My Achilles Heel
My life has gotten immeasurably better, recently. I’d been struggling with an injury for the past year or so. I kept pulling my achilles off the bone (oops). It sounds more dramatic than it is. Regardless, it wasn’t fun and it’s kept me from pushing myself in dance.
I moved to a new city for dance, but I couldn’t really dance. I felt like an imposter. Actually, I felt even worse than that. I felt like a fraud, and a liar. People would ask me how it was going, and I would tell them it wasn’t going well. Even that felt like a lie. I felt so lost, i felt so without identity, so without purpose or drive or direction, saying it wasn’t going well didn’t feel honest enough.
I received good news, recently. My tibia & fibula weren’t moving how they should. We got it moving and over the last month I’ve been getting rapidly stronger. I’m feeling more alive and more aligned with my own choices. I’m also happy to say I don’t feel that behind, even with all of that “lost” time. When I first started dancing, I approached my training like a race. I was sprinting as fast and as far as I could. First, I sprinted to LA to take with Yanis, then to NYC to take graham, finally to Paris to take Malou. I sprinted until I couldn’t anymore. I sprinted until my achilles snapped.
Forced rest has given me time to reflect (maybe too much time to reflect). What do I want to study? How do I want to move? Do I want to perform? Do I want to create? Do I want to teach? I was forced to dive deeper into movement that would sustain me. I expanded my Pilates training, deepened my approach to the Gyrotonic Method, and I looked elsewhere and found the foot collective. I stuck to ballet and did as much as I could. Slowly. As slow as I possibly could. No waltzing, no jumping, no turning. Only plie & tendu.
“A dancer, more than any other human being, dies two deaths: the first, the physical when the powerfully trained body will no longer respond as you would wish, and the second, the actual physical death”
Image by Claudio Rodriguez for SOULSKIN Dance
I feel like I got to peek at death for a moment, and thankfully only for a moment. My joy is returning.
I feel like I have access to play again.
I feel like I have a voice again.
I feel again.
I still feel a tinge of imposter syndrome, but it feels worth it and it feels appropriate. I’m early still. No need to run, unless I want to.
