7 months later

Things take time but with patience everything can be accomplished.
It's been seven months since I injured my foot. I am back to dancing and last week I started jumping. Even though I am still a little bit afraid and my joint seems like its jammed and it needs to be popped I am tranquil and trying to stay positive.

Words cannot describe how much I have missed dancing, so even the fact of putting ballet shoes on and having to fight to get back to were I was and then push it further to become an even more stronger and better dancer than I was before, gives me life.
However, all this time off has help me see the ballet world from a different perspective. I have done everything in my power to stay present in any way I could. Firstly, being in rehearsals watching and maybe taking notes, specially since last season we've had amazing people like Susan Jones or Jessica Lang come and stage works for us. A part of me was sad that it wasn't me dancing Ms. Jones' gorgeous 'Don Quixote' or Lang's 'To Familiar Spaces in Dream' but I can say I have learned as a professional from watching these people work their crafts.
Second, it has given me the opportunity to expand my knowledge a as teacher by doing the rest of the levels from the American Ballet Theater National Training Curriculum.What an incredible experience -a little bit stressfull too, don't get me wrong, but mostly rewarding-.
And third, but related to the second, I was asked to teach a lot at the Orlando Ballet School, which has given me more confidence and more experience as an educator.

So, even though I hated that I couldn't dance for so long, I think the key is to find something that interests you, and pursue it. Specially things that you might not be able to do during your normal season with all the rehearsals and little time off.
If you love what you do, as much as I do, you'll find something within it that will make your heart beat with excitement again.

Finding the positive

So, I always thought that with an injury like this —the kind that takes forever to heal — I was just going to get very depressed and not be secluded in my apartment without a life. I mean, technically this is what's happening but I am actually taking some time to appreciate certain things. I am reading a lot of things —mostly ballet— which is creating a different perspective on my view of the world of dance, it's teachers, directors and of course us the dancers.

I've traveled —thanks to the help of some friends— to see some shows. Just a couple of weeks ago I went to see Sarasota Ballet do a triple bill that included McMillan's Concerto, Sir Peter Wright's Summertide, and Ashton's Marguerite and Armand. A truly amazing evening I must say. Few companies in America get to do productions with these ballets and I love that Sarasota Ballet has been trying for the past couple of years to bring this old ballets back to live. It gives me such joy that there's people that care so much for the tradition.

I feel like that's one of the reason why I love going to Copenhagen during my summer lay off to dance with the Royal Danish Ballet, their respect and love for the tradition. If it wasn't for that, they would have not been able to preserve one of their most cherished things, which is the Bournonville style tradition.


Appart from this, of course I have been trying to stay active. Thank god for my pilates instructor that works with me as much as I need it, so I can keep —somehow— in shape. The doctor said I could do anything that doesn't require weight bearing and pointing and flexing my feet. So at least I can work on my legs a little bit and for sure my upper body and my back, as well as keeping myself flexible.

Dealing with a broken sesamoid as a ballet dancer

How do you face a serious injury? What can you tell yourself that is going to make the time more worth it and shorter in your head? What do you invest the time on when your doctor tells you not to bear any weight on your foot?

This has been my life for the past 3 weeks and it's already driving me crazy. At first I was going back to rehearsals because we are rehearsing for a production we will be doing around February of next year so I needed to learn choreography. But a few days I went back to the doctor - thinking that I was going to have a date that I would be coming back or at least some kind of good news - but unfortunately he asked me to be off my foot as much as I could.
I have a fractured interior sesamoid bone on my right foot, and of course I have been reading a lot about this little bone that I didn't know it existed. Every single story, including those of closer friends of mine -dancers- that have had this injury are not very re-comforting. People tend to come back too early and go back on the same pain path. That's why if the doctor asks me to be completely off my foot, I will because I want to get back to dancing as soon as possible.

I am actually doing a lot of things that are suppose to help with fractures. I am drinking at least one pot a day of a mix of comfrey leaf, horsetail leaf and devil's claw root tea.
I am also using some moxibustion techniques around the affected area, because I read that sesamoid bone injuries take much more time to heal because they don't get a lot of blood flow (like your meniscus), so using this creates high temperatures and increases the blood flow.
I am also meditating to certain frequencies that are suppose to help with bone regenaration. - I am seriously doing everything I read that can help, I don't really know if it helps or not but at this point I don't care, at least it kills some time of my day- Doing nothing isn't one of my favorite things.
The doctor said I could do any kind of exercise that didn't require any kind of weight on my foot, so some pilates exercises on the floor, with some balls, and some upper body weights will might do to stay in shape. I also asked about swimming and I am allowed to do that too. I just think it looks a bit stupid if I walk into the gym with crutches, don't you think?

Anyway, if any of you that are reading this have any kind of experience with this injury and would like to give me some advice, I would be much appreciated,

Where is our respect for the past?

Sometimes your life gets to a point in which you don't really know what to do. In the outside I seem happy but somewhere inside my body there is something wrong. Some part of me that needs to come out and express its full intensity. That intensity lays deep down in my art. The artist that I have inside is done with nonsense and shot guns on the head to what I call art. This artist is tired of people stepping on the art -which I have deep in my heart- with no care and no respect for the tradition and the past.
I am totally pro innovation. I love new works and remakes of old ballets and revivals but we need to not alter the masterpieces with ignorance. I call for people to do their research and really learn and know about the ballets they are pursuing to revive. Of course there is thousands of different versions of the same ballet, but the soul of that ballet has to survive some way, so the newer generations -and I include myself in this group- can feel it and can learn from it.

We live in the decade of ignorance. Where people talk about anything they can without even knowing a single word about, but maybe a dropped article in their news feed in whatever kind of social media they are in. I am tired of this. I am tired of having to do things to which I completely disagree and to which I feel like their creators will be rolling their eyes in their tombs.

We have to pay more attention to the things we put on stage. Then we act surprised when a show is not selling in a certain city or time, when we haven't even asked our audiences what they want to see. But of course, we act like we are doing a lot for this community. I'm sorry but the answer is no. Stop caring about yourselves so much and start caring about the art form which is the only important thing. I want to be in a place where sales don't matter, where the only thing important is to put on a good show no matter how many people is going to upset or please.

Frustration

It's quite common for us ballet dancers to find ourselves inside a loop of frustration, negativity and a feeling of not improving. This is how I have been feeling for the past two weeks, and as much as i desire to snap out of it, the circumstances in my work and how the environment and the day by day works, don't let me.
I'm starting to feel invisible to the eyes of my director. I've always felt a little like in the second row, never in the spotlight with this man. Or so I see, compared to how he treats other dancers in the company. At this point, I feel like I could break my knee in the studio during a combination and he wouldn't even notice. I hate this feeling. I am a person that constantly seeks for approval. I need it. Somehow it is what keeps me going.

The rehearsals and the schedules of these past few weeks have been tremendously intense. We've been working out of our working hours because there isn't enough time in hour work day for us to do the multiple things that we do. Also, the fact that both my foot and my knee have been hurting are not helping. It's just one more problem for me to have to deal with.
What can I do?
Where can I seek inspiration when the people around you, specially those that are suppose to mentor you, are not providing you with it?

I'm at a point in my life where I should be the most excited. I'm working on a lot of new works, some of them being choreographed on me, but somehow I still need that approval from my director, that I never seem to get.

Hard first two weeks

Life in a ballet company is hard and, in my opinion, even harder when you get into the company after passing through its school or second company.

I don't like to sound like I'm complaining. Well, I might be, a little even though I am completely thankful for the position I have. But I feel like it doesn't matter how much you can improve or how much you work on something that your directors always look at you the same way as when you were a student. A new company member will get directly into the company hired from the outside world and he will probably be treated in a total different/more professional way than you do. Why is this? I seriously don't know but I feel like that is my life.

Somehow I've been portraying an image of myself that is not the image I want to portray as a dancers. I am a really funny guy, at least people think I am, which causes me being cast in funny, acting roles and mostly comedy, instead of the serious more professional and deep roles I would like to portray.

People will say -Oh! Just be a little more serious.- Easy to say, hard to do, because when I get serious then everyone things I am mad or my director thinks I have an attitude.

Sometimes I simply just wish that I could get into my director's head and really know what he thinks of me, what he really wants for me and somehow he doesn't tell me. I really just want to do good in the company and perform a lot and perform good but somehow I feel like i keep failing and disappointing.

I consider myself a really hard worker. As a matter of fact, everything I have is because I have worked really hard for it. Why? Because I love ballet. I want ballet in everything in my day. I want ballet for breakfast, I want ballet for lunch, for dinner, I want it in my sleep...

And I simply hate to feel this frustrated. This past two weeks have been really stressing and I'm trying to keep positive but somehow I feel like nobody is helping me even though I am doing a lot of things wrong. 

The curse of coming back

Why is it always so hard coming back?
My season hasn't even started yet, as a matter of fact it starts tomorrow but since the school has been open already for a week I had the opportunity to take some classes so I can slowly get back into shape, but dear Lord! it hurts. The problem is that I don't understand why. It's not that i have been sitting on my ass the whole summer without doing anything, no. I have been trying to exercise and keep an active profile during the summer without compensating having fun and still enjoying 'a summer'.

The muscles in my back are the first ones to suffer coming back to taking classes and rehearsing. Every time I try to do an arabesque it starts good. I even get a half a smile in my face as I look in the mirror. Damn! I'm feeling flexible. But is when that happens and you try to push it a little harder that i get the craziest cramp on my lower back. Why did I push? Why now?
Another interesting thing that my body does when coming back, happens during jumps. I had a good barre and an 'OK' beginning of center -Let's not talk about my pirouettes because I think my body forgot how to turn and how to spot- so my dizzy self listens to the simple petit batterie combination and gets ready in cinquieme position. I go ahead and leap toward the first sauté: first, my elevation from the floor is basically non existent, and sencond... the landing. It feels as if by magic my body has forgotten that I should easily land so I look and feel like a plane landing after a cumulus of turbulence clouds and I hit the floor if the hardest way possible. Ouch!
My feet are hurting now but because I am a dancer I keep going through the combination until I finish one side. After that I simply have to stop and I basically can't jump for the rest of the class.

Sometimes I think I am a weird person but this are some of the things that happen to me in the first, second and third classes I take after a long period of no dancing. Eventually it gets better but I always tell myself to go slow because I do have a fragile body that gets injured a lot if I don't take good care of it.