Falling off your game/supporting limb or body surface

Dance School has had me down and out the past couple of weeks. A couple of minor injuries, an unnaturally warm spring with attendant distractions, too much partying. In dance training, there's just no room for an irregularity of cycles.

You reach a point in any discipline where you really understand what it means to take the next step. After unending hours of training, thinking, watching, you just get it. You're on the cusp; the tension and excitement of this position gives you the impetus to overcome whatever limits you've placed on yourself.

But you can slide backwards as easily forwards. Before the holidays, I was really getting a handle on how to perform some body-hurling, dangerous-looking leaps to the ground safely. Working on it meant I went home bruised and cut up, but that's where you gotta start. The pain forces you to learn how to sequence through joints, which surfaces can cushion impact to the floor, when to push and when to release. You only really make things dangerous for yourself when you're not connected, focus to body, and find yourself unable to get to the real maximum potential of all the supporting musculature, or the real maximum of mental surety. Which is where you have to be, all the way all the time. A little bit of negligence and you may, for example, coming crashing down on a hip and hobble for a day and half, damn those exposed joints. All the way all the time, especially in the discipline of dance, is not just mentally exhausting.

And it's funny how much easier things get when you're prepared to take advantage of all your physical support. You get a greater range of motion, better dynamics, more exciting stage presence AND you're so much more efficient. Your body thanks you for it and doesn't groan at the mere thought of grand plie or rolling over your knees. I've been having trouble getting there. Sleep more, eat better, worry less. Whatevah.