PSA That Every Single Person Who’s Connected to Dance Should Read

This could be LIFE SAVING

You’ll find lots of unedited, unfiltered, full length pieces this week and beyond (not the chopped up versions on the catacombs of Instagram). Hope this still feels worth it to you… as you are so so so very worth it to me!

So grateful

xo,

B

This is a PSA that every single person who’s connected to dance should read today, please.

I mean this very seriously in every way.

Whether you’re the parent of a dancer, or you’re an educator who’s been in the field for awhile, or you’re just a person who is glimpsing from afar =

We HAVE TO politely speak up and encourage those in the dance world to stop putting their hand on a student of any age or ability, and pushing their leg into placement.

Yes, unpopular take I know … but hear me out!

Manually stretching a student or client in any physical field can be super helpful and important. Showing a dancer or gymnast or yogee enthusiast where there leg “should be” so their muscle memory can connect the alignment dots is a valuable tool depending on the time and place. BUT…

I truly believe that no teacher or trainer or colleague or dance friend should ever move another person’s leg unless you know their health history so thoroughly, that there is no doubt in your mind that they wouldn’t quietly be concealing a pain that they’re not even in tune with yet at that phase or stage.

The trust and power dynamic between both parties has to be so safe that the brain of the body being physically manipulated would without-a-doubt disclose anything and everything.

Here is why this could be LIFE SAVING:

I believe that chronic pain kills.

I believe that chronic pain has killed parts of me, and has been killing parts of myself I never thought could die, and there is no end in easy sight.

Blunt? Yes. Not the least bit hyperbolic? Yes.

My spine pain started as a teenager, and it went slowly down hill from there. My recent CT scans show exactly that and… listen, it could always be worse. I know that. But when I compare my experiences with having organs removed, or pancreas attacks (really liver), or deep drilling infections, I can repeat something I’ve said maybe far too many times that the last 5 years have taught me, single handedly:

Spine pain that involves the nerves and doesn’t give you a break is worse.

Not for everyone. Maybe, it’s because it’s taken Jamie Land from me (speaking of The Last Five Years): The only thing I’ve done almost every day since I was a child. Writing was to express, to cope, to process. It was because it was because. I didn’t choose to write. I just started writing at some pre determined time as a kid, as if it was never out of that duel single handedness at all.

Maybe it’s because it then took thing after thing after thing after thing… most notably, how I’m writing about life and love and existential existence right now.

Did I ever have a choice? I don’t think so.

This because was because.

Even if I chose to write about this more optimistically the next time I write (and I will, don’t worry. Ebbs, waves, waves and ebbs): The actual truth is that the truth of living with seemingly and presumably but hopefully not degenerative spine pain makes you never, ever, ever want to risk the psychological pitfall it feels to pen the words “hopefully not” at all… knowing you believe them.

I always believe the hopeful voice inside my head, even when I don’t want to admit it any more than I can omit it.

I write what writes itself each day… but it hurts to hurt so much more than years ago, and hope nonetheless.

If you don’t live with pain, you’re not going to think of what dance students, or athletes, or anyone in your tutelage has to lose.

And even if you do, you’re not ever going to grasp what that amount can feel like unless you live with it yourself… when it doesn’t go away.

Injuries can heal. Slipped discs can be operated on. But bodies are complex…

And some cannot handle hands that are used unexpectedly.

THANK YOU!

… Share with you someone, if you like?