One step forward, one step back: lessons from an injured ankle

It's been quite a while since I last posted. I have been extremely busy with teaching and supervising students in the last few months. On top of that, I have been struggling with an injury in my ankle that made it difficult for me to do ballet. Since ballet is one of my main outlets at this time, that has been quite a challenge. Ballet is not just exercise for me, but a way to express myself and my emotions.

I am not quite sure how the injury came about. It's probably some inflammation that resulted from overuse. Every time I came down from standing on my toes (which you do a lot in ballet...) I would feel a tremendous sharp pain. I had been feeling it for a while, but then it got really acute in March while I was running. As a result, I took it a bit easier for a few days, but then I had an online performance, which I still did because it was so special. Ever since, I have been trying to figure out a way to do something like ballet while still allowing my ankle to recover. Now it's July and I have not yet fully recovered. But finally this week I started to feel substantially better. I have taken off another week from doing any ballet, and this helped a lot (in the intermediate months I would just avoid the movements that caused pain, but clearly that was not good enough). This blog lays out some strategies i used to deal with this challenging situation and lessons I learned.

floorbarre

The first thing I learnt was that I had to accept that I had an injury rather than trying to work through the pain, as I usually do. What consoled me a lot was the first noble truth proclaimed by the Buddha: that life is suffering. Sometimes suffering comes your way, and that is a natural part of life, it's not like you are doing something wrong. And it's OK to feel frustrated and sad about that for a while. This situation also made me realize that while I am incredibly active, I am also getting older, and maybe my body cannot always keep up with my desires.

zhemfit abs challenge

Secondly, I needed to focus on what I could do, rather than what I could not do. When I paid too much attention to the things I could not do, I got very frustrated. When I managed to instead refocus on other things, I felt more fulfilled. I made use of the time to work on learning how to better turn my legs out, to get to know my core muscles better, and to figure out how to use my calves rather than my feet to point my toes. It is invaluable to do floorbarre classes in which you do ballet exercises on the floor rather than standing up--a great suggestion by my wonderful ballet teacher Wanda Kuiper. My favourites are a DVD by Stephane Dalle, and youtube videos by Hikaru Kobayashi and Joy Womack. I was also very grateful for the #21dayszhemfitabschallenge, a series of classes to get to train your abs (the other zhemfit classes are also pretty great and useful for dancers and non-dancers alike). I had never figured out this whole "core thing", and now I feel like I can finally feel how to use my ab muscles, and moreover, these classes result in visible changes to your body, which is very rewarding. As I was dabbling with various youtube fitness classes, I also realized how annoyed I get when I see all these fitness influencers not stretching their legs and pointing their toes, so I became quite a fan of Maria Khoreva's workouts (Maria Khoreva is a first soloist with the Maryinski theatre). Another thing I discovered about doing these workouts is that I could use them as mind-training as well: as much as possible, I try to do them with an attitude of loving kindness for myself and others, especially when they are a bit painful: just sending kindness into the world with each repetition.

The third lesson is one that has been my mantra throughout this pandemic: just to focus on one day at a time, rather than speculating about this future that is exceedingly uncertain. This has been particularly true with my ankle: while it is now substantially better, it may also get worse again and I don't know how long it will take to finally heal. And in this process I have to balance giving my body time to heal with my mental need for dancing. A few days ago I went back to a ballet barre after not dancing for a week to finally let me ankle heal, and it was just so joyful! (see videos below) So we keep going, one day at a time...