Focus is Everything

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So as you know, I ‘ve been down with a bad cold for the past week. Sucked. I finally made it to ballet class today. I figured it would be a slow day since I’ve been out of class for five days and still have a cough. I went with the idea that if it was too much, I’d just do as much as possible and then sit out the rest.

Barre was good, I flubbed a couple of really simple bits but by the end I was well warmed up and happy. It became very obvious that I’d been out of it for a while when we stretched – dang, a person can get all tight in just a couple of days on the couch!

When we got to center, I was placed in the front and center by my awesome ballet teacher. I was not sure about the wisdom of this move since I was already giving myself the easy out of “hey, I’ve been sick!” I was feeling okay but by the time we really starting moving, I was getting winded. I kept flubbing this one series of steps that were really simple. It wasn’t horrible flubs but I kept missing one step. Of course, this is not something that you want to do when you are in the front row. Honestly, as much as it’s a really cool privilege to be placed anchor on the barre and in the front row in center, some days that extra level of responsibility is a bit heavy. Standing there, sweating and snifflely, listening to my awesome ballet teacher give additional instructions, I realized that I didn’t need an excuse for why I wasn’t doing this exercise, I just needed to do it. And so I did.

And I realized that the only thing that changed was my mind, my focus. I was still tired, sweaty, snifflely, and out of practice. But giving myself a built-in excuse wasn’t going to get me anywhere and neither was deciding it wasn’t that big of a deal to flub a step or two in the grand scheme of things. And in the grand scheme of things a step or two will be flubbed, let’s face it, but why give them up when we don’t have to?! The real difference was in my head, in my choice to focus on the exact task at hand, nothing more and nothing less.

When it really comes down to it, in those last exhausting, sometimes even painful moments in class, keep breathing and just focus – turns out, that’s practically everything!

The Sneezy Ballerina

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That sounds like there should be the grouchy ballerina, the dopey ballerina, and doc ballerina. Well, let’s face it, I’m sort of all of them at various times. But this week I get to be sneezy ballerina. I have cold. A pretty nasty one.

Ever wonder about the common cold? Here’s the deal with viruses like influenza and rhinovirus and literally hundreds of others. Viruses are spread by bodily fluids, that’s just nasty. Inspires one to never ever touching anything or come into contact with anyone ever again! Viruses have an incubation period once they enter your body. The virus gets into your healthy cells and parties down. While they are having a good time, you have no symptoms but the virus is well, going viral. Once the cells that have participated in Occupied Sickness start to die, that’s when it hits the fan = symptoms. Some symptoms are from the virus (like runny nose and sore throat) itself while others are actually from a compromised immune system (like fever and exhaustion). The virus jailbreaks from the dying cells and then your immune systems goes avenger and a battle ensues. If your relatively healthy, the whole thing takes place in about a week, longer for the flu. The basic gist with regard to being contagious… consider yourself contagious through the whole thing! Once your exposed through the end of your cold, you can be germy person!

So my ballerini, if you catch a cold – and positive thoughts for you that you don’t –  but now you know and we’re all going to be good ballet class citizens by being aware of ourselves when we are germy… aren’t we!

If you are really sick, stay home! But if you feel well enough to make it to class:

  1.  Take a hand towel with you, to help you cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze.
  2. Try not to be all “touchy” with things and people.
  3. Take kleenix with you and once used, dispose of them properly.
  4. Wash your hands and use antibacterials liberally. I usually carry antibacterial hand wipes and a purse sized canister of disinfectant in my dance bag anyway.
  5. Wipe down your area of the barre with an antibacterial before moving to center.
  6. Consider sitting out center or if you can, stand where there is some air circulation. Realize that dancing center means that you are going to breathe and sweat all over the room and that’s not the kindest thing to do to your fellow dancers when you are sick.
  7. Wash all your things and/or spray everything with Lysol in order to kill germs.
  8. Stay away from the teacher! The last thing we need is for our ballet teacher to get sick!!!

Taking care of ourselves also means taking time to rest and get well when we are sick or injured. It’s all well and good to be a trooper and sometimes we absolutely need to push through and work through the our fears, limitations, even being sore and tired. But illness and injury call for us to take it easy and be kind to the one body that we have. If you want to dance in your body, you need to take care of your body. Sometimes that means working out hard and sometimes that means taking a nap!