INJURY RECAP: TIMETABLE STYLE - Northern School of Contemporary Dance
 

INJURY RECAP: TIMETABLE STYLE

6 October 2021
By Eleni Green

6:00 am Turn off your alarm and go back to bed because it’s still dark and you do not need to cut your sleep short so you can ‘get more done.’

7:00 am Wake up slowly. Look at the daylight.

7:30 am Feel a bit overwhelmed about everything you have to improve and everything that you can’t do right now. Consume some fiction to distract yourself.

7:45am Feel the coffee kick in and remember that you have all the time you need and you can relax and watch how your injury blossoms.

7:48am Fume because there is absolutely no way that you deserve pain for getting a bowl out of the cupboard.

8:00am Start walking to school, feel angry that the team inside your body aren’t talking to each other and you can’t make them.

8:15am Step on the wet floor in the bodywork studio. Again.

9:00am Start class embracing inclusivity and creativity to adapt the movements for your needs.

9:10am Question whether your body is even made for dancing.

9:15am Do one movement that feels clean and free.

9:20am Sit down on a yoga block and commit to being engaged and empathetically enjoy the movement and vitality of your classmates.

9:50am Actually start to enjoy the movement and vitality of your classmates without it being a reminder of everything that you are missing.

10:15am Cry secretly a little bit for no particular reason.

10:16am Stop crying by blocking your throat with anger at your pain for making you show emotion.

10:30am Lie semi supine.

10:35am Leave the studio to go nowhere in particular because you feel isolated from your peers by your injury and your inability to connect with them by sharing movement.

10:45am Frown until Eric passes you in the foyer. Feel guilty for feeling sorry for yourself.

10:50am Explain to a friend how you feel.  Feel 65% relieved but still confused.

10:52am Commit to entering the next class with a clearer intention.

10:55am Explain to a guest teacher in too many words what you are going to do in their class and wait for them to reply, ‘do what you need to do.’

11:00am Have a little talk to your pain, tell it that it is ok and that it will be listened to.

11:05am Stop listening to your pain because it is very loud and it is saying stop dancing.

11:07am Stop dancing because you are in pain.

11:08am Think about why there are already 23 instructions and why it’s only 11:08am and why you already want to go to bed even though this is supposed to be your greatest passion.

11:10am Remember that you are doing enough exactly as you are.

11:15am Practise sitting with a neutral spine, whilst remembering to change position every 15-20 minutes.

12:25pm Remember that this is not your neutral spine because your neutral spine feels new and different now. Swear a bit.

12:26pm Remember that failure is part of all growth.

12:30pm Lie on the floor and smile.

12:32pm Feel gratitude that you got to have that one-to-one interaction with the guest tutor before class because, upon reflection, it made you feel more connected to their directions and tone throughout the class.

12:35pm Practise doing that move in your head because it looks really fun.

13:00pm Run out of ways to try and communicate how you are feeling.

13:01pm Believe that you are being an incredible bore by continuously talking about yourself.

13:02pm Realise that you are living through the fourth Eye that Harriet Batty from the blog was talking about that time, where your experience of your situation comes entirely from the point of pain, whitewashing all other positive sensations from your felt experience.

13:03pm Retreat to the bodywork studio.

13:05pm Lie down on miracle balls.

14:04pm Wonder what happened to the last 59 minutes.

14:05pm Feel a bit relieved that you are in pain because now you can prioritise your body and take time for what it needs. Have mixed feelings about this relief.

14:06pm Suddenly feel really sad for no particular reason.

14:07pm Remember that you have an appointment with Fabiano tomorrow and thank the universe.

14:09pm Consider whether the rumours are true and he actually is magic.

14:30pm Feel your ankle jar very dramatically although it isn’t even touching the floor and hasn’t hurt since you were 13.

14:31pm Think Oh, it’s gone.

14:45pm Ask your hip flexors to relax, with a calm and soothing inner voice, 85 times, consecutively.

14:50pm Pummel them with your fists.

14:55pm Feel overwhelmed and incapable of working creatively in 5 minutes time.

14:58pm See your classmates and remember that no thing will ever be perfect or finished and certainly no one needs to be.

16:00pm Giggle for half an hour about your own earnest level of commitment to a creative task that would appear insane to 98% of the population.

17:00pm Thank the universe that that class went quickly and that everything was simple to interpret in an unpainful way.

17:01pm Lie semi supine and apologise to your hip flexors for earlier.

17:02pm Consider why you refer to all your body parts as ‘she.’

17:03pm Remind yourself that trying to compensate for not using physical energy by using your mental energy and overthinking things has never worked before.

17:04pm Get hit by a huge wave of I’m not doing enough.

17:05pm Acknowledge the wave and watch it pass.

17:59pm Remember you forgot one of your bodywork exercises. Debate whether you are capable of doing anything right.

18:00pm Call your family and eat unnecessary quantities of carbohydrates to distract yourself.

19:00pm Wonder how you can possibly be so tired even though you haven’t. fucking. done. anything.

19:10pm Recognize that you attended all your sessions at school and were there from 8-5, consuming large amounts of information even whilst sat.

19:11pm Add ‘Rewiring entire body’ to lists of day’s achievements.

19:20pm Play, ‘Guess their siblings’ for everyone at school with your housemates.

21:00pm Be grateful for everyone that helped you today.

21:01pm Interrupt your gratitude to think about about why so many of your class are injured and whether your batch is defective.

21:02pm Laugh at that.

21:26pm Light the candles in your room even though it’s against your contract.

21:30pm Write your pain journal in another alternative format.

21:59pm Wander slowly to the blissful brink of sleep.

22:00pm Remember that your washing is probably going mouldy in the washing machine.

22:10pm Link your pain to a very complex, unfounded, abstract psychological theory that you yourself have just conceived in that very moment.

22:11pm Forget what the theory was.

22:15pm Feel scared about tomorrow.

22:22pm Say thank you for what was actually quite a good day.