on purpose; it’s just how things have shaken out).

Today, it just happened brilliantly, beautifully. I was able to sail right into crescent moon effortlessly (and did a straight-leg variation that apparently impressed the hell out of everyone; I’m going to have to get a picture of this).

I haven’t really practiced these skills; I’ve just practiced related skills enough that it came together today — and that felt amazing.

Suddenly, this thing that used to be a can’t had magically become a can.

And that felt so good.

This is one of the things I love most about aerials (and about dance). I love those moments when things that felt like I would just never, ever be able to do them magically transform into things I can do and do well.

Those moments only happen, of course, if you stick with it — and I think that this may well be the greatest lesson that aerials and dance can teach us.

When we experience those moments in which can’t becomes can, we begin to think of ourselves differently. We begin to regard ourselves as people who are capable; as people who succeed.

Likewise, we watch other people experience that same transformation, and we begin to see them the same way.

We learn to feel this way in spite of our can’ts; in spite of those other areas in our life in which we continue to be less than able.

If we are fortunate, we learn to see past those areas; we learn to see that they are not barriers to a kind of overall can.

For what it’s worth, I think this is the same knowledge that good support services for people with disabilities imparts.

I used to think of myself more as someone who couldn’t: someone whose neurology stood in the way of success. A lot of parts of day-to-day life are hard for me in ways that can be really frustrating and even demoralizing, and for a long time I internalized the hell out of that. I felt like I had to fight with everything in me to wrestle that set of can’ts into the ground; to be as “normal” as possible, no matter the cost.

Dance and aerials have taught me that my strengths lie elsewhere — and that they’re considerable.

They’ve taught me to regard myself as someone who is profoundly capable, but in ways that are maybe kind of different and not entirely compatible with the usual 9-to-5 (or 6:30, or 8:30) world.

They’ve taught me that those ways of being capable are good, and valuable, and actually pretty awesome.

That opportunity should be available to everyone.

Not that everyone has to reach it through aerials or dance — some people reach it through math, or the study of history, or organizing (seriously, this is probably the most under-appreciated gift in the whole of the Western world), or homemaking, or knitting, or bringing people together, or through an uncanny ability to navigate the difficult waters of the human heart.

I hope that, in time, we’ll grow into a culture that appreciates every one of these gifts (and all the others that I haven’t listed; we’d be here for the rest of forever if I tried).

One of Denis’ great gifts in working with his clients (adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities) is helping them transform their can’ts into cans; helping them reach their moments of can.

He believes in people with a kind of unshakable faith, and he helps them believe in themselves.

I have seen aerials do the same thing for so many people now — so many people come in saying, Oh, I’ll never be able to do that or I’m too weak or (as I once said) I don’t have the upper-body strength for that.

As our trainers are so fond of saying, “That’s why you come to aerials class.”

That, and to reveal the vast treasury of your undiscovered can.

Posted in aerials, balllet, life, mitzvot

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Time To Get Serious*

May 6

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*Insofar as I am capable of ever being serious about anything, ever, because I am a focused person, a dedicated person, an all-of-that-kind-of-stuff person, but serious? I’m not sure that’s the best descriptor, really, where I’m concerned.

So, yeah.

I am thinking about injuries, and my history of accumulating them, and being like, “Ha! Ohai! I haz hurted myself again,” and then basically making jokes about it because that’s way easier than actually admitting that I’m hella pissed at myself.

But, like, I am.

Pissed at myself, that is (for my Brits: I don’t mean I’m drunk at myself, I mean I’m mad at myself … this time … which you probably already knew from context because you’re smart, but somehow my inner Smart-Alec just wouldn’t let me not say it).

Or, well, I was.

And then I realized that I’m looking at this incorrectly.

Denis-02-28-2016-PointYourGolDarnToesDenis

Denis recommends a change in perspective.

I have a habit of injuring myself mildly, which just happens in Teh Ballets and in life at large sometimes, because humans can be careful but can’t be perfect.

Injuring myself mildly from time to time wouldn’t be a big deal in and of itself.

The problem is that I also then have a problem of doing things that exacerbate minor injuries and turn them into major ones, like I did this week.

I’ve been mad at myself because I was like, “That’s just careless.”

Except, it’s not. Carelessness isn’t the problem.

The problem is that I don’t perceive pain normally and I’m stupidly hypermobile (okay, and my drive to do things like dance and aerials often exceeds my limited supply of common sense).

but-a-scratch

Shamelessly stolen from Monty Python by everyone ever.

So, basically, parts of me don’t start hurting when they should, then stop hurting before they should. The level of pain I experience does not accurately reflect the severity of any given injury, nor do they reflect how much it has healed.

Theoretically, the deep muscle in my “thut” (that’s thigh-butt; you can thank my aerials instructors for that one!) that I could barely use yesterday should be causing a shedload of pain today, but it actually doesn’t hurt at all**.

**Maybe it would if I tried to do the things I’m not supposed to do. Maybe it wouldn’t. I don’t plan to find out the hard way. At any rate, it should at least be sore.

Note to self: THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT EVERYTHING IS FINE.

pets-stuck-696x362

Everything is fine. (Shamelessly ganked from heroviral.com.)

Likewise, parts of me stretch in ways that increase the likelihood of injury under certain circumstances. This is partly due to associated abnormalities in proprioception and pain perception (see above) and partly due to the fact that greater flexibility often correlates with reduced strength.

Not that I’m not strong; I’m just not necessarily strong in the places that will prevent me from doing things like yoinking the crap out of my turnout muscles.

O-Turns-Why

Seriously, there is absolutely nothing wrong here, guys. Everything is definitely under control.

I haven’t been treating this seriously. I’ve been too busy being delighted about the things that my abnormal pain perception and hypermobility let me do to be willing to countenance the fact that they also predispose me to injuries that I could better avoid if I was, basically, less weird.

As they say: “You take the good with the bad.” And I’ve been trying only to take the good, without accounting for the bad.

This past week, I turned a minor strain into a major one and bought myself several days off dancing and a term of about six weeks to full recovery (with appropriate management).

I wasn’t being careless. Things just didn’t hurt, so I carried on as usual. My leg was a little stiff and sore in the morning, but felt okay enough by the time class rolled around, and really quite okay indeed by the time trapeze class rolled around — so I proceeded with business as usual.

bidness

Business as usual (actual video to follow … eventually).

This is the same approach that bought me a layoff of a couple of months last year, followed by a long reconditioning period.

Obviously, a rate of one serious injury per year is quite a bit higher than is really sustainable.

So, in additional to healing, I plan to spend the next several weeks learning how to prevent injuries to my specific body. Clearly, this will mean developing both better awareness of what’s going on in my body and a greater willingness to turn to my live-in Physio (AKA my husband, Denis) when I think I have a minor injury and follow his advice.

bad-idea

This is me, not following advice (because I hadn’t asked for any). For the record, yes – that *is* the leg I strained, though this is not how I strained it. Bizarrely, that involved neither aerials nor ballet. In other news: yup, I am still pasty.

And, of course, because I like to write about everything (if nothing else, it serves as a kind of external backup drive), I’ll probably be writing about this process here.

So there you have it. Some insights about injuries that I don’t think I really had before.

Also a terrifying picture of my butt. Holy chromoly. Who stuffed ‘roid-raging weasels down my tights?!

Posted in aerials, balllet, healing, health, injuries, life, life management

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Herp de Derp

May 5

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I tried to post a video of my trapeze choreography (which is now memorized, so I’m on to working timings and applying polish!), but it failed for some reason, and then I derped out on posting class notes yesterday.

I’ll get the video up ASAP, though I think I might have to go the “Upload to YouTube > Embed to Blorg” route.

Yesterday’s Killer Class was pretty excellent, albeit hampered by the Groin Pull That Will Not Die (Why can’t I wait until the day before a week-long vacation to injure myself?! Seriously, you guys, I have a whole week in October scheduled for that kind of thing.).

The Pull didn’t like turns, so I did very few of them on the left supporting leg. I had doubles on the right (technically the left), though, so go me? Still not as good by any means as Company B’s.

Company B is a beautiful dancer, and I watch the crap out of him every time he’s in class, because I find it educational (okay, and also because OMG he’s just freaking “fearfully and wonderfully made”). Watching him yesterday, I had a huge light bulb moment that made a drastic improvement to my ballotté. I did one run-through of the final petite allegro to get that update installed, so to speak, even though I’d ducked out after the warm-up jumps.

Trapeze class was pretty good; still can’t get smoothly from half-mill to half-Russian (T-rex arms: the struggle is real!). I’m now forbidden to work on them for at least a week, anyhow, while this groin injury heals. Life is hard when you sleep with your physiotherapist.

I’m on full-time rest for the next couple of days, which is less annoying than it would be if this wasn’t Derby Weekend, which makes getting into or out of my neighborhood a nightmare and this reduces the angst factor. I definitely exacerbated the existing injury yesterday.

Best to take the rest now and heal so I will be in shape for our show and for the Cinci intensive.

And then ,no more injuries until October!

Posted in aerials, balllet, class notes, healing, life

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In Which Budgetary Constraints Make For Easier Decisions, For Once

Apr 29

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As a physical therapist who specializes in adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities, Denis is reimbursed for his services primarily through Medicaid.

Upcoming regulatory changes both to reimbursement rates and the delivery of services mean that right now he’s considering taking a full-time staff position rather than continuing in private practice.

I started to write about the details of that decision here, and then realized that was going to be a really, really long post; it it’s a question of regulatory changes that reflect both good intentions and terrible implementation, and it really deserves a thorough treatment in its own post.

Anyway, as such, we’re keeping our belts a little tighter until we know what’s what, and both Sun King and Mam Luft’s full-day track are off the table until the dust settles.

Realistically, that might not happen until mid-June, and since Mam Luft & Co’s summer intensive takes place the first week of June, that’s obviously a spanner in the works.

Fortunately, Mam Luft & Co has an evening track which costs roughly half as much as the full-day track — and which falls well within the scope of my monthly discretionary budget.

Thus, I’ve signed up for Mam Luft & Co’s evening track. On one hand, I’m a tad disappointed, because I really wanted to do the Contemporary Ballet classes offered as part of the full-day track. Likewise, I’m kind of bummed that I won’t be able to participate in the performance at the end, since that’s specific to the full-day track.

On the other hand, I’m really excited about the partnering, improv, and music awareness classes that make up a big chunk of the evening track’s course load, and I can add the Contemporary Ballet class if I want to by adding a “Pick 3 Classes” registration (which, at $54, is a reasonable add-on; I’ll need to do something during the day, after all).

Since Contemporary Ballet is on the second day of the program, I think I probably won’t be too cooked to handle the early-ish start (evening track classes end at 10:10 PM; the Contemporary Ballet class starts at 9 AM o_O).

I didn’t check the “I want to audition for the company” box on the the application, because I’m not sure that I have anything like enough modern dance experience, but maybe I’ll write to them and ask about that. Apparently men are strongly encouraged to audition, so there’s that?

It doesn’t make sense to car-commute 2 hours each way the whole time, so I’ll find a place to stay in Cincinnati for the week (I’m hoping for some place with a swimming pool; that would make an awesome counterpart to dancing), and then I’ll have to find ways to entertain myself during the day.

Honestly, that shouldn’t be a huge problem: I’m pretty good at keeping myself entertained. I plan to do some research over the next few weeks, find fun cheap-or-free things to do by day, and bring my bike (because if all else fails, I can always amuse myself by riding the bike … probably very slowly, and only in the flattest parts of Cinci I can find, but riding the bike nonetheless).

And, of course, there’s always the magical land of IKEA.

For July, Lexington Ballet’s week-long adult summer intensive is very much on my radar. At $275, it’s also quite affordable.

LexBallet’s program is evenings only, but like Cinci, Lexington is a nice place to visit, and I’m sure I can amuse myself during the day for a week. I also know my way around pretty well, and I will definitely bring my bike, since there’s some very nice riding in Lexington. If I’m lucky, I may be able to stay with friends, or with friends-of-friends, since I still know people there.

I’ll need to register by June 15th, but that seems very much doable even if things are still up in the air, financially speaking.

So it looks like I’ll probably be doing two one-week summer programs this year, in addition to my usual ballet-and-modern schedule.

So that’s my summer planned:

June:

Suspend Spring Showcase
Mam Luft & Co Intensive (Evening Track)
PlayThink Festival

July:

Lexington Ballet Adult Intensive

August: 

Burning Man!

And that’s it for now. I should go finish my various houseworky things, as we have all kinds of crazy plans all weekend.

Posted in balllet, life, modern, summer intensives

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Pilobolus Master Class All Up In My Drawers

Apr 23

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…Wait, what?

Kids, this is why punctuation is important. That should read:

Pilobolus Master Class; All Up In My Drawers

First: Pilobolus Master Class!

You guys, it was so great.

I feel like I learned a great deal about the process of creating dances through improv, and it was cool to dance in an environment where technique wasn’t even a thing. The guys from Pilobolus basically said, “We love dancers and we love dance technique, but if you’re someone who spends hours every day in class, please check your technique at the door.” As someone who loves technique but can get a bit too invested in it, that idea was very freeing.

I am a horrible person, and have forgotten the names of our ambassadors of Pilobolus, but they were both very cool guys and very good teachers — though this process was as much one of bringing out what’s already there as one of teaching. The teaching part was more about figuring out how to use what’s already there.

I must admit that I went into it a bit worried that I’d be all stiff and horrible because…

OMG STRANGERZ!!!11!!!1one1oneomgwtfbbq

…But apparently I overlooked the part where, like, you know, dancing? …When I was worrying about that.

If dance is involved, I seem to do relatively okay in groups of new people.

At the end of class, we broke into three groups and created three short (about 4 minutes) dances in the span of about five minutes, performed them, critiqued them, refined them over another two (two!) minutes, then performed them again.

All three dances were completely different, and all three of them were cool, but one (not my group’s; ours was silly) was really stirring and moving. I hope some of the dancers will take it and run with it, because it was really, really good.

I feel like I want to let this whole experience percolate a bit more, then write about it at greater length. It was, in short, just an amazing two-ish hours (happily, we ran over the original 1.5-hour class time).

It turns out that Pilobolus holds a 3-week summer workshop series (in Connecticut, yay!). I’m going to have to seriously consider whether I can figure out how to afford at least one week this year. Curiously, the name of the third workshop, Vision & Revision, was also the name of my favorite writing class when I was in high school.

Serendipity, much?

 

And Now: All Up In My Drawers!

I did manage to make it to IKEA afterwards.

My one real goal was to acquire a second Big Blue Bag, which will greatly improve my laundry system. Heretofore, I’ve been using one Big Blue Bag and any of my various not-quite-as-ginormous shopping bags.

The second Big Blue Bag wasn’t essential, but it will make the system run more smoothly, since now I’ll have two dedicated laundry bags of the same size.

While cruising through the store (you guys, it is so nice to walk through an IKEA all alone), however, I found something even better: specifically, Drawerganizers(TM).

Since keeping tights and so forth corralled is a fairly regular topic of conversation among dancers and aerialists in my life, I thought I’d share the current iteration of my system, which mostly comprises hair elastics, a plastic crate, and IKEA’s set of 6 Skubb boxes. (Sadly, the Cincy IKEA didn’t have the aqua ones in stock.)

I’ve been meaning to implement a boxes-in-the-drawers system for a while, but hadn’t found Drawerganizers that worked for me (shoeboxes would have been fine, probably, but we didn’t have any). The Skubb series works really nicely, and I couldn’t argue with the price — something like $8 for the set — or the portability factor. The boxes fold up rather ingeniously; when you set them up, little zippers in the floor panels add tension that keeps them in shape.

So, here’s how things are organized now:

image

First Floor: Cycling Apparel, Men’s Shirts, and The Occasional Sarong

Bottom Drawer (technically the second drawer from the bottom; the real bottom drawer houses bed linens): this one’s full of bike kit, a few pairs of shorts, and a bunch of t-shirts that I should probably donate, since I don’t wear them enough.

Bike kit used to share the dance clothes drawer (which was the Bike Kit Drawer until I had too much bike kit to keep it all in one drawer), but then the dance kit kind of took over. Anyway, I’ve used the two medium-sized Skubb boxes to contain bike kit.

Overflow bike kit lives in a vertical organizer in the guest room closet, because I am apparently unusually sentimental about my Cabal jerseys, even the ones I don’t wear very often.

And, yes, there’s even a sarong in there, though I don’t think you can see it in this shot.

Next time I’m at IKEA, I’ll pick up a couple more Skubb boxes to corral the things that are still roaming free.

image

Second Floor: Dance Apparel, Fuzzy Socks, and Thermal Tights*

Top Drawer: Dance kit and almost nothing else.

Until recently, I’ve alternated between folding and rolling my tights, and found that neither really prevents everything from coming undone when I’m digging for that one pair with the pictures of mountains on it or whatevs.

The other day, I hit on the solution of buying a package of brightly-colored hair ties to keep them contained. It works brilliantly.

In combination with the hair ties, the Skubb boxes keep things corralled and controlled. No more tights rolling into the base-layer section; no more dance belts hiding under legwarmers (right now, for decency’s sake, they’re hiding under a pair of socks instead).

Things that didn’t really fit anywhere else take up the extra space in the drawer in front of the Skubbs.

image

Rooftop Terrace: Aerial Apparel, Clutter, and Mayhem

On Top Of Ol’ Dresser: Denis’ tights live here, along with our white-noise machine (which is really an air purifier), a photo from our wedding, and a terrifying doll that predates my tenure in this establishment. There are also some foam panels that insulate our air-con when it’s installed, but right now it’s still on vacation.

I found the plastic basket at a place called Five Below, but you can find similar ones just about anywhere.

The fact that Denis has his own tights-basket means he no longer asks me where his tights are (when they’re right freaking there!) or roots through my dance-kit drawer, leaving chaos in his wake. Seriously, the man is like a water buffalo sloshing around in a pond when he gets in there.

My married peeps (and anyone with kids or particularly egregious housemates; similar things can happen in kitchen drawers) will understand how this helps keep me out of prison.

image

La Pièce de Resistance

A cheap keychain-grade carabiner slipped through a convenient opening in the “weave” of the basket holds the hair elastics that aren’t currently in use. I’ve oriented it so the gate can be operated without removing the whole carabiner: you just slide a band up to the top, open the gate, and the band comes right out. The process for replacing one is similarly painless.

I had to think long and hard about how to implement this bit, because my husband is a lazy slob (and will happily tell you so himself). The idea is to make it so freaking easy to put the bands back that it’s basically easier than not bothering.

You guys, I seriously believe in the power of harnessing the path of least resistance. Remember, when (ahem) shaping (ahem) the behavior of spouses, appealing to the natural laziness of the human animal will save you many headaches.

So, there you have it. A tour of how things are staying organized all up in my drawers (dancers be like, “Wait, isn’t that what dance belts are for?” :V).

…And, now, on to the rest of the house.

*gulp*

 

 

 

*So organize. Very boxes. Wow.

Posted in adhd, balllet, homemakering, life, life management, shiny

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Momentary Gratitude

Apr 13

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When your brain is wired bipolar-fashion, it’s not always possible to do the whole “attitude of gratitude” thing consistently.

But it does happen, for me, sometimes, and now is one of those moments, so I think it might be good to record here a few specifics, so maybe I can refer back to them later.

So here we go.

I am grateful for the strength and adaptability of my body, which allow me to do amazing things.

I am grateful also for the weaknesses of my body, which keep me humbler and more human than I could be without then.

I am grateful for the path my life is on, as strange and hard as it is sometimes, and for the messengers in my life who remind me that control is an illusion and that not all who wander are lost.

I am grateful for the path my life has taken, through dark places and through bright, because it has brought me here, and here is pretty good.

I am grateful that I am able to feel that way, at least right now.

I’m grateful for the knowledge that gratitude, like everything else, is fleeting and enduring all at once, and for the knowledge that I’ll lose my grip on it, but that’s okay, because I’ll get it back.

I’m grateful for the freedom to be as I am made, and to live this weird, liminal life, even though tomorrow I’ll lyrically complain both about the way I’m made and the life I’m living. That’s okay, too. I’ll get it back.

I’m grateful for having lived long enough now to know that this moment will pass, that harder ones will follow but that these, too, will pass.

I’m grateful fly the burgeoning ability to take both these kinds of moments and turn them into art.

I’m grateful for a life that lets me do so.

Tomorrow I might be ungrateful and irritable. That will be okay. It happens to the best of us.

Today, right now, in this moment, I’m grateful.for these things, and other things, and for all the people who have helped me see.

Posted in choreography, life

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Aerials: That Moment When You See The Lightbulb Come On

Apr 12

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The seeds of what will make you a unique master of your particular passion are already present. Trust yourself. Don’t give up.

— Emily Hursh

Today I went to noon Mixed Apparatus Class, which is quickly becoming one of my favorites (though we didn’t get to do trapeze .. bleh).

There were seven or eight of us today, up from the usual 3, which was kind of nice (though we missed having our little semi-private tiny group class :D). One of them is a really awesome lady who started training recently at the insistence of her son (who is in a bunch of my classes).

While we were working on silks, she said something like, “…You guys who have been doing this forever always look so great.”

I said, “Thanks!” and stepped up to take my next turn on the silks. Only later did I realize that she actually thought we’d seriously been training for, I don’t know, more than a year anyway.

At the next opportunity, I mentioned that we’d just started in January, and she’d probably be where we are in a couple of months.

You know how in cartoons, there’s that lightbulb-over-the-head thing that happens? I swear that was what happened today.

And that was really cool, because it is great to watch someone realize that the next goal is closer than they thought.

(For what it’s worth, I’m having a lot — a lot — of these lightbulb moments in ballet right now. Things Are Coming Together.)

Anyway, that was awesome. It’s nice to be the bearer of good news for once!

In that vein, then, let me direct you to this amazing post on Living Omily about The Gap (not the place where you can buy overpriced trousers):

Whether or not you cirque, if you’re doing creative work (Ballet Peeps, Assemblé!), you should read Emily’s post*. I am almost willing to guarantee that it will speak to you.

*You can also read Emily Post if, like me, you are fascinated by the ever-evolving rules of etiquette, though it might not be especially relevant to this particular topic.
I don’t know if I’ve said this here, but dance and aerials are making me a better person, and Emily’s post also does a really great job explaining why.

So, yeah. There’s that. The funny thing is, I saw Emily’s post (linked by one of my instructors, the Fabulous Ms. A, on the facebarge) after I started writing this. So, yeah, serendipity in action.

And now I have to go do some work and then maybe try to take a nap, though I am actually terrible at napping because it takes me so long to fall asleep that usually I have to get up before I nod off.

Tomorrow it’s Ms. B’s Killer Class, Trap 2 (YASSSS!), and conditioning … woof. Better get some sleep tonight!

À bîentot, mes amis!

Posted in aerials, balllet, life

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A Freight Train Called Depression

Apr 4

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In terms of ballet and in terms of aerials, 2016 has been a good year.

I am a far better dancer now than I was at this time last year. In fact, I’m a far better dancer than I was six months or so back, when I auditioned a piece for a show in Cincinnati. It wasn’t accepted* but the act of auditioning changed how I thought about myself as a dancer and a choreographer: which is to say that without even realizing it I began to think of myself, unequivocally, as a dancer, and as someone who works in the ephemeral medium of dance. It made me buckle down and really focus on learning my craft.

*Which is fine: looking back on it, now, I can see that it was deeply unready, and while it would’ve probably been a decent piece by February, it wouldn’t have been the piece it should be; more on that later.

The hard thing, the really hard thing, is that life being a thousand times better than it once was — while it helps — doesn’t stop bipolar disorder in its tracks.

Mania still leans on the throttle, sending the whole thing charging wildly into the unknown, fired by over-stoked engines.

Depression still roars out of the night and crushes me under its wheels. I still live a life in which, at times — more times than I care to admit — I’m clinging by the skin of my teeth; by the tattering shreds of my nails.

There are still too many days on which getting out of bed seems unthinkable; on which feeding myself is a chore I’d rather not bother with; on which even going to class (the one thing that I know will reliably lift me into the light, if only for a little while) is almost unbearable.

In some ways, I think of this in the same terms that I think of ballet.

Ballet is like bike racing: it doesn’t really get easier. You learn more and more steps; they become part of you — but the physical demand increases apace with your command of the physical vocabulary of ballet and your ability to use that vocabulary beautifully and expressively.

Just as the rigors of bike racing are absolutely, irrefutably worth it when you’re descending a gravel track at 30+ miles per hour with the wind in your teeth and no hope of any victory except the one over the voice that has so often told you, “You can’t,” the rigors of ballet are absolutely, irrefutably worth it for those moments when everything comes together, when the steps and the music and the soul all move as one, and suddenly you are the music and you can fly.

I do not expect ballet to get easier, so I’m not disappointed when it doesn’t. Like most dancers, I find a specific thrill in tackling challenging steps and I revel in hard classes; even spectacular failure in the service of attempting something difficult has its own charms.

Bipolar isn’t quite the same — I suppose there’s something to admire in the tenacity with which all of us, medicated or un-, hang on through its fits and starts, in the face of its slings and arrows, but there isn’t some beautiful craft to master at the end of it all (except insofar as the craft is life: but that’s a thing we all share, bipolar or not).

But it is hard; sometimes, in long stretches, unstintingly hard. And while the manias can hard — particularly the black, dysphoric ones — the depressions are probably harder.

So I write from the rails of a depression in which I am suddenly paralyzed by potent self-doubt; suddenly more than half convinced that I have no business pursuing the calling of my heart, that I am a deluded try-hard who will never do anything meaningful (even noting that I apply the term “meaningful” on a scale that has nothing to do with money or fame), and that I should just lie down and die.

I write from beneath the wheels of a freight train that, for reasons beyond understanding, wants to undo me — or perhaps simply from the wheels of one that has lost its brakes. Again.

I write not to ask for sympathy (which I usually find kind of annoying) or to fling my misery out into the world so others can be just as miserable as I am, but because sometimes the most powerful response I have found to just this thing is the act of naming it, writing it down, looking it in the face.

Later, when I’m recovering, I’ll come back and look at these words and wonder, How could I ever have thought that? (Just as I wonder now, about my own right to regard myself as an artist, How could I ever have thoughtthat?)

I will try to remember what it felt like to hurt so much for no reason; to not even be sure that “hurt” is the right word, not because of the magnitude of the pain, but because it is so very sourceless and alien — and I will not be able to summon the feeling.

But I will understand why I wrote this: to say, This is what is now, at this moment, and to do so clearly and publicly, to stop it rattling around in my head, so I can go outside and plant a redbud tree that my friend B. brought me from an Arbor Day celebration.

So I can get up and go to conditioning class tonight.

So I can finish cleaning the kitchen, or at least do as much as I can (thinking all the while, “For the love of all that is holy, how long can it take to wash a few dishes?!”).

So I can collect the tatters of my soul and get back to weaving dances with them.

So I can get back to dreaming.

Honesty is the first tool when depression comes thundering in. So this is my honesty. This is my island of grace. This is my song and my banner, though I try, now, not to see any of this as a battle.

But we go into the mission field, too, with a song and a banner, don’t we, to tend to the sick and the wounded.

Posted in balllet, bipolar, healing, life

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Maybe I Just Have Nothing To Say

Mar 23

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Once, in middle school (this must have been in 7th grade; in 8th grade, suddenly everyone was a bit frightened of me because I wore black all the time, heh), some kid was picking on me for being quiet and some other kid said, “Maybe he just doesn’t have anything to say.”

I’m still not sure whether this intended as an insult (I mean, you know, 7th grade, here) or a defense — regardless, the kid who made the latter statement went on later to become one of the few that, by the end of 8th grade, was somewhat friendly, so who knows?

But, anyway, there are times that I notice I’m being quiet because something in my brain feels like I don’t have anything worth saying. (Coincidentally, I didn’t feel like that in middle school; I just didn’t know how to talk to strange humans, and I didn’t really know anyone at school.)

It’s a weird feeling. It’s not fear that other people will reject my words, just some kind of insufferable internal krampus shouting on about how all my thoughts are so much dreck.

I’ve noticed that I get a lot more of this when I’m feeling uncertain about things.

I’ve been sick for the past week, again. A bit longer than that, probably, but I was in denial until Thursday, when I basically didn’t get out of bed till 3 PM and was asleep again by 9:30 PM. Prior to that I just thought I was, you know, legitimately tired — more tired than I expected to be perhaps, but nothing to, like, skip ballet class over (when you’re a dancer, it always comes back to a question of class, doesn’t it). I was also hella cranky, so I’d you’re one of the people I yelled at, apologies.

Friday and Saturday, I did nothing but sleep, consume entire packages of Pine Brothers throat drops, watch both Ghostbusters movies back to back, and have bizarre fever dreams. Sunday I was at least able to read and so forth. Monday I started feeling better but also started having miniature nosebleeds and coughing. Balls.

So basically this is the same thing I’ve had every few weeks for the entire year — starts out with mono-like symptoms (sore throat; fever; swollen glands; spectacular, crushing fatigue), then turns into a sinus infection just when I think I’m getting better.

I suspect that when I say “turns into,” what I’m really describing is the usual way I develop sinus infections — inflammation prevents drainage, bacteria get happy, voilà! Sinus infection.

Anyway, all of this precipitated a massive spell of self-doubt.

There was my internal krampus shouting, “This is why you never make progress! This is why you’re never going to get anywhere! Accept it, you have no business being a dancer, going to grad school, being anything! What do you think you’re trying to do, huh? You think the world is going to accommodate this kind of stuff? Why do you even wanna try, you dumb schmuck?!”

This is Jack’s Imposter Syndrome, eh?

I’m trying to learn to let the krampus have his little fits without buying into them. I was raised to be relentlessly positive in a skin-of-the-teeth kind of way: not to be all chirpy and what have you, but to refuse to accept defeat. That’s not a bad lesson, but I spun it into refusing to acknowledge my fears — and so, krampus.

Krampi gonna kramp. The challenge is letting them kramp, sitting with the krampus-ness and honoring it, then going, “Okay, that was a thing,” and continuing on, rather than being bogged (or bogan-ed?) down and stuck in the krampus’ feelings. (Sometimes, mental illness makes it impossible not to, but not always.)

The challenge is learning from, even honoring the Inner Krampus, while continuing to remain awake and aware, insofar as I’ve learned to be awake and aware at all.

It is possible that, because of some foolish choices when rolling up a character for this life (yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have used CONST as my dump stat*) I will never get anywhere as a dancer, a choreographer, a writer, an artist.

*If this makes sense to you, give yourself like 100 XP.

But that’s only one possibility.

It’s also possible that I’ll learn how to work around this limitation. (Okay, it would really help if I knew what, exactly, this limitation was — like, am I one of those unlucky bastards who actually do have chronic mono that recurs in periods of physical stress? Or did I really just lose in the immune-system lottery?).

It’s possible that I’ll learn how to work with this limitation (assignment: create a dance about being unable to dance).

So, anyway, this is all the stuff I’ve had to say but haven’t said yet. It’s a weird and prickly thing, admitting to the universe what amounts to this gigantic vulnerability. Prickly in particular because I’m allergic to pity and therefore afraid of inadvertently evoking it. I had to let this percolate.

In a way, devolving upon the metaphor of creating a D&D character makes a lot of sense — sometimes it’s worth it to burn up all your points in INT, DEX, and so forth. Sometimes it’s interesting to play a character with a significant weakness. When you’re playing a rôle-playing game, you don’t kvetch about your character having a weak constitution — you know it’s there, and you play accordingly. You regard it as a limitation, yes, but also as a challenge that forces you to play creatively.

To be fair, rolling up a dancer/aerialist character and then giving him a weak constitution might not make a lot of sense, on the surface. But that seems to be what I am right now.

Perhaps it’s about time I started considering that fact and living accordingly.

A while back, I discovered that I’m sort of a virtue ethicist by nature. In short, that means that I’m all about being the best Thing I Am Made To Be that I can; I measure myself by a standard of excellence — a chief virtue; a system of virtues — that governs what I am and what I do.

Take, as an example, Achilles: by other measures, Achilles might seem like, you know, kind of a jerk — but he strives to become the best Achilles-qua-Achilles, rather than the best human being or demigod by some more general measure. Heis maximally ferocious because ferocity is a quale inherent to his being; he chooses glory and an early death over a long and peaceful life because one reflects his essential nature and the other does not. Being a nice person was not central to Achilles’ system of virtues; being a fearsome warrior was (as were, one might add, loyalty and fidelity).

So in my quest to be the best DanseurIgnoble I can become, this — my not-so-great constitution — is a part of my nature I must recognize and account for (my Achilles’ heel, if you will). I don’t think this is necessarily the best way to live, but it seems to be how I’m wired. As such, I should probably think about how to live according to my ethos while still recognizing that limitation, the rôle it plays in my life, and what hidden lessons it might have to teach me.

In other news, as I wrote to my friend B., at least all this lying around has granted me plenty of time to read. So that is its own kind of good, even if it’s not the good that I wanted.

Posted in balllet, health, life

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Again!

It’s almost 11PM. Hello again, Choreographic Muse.

(In other news, amazing day today. In ballet, Ms. T spent basically the whole class working on me, which is both great and a little disconcerting — like, I don’t want other people to feel neglected. I also nailed the longest attitude balance en rèlevé. It just went on forever. At one point I realized I totally pwning the balance, started to wobbly, and corrected myself. WTF, you guys, when did I learn to balance like — oh, yeah, on Monday in Modern T’s amazing class.

At Suspend, awesome Silks class — I did Iron Cross and it was awesome and then I used it at the end of a combo even though it was the harder option — followed by a great conditioning class and an awesome workshop. So there you go.)

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