Rhythm and Blues by Samantha-Ellen Bound

Author:Samantha-Ellen Bound
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Published: 2016-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

Also, I just wanted to feel a bit of the happiness and lightness dancing gave me. I knew I was giving Mr Grumpy a run for his money in the attitude department this week.

So, starting position – left arm extended, opposite leg stretched behind. Easy enough. Bend the knee, change the arms, lean forward, gently raise the back leg into développé. Still fine, because all my weight was on my good leg and my sprained ankle was the one up in the air.

But of course in the next move I had to step back onto my bad ankle and do a chaine chassé turn followed by two soutenus.

My ankle wasn’t having any of that.

That’s fine, I said to myself, you haven’t warmed up yet.

So I did a slow set of relevés and pliés, and by slow, I mean very slow. Like, a snail could have done them quicker (if they had feet). Then I did a few tendus, dégagés and ankle rolls, carefully working through my injured ankle, stopping the range of motion or shifting the weight as soon as I felt a twinge or a pull where I shouldn’t.

After that I moved to the corner and tried some simple travelling steps. My ankle felt a bit better now when I put weight on it. It cheered me up a little.

I went back to the centre of the studio and into the starting position for the lyrical routine again. This time I let my arms and upper body perform at their full range of motion and limited the amount of footwork I was doing – I did everything at a quarter of the power I normally would, in my lower half.

The steps came back to me and I imagined the music in my head. I tried to let myself feel it, to give over to the imaginary rhythm I heard.

I gave over too much though, because, before I knew it, I’d forgotten that my ankle was only working at a quarter power, and I began to dip and reach into the movements more, thinking that I was my old self.

I finished a series of stepping movements and was about to launch up into a relevé side développé – a kind of athletic pose where you rise up on one foot, with your arms held over your head, and extend the working leg to the side, holding it in a high attitude – but just as I was coming up to the height of my rise, I felt my ankle start to give and knew I was in trouble.

I threw myself ungracefully on the floor before my ankle could roll and cause further damage. My elbows took the impact of my fall. I rolled over and lay on my back, panting.

That was close. Next thing I knew I would give myself a broken ankle. As it was, I’d have to go and get an icepack now to reduce any swelling I’d caused.

Despite all that, I was pleased with myself. I knew the limitations of what I could and couldn’t do.

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