~Tuesday, January 4th~

"Thank you for helping, Miss Theresa," Miss Erica smiles.

"You're welcome," I respond as I leave the studio for a quick break before my class begins. The class I just finished assisting for is an older group - most of the girls are eight or nine years old - so it's easy to keep them in line. All I really do for this class is demonstrate the combinations for them since they can't quite remember them yet while Miss Erica walks around and gives them corrections. I find my bag and sip from my water bottle while the other girls in my level begin filing into the studio. Andrea passes me and waves, and I return the gesture, followed by Riley.

"I'll save your spot," Riley says.

"Thanks," I say as I close my water bottle. I quickly check my phone and find one text from Olivia. I open it, and read "What was our French homework again?" I put my phone back in my bag and decide to respond to her later when I get home since I don't remember what the homework was. Finally, I turn to enter the studio. I can see that mostly everyone is here through the large windows in the door, but class hasn't started yet. I open the door and take my usual barre spot next to Riley and across from Andrea and begin stretching out my calves.

"You know Theresa, I think you're going to get Giselle," Andrea remarks.

"Oh, I don't know. I hope so, but I don't really think I will," I say quietly, knowing this is going to be a sensitive topic to talk about during class. Sure enough, I notice that Riley is looking down at her feet, purposefully excluding herself from our conversation.

"Of course you will! You're an amazing dancer and a great actress. Nobody would be better for this role than you," Andrea says a bit too loud for my liking. Both Andrea and Riley are amazing dancers, but Riley and I are much more competitive for roles than Andrea is, leading to Andrea not minding talking about parts because she doesn't mind if she doesn't get a lead role.

"Look, every time auditions come around for a performance everyone always tells everyone else they are going to get some big part, and it always ends with someone feeling hurt because they didn't get a part that they were promised by their friends. So can we just not talk about it this time?" I say quietly.

"That sounds fair," Riley says next to me, revealing that she was listening to our conversation even though she wasn't participating in it.

"Alright," Andrea says. Class begins and I find myself slipping into the cautiously monotonous mindset which I am most familiar with. I am most comfortable here, my mind a strange combination of blank and bustling at the same time. Learn a complicated combination at one glance. Find the tempo of the music. Perform the combination correctly. Execute the combination well. Enjoy it. Finish the combination and breathe again - physically and mentally. Then turn back around and do it all again. Each segment layered on top of the one before it like a huge cake.

Cake sounds really good right about now, I begin to think. No! Focus! I pull back out of my zoned-out state and focus on the next combination. Fifty minutes into class we have moved the barres to the sides of the room and are now doing center work without the help of the barres. Now is when we test if we are properly on our legs or if we were holding onto the support for dear life. Miss Marie continues teaching the adagio combination. Adagio tends to consist of lots of developés and arabesques, both which are when a dancer stands on one leg with the other leg out in the air at heights varying from a foot off the ground to as high as possible - in some cases close to our noses, ears, or buns, depending on which direction the leg is extended in. More common knowledge is that adagio - when referring to music - means slow. By "common knowledge," I mean pretty much anyone who watched The Little Einsteins as a kid (myself included). In ballet, adagio means the same thing: slow. The movements in an adagio combination are always very slow and fluid, or sometimes like taffy. From light and smooth pour de bras - movement of the arms - and slow developés which seem to last forever. If there is a pirouette, or turn, in an adagio combination it is meant to be slow, floaty, and balanced instead of fast, sharp, and numerous. Adagio music is often very emotional - usually sad, but not always - so I find it easy to show emotion while dancing adagio, which is what makes me like it so much.

By the end of class we have began jumping, which is both fun and exhausting at the same time. Petite allegro, which is small jumps, is the most tiring in my opinion. The jumps don't travel and are straight up and down for the most part, but each step is slightly different. There are barely any breaks and it can feel like you are a popcorn kernel popping repeatedly. Then, after we have warmed up from the petite allegro, we move to grande allegro. Grande allegro means big jumps, and these combinations usually travel all the way across the large sprung marley studio floor. I find grande allegro to be much more fun than petite allegro because you often feel like you are flying across the floor, and since it has to be done in smaller groups there are more breaks for resting when your group isn't dancing.

As I get ready for my turn to do the grande allegro combination I stand in the back corner of the studio. As the group in front of me's last phrase of music comes to an end I begin the combination. I start with a developé en relevé - extending my leg in front and rising up on the ball of my foot. Then I run and do a grande jeté, a big leap with straight legs. I run and do another, jumping higher this time, and feeling like I stay in the air for an extra second.

Crack. I miscalculate my height, speed, and timing and don't flex my foot to land in time. Instead I land on the knuckles of my toes, the tops of my toes bending and slamming on the ground with the weight of my entire body. It is completely normal for a dancer's joints to crack - it feels good when the air between our joints is released and we can move that joint more freely. However, this type of crack is not just my toe joints cracking, it's a bit more painful than that.

Just keep going, dance it off, I think to myself. I finish the combination, completely ignoring the sore pain I feel in all of my toes on my left foot. Instead of thinking about the pain, I let the dancing distract me. This only lasts until the combination finishes though. It's like on many long days of rehearsals when I begin feeling nauseous or nervous. The feeling fades completely while I am dancing as I forget that I didn't feel right, then as soon as the combination ends I remember and feel it again. I finish the last leap, luckily landing on my right foot. Now, I have to walk to the other corner of the studio to get ready to do the combination to the left without anyone noticing that I'm hurt. It doesn't hurt that bad, but if Miss Marie found out she would probably make me stop dancing and ice it, which is not what I want to do right now. I focus on walking as normally as I possibly can, stepping heel then toe even though I would rather not put weight on my toes. I make it to the end of the line of dancers and stand next to RIley, who was in the group right before mine.

"Are you limping?" She whispers to me, leaning in. I thought I did a good job covering it up, I internally groan.

"No?" Riley gives me a blank face, telling me that she sees right through my lie. First Noah, now Riley - am I really that bad at lying? "Fine. I landed the grande jeté on my toes like this," I say carefully showing her, "and I heard and felt some cracks."

"How badly does it hurt?"

"I can make it through the rest of class, I'll be fine."

"Are you sure? You don't want to injure yourself any further."

"I'm sure, it's not that big of a deal," I say, trying to convince myself. Soon we do the grande allegro combination to the left and ballet class is finished. At first I am relieved that I managed to hide my injury from everyone except for RIley. But then I remember what class we have next.

Pointe.

Thus meaning that I'm not only not free to rest yet, but that I have to take my injured toes, shove them into a hard satin-covered box, and put all my body weight on them.

Yay.

Fun.

"Hey Andrea, do you still have some Ibuprofen in your bag?" There was no way I was making it through this without some help.

"Yeah sure, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just sore from coming back from vacation is all." Riley gives me a knowing look and I smile innocently at her, begging her not to tell anyone. I take one Ibuprofen and begin to assess the damage on my toes. Taking off my ballet slipper and rolling up my tights, I find that all four of my little toes are red, but my middle toe is red and swollen, and is much more tender than the others when I touch it and move it. Immediately I start assuming the worst - there's no way all of the cracks I heard were just my joints, and now one of my toes is swelling up. I gulp back my fear of not being able to dance because of one broken toe and decide I'll need to push through. It's not like doctors can even do much for broken toes anyway, all I would be told to do is to stop dancing, and there's no way that's happening when Giselle is getting closer and closer as every day passes. One thing I can do though is make a makeshift cast for my toe. I take out my roll of white medical tape, or "toe tape." Normally toe tape is used to protect a dancer's feet from blistering due to friction inside of the pointe shoe, but today it is going to be used as a cast. I tape my middle toe and second toe together, wrapping the thin material around them both multiple times. This way my second toe can help my middle toe stay stable.

I finish taping my toes, putting small pieces on the outside of my big toes and pinky toes to prevent blisters. Then I cover my toes with a lambswool toe pad, a crescent shaped piece of fabric that is used as a pillow for the tops of my toes, and pull my tights back over my feet. I slip on my pointe shoes and tie them up quickly, able to do so without even thinking after being en pointe for so many years. Most girls go en pointe when they are ten or eleven years old, but it changes depending on the dancer. If the teacher believes that the dancer's feet aren't strong enough yet, or if your doctor thinks that your feet haven't developed enough yet, then they can make you wait.

I stand up and test out my shoes in the lobby. First I rise en pointe on my uninjured foot - the right one - placing my hand on the wall next to me to help me balance. My shoes feel perfect - just hard enough to support my arches, but not too hard that it is difficult to move the shoe. Then I decide it's now or never and transfer my weight to my left foot en pointe. I can feel a soreness in my toes, but it's not as painful as I was anticipating. Maybe the Ibuprofen already started kicking in.

Class begins and we start warming up our feet in our shoes. I ignore the small amount of pain I feel in my foot, and decide that I'll be just fine. I don't need to tell anyone, and I certainly don't need to stop dancing. After some work at the barre we move to the center and begin some simpler combinations.

"Alright, let's start jumping. Five, six, plié sousous. Sixteen changements en pointe, stretch, plié." Oh no. Hops en pointe are not sounding fun right now. To do a jump en pointe, take a normal jump and start and finish the jump on the tips of your toes. So you're standing en pointe, you bend your knees and jump into the air, and then your entire body weight multiplied by gravity lands on your toes - at least one of which is broken in my case.

Oh yay.

So fun.

I'm about to back out and tell Miss Marie what happened just so I don't have to endure the pain that is sure to come, but then I remember Giselle. In one of Giselle's variations - or solos - she does hops en pointe on just one foot. While healing my injury far before time for auditions is most likely the wiser option, I choose to practice the hops en pointe anyway. I'll just be sure to ice my foot when I get home to reduce the swelling. Who knows, maybe I'll hurt myself right before the audition. This way, I'll know I can endure the pain. I take a deep breath and brace myself as the music begins to play.

~~~~~

Written 7/31/17, Published 10/8/17
So sorry I didn't update last week, I had a long day of rehearsals and by the time it was done I had completely forgotten!
Speaking of rehearsals, here are my parts in The Nutcracker this year! Harlequin Doll, Snowflake, Spanish, Mirliton (Marzipan), and Flower! The reason why I have so many parts is because we perform 6 shows, so there are two casts.
Here's a fun story: what Theresa did in this chapter actually happened to me in class in the exact same way, except when I put my pointe shoes on it hurt a lot so I chickened out and took them off XD. So I guess Theresa is braver than I am... lol. Anyway,

Thank you for reading!