“Blind Spot” OR, “I Love You, BUT…”

A fatality occurs – a person is killed. The driver explains “I didn’t see them, they were in my blind spot.” Does this lack of seeing or lack of noticing make the action any less impactful in terms of its fatal consequences and lives upended? Regardless of intention, there is impact. Why is the driver suddenly positioning the person who lost their life, as the one to fault? Also, after hearing the driver’s defense of “not seeing/not noticing,” do we, as bystanders, then pretend the person wasn’t really killed, and that it is non-issue? Do we walk around and say – “well, I choose not to notice things like that?” Or, “that kind of thing has never happened to me or my family and friends, so it really isn’t an issue.” And, worse, hypocritically claim, “I could never or have never done anything like that.” 

The fact is, we all have blockages in the way that we see, the way we behave, etc. Our perspectives are often skewed; our actions and words incongruent. This is why we must constantly practice deep self-reflection and self-examination. In many cases, we have a lot of re-patterning to do, a lot of repair to do in terms of the educational mis-information or omissions that we built our understandings upon. I continue to have to do this re-patterning and repairing of the deficits in my own education – from history textbooks to dance textbooks and overall curriculums that intentionally and/or ignorantly omitted certain information, prioritizing the narratives and perspectives of the powerful – skewing the story.

In some of the posts I have been reading, white people often make statements such as “I don’t see color; I see the person.” I am well-familiar with these statements, and it took me a while to realize why these types of statements were an act of de-valuing people of color. Although, perhaps well-intentioned, this claim of not seeing, or not noticing is highly problematic. It is like excusing the impact or consequence of an action or actions, because of an intentional choice to not see the completeness or fullness of a situation. This translates to the equivalent of “I don’t see/I don’t notice racial discrimination.” 

This statement is understood as an invalidation of noticing that racial discrimination is a REAL and PRESENT threat that continues to significantly impact the lives of people of color. “Not seeing color” implies that you do not see the problem or issue. As well, it suggests that you do not acknowledge part of the identity of that person. Race, ethnicity, gender, heritage, and other aspects of difference, are a part of a person’s identity. To not see or notice it, is to invalidate a person’s full identity. It also frames that difference as somehow negative – something that is best left “unseen.” So, it is also insulting.

Additionally, it is some type of strange defensive exoneration of your own positionality. No one is asking YOU, specifically, if you condone racism or asking you if you are racist, that is for you to investigate on your own through deep reflection of your motivations. What you are being asked to do is to recognize and acknowledge the global reality of racism and its destructive and life/death consequences. If what you mean to say is, “I denounce and stand against any practices of racial discrimination and oppression,” then, better to say that statement, than, “I don’t see color.” There is also a responsibility to examine one’s own complicity, however subtle, in the pandemic of racism. Reflexively defaulting into a defensive mode, won’t get us any further into unpacking the problem and working towards deep change. We need to listen intently with the goal of understanding.

The undeniable reality is that discrimination on the basis of skin color has existed for centuries and it persists. Black and brown peoples, specifically, have suffered immensely on all levels because of the racial prejudice perpetually practiced by white people. Whether or not you are well-meaning or well-intended in your statements, recognize that these types of statements are invalidating and de-valuing as they lack direct and complete acknowledgement of the actual problem and issue at hand.

Similarly, I have seen posts that frequently re-direct from the central issue at hand. When the phrase racism or white supremacy is mentioned, it as though there is an automatic deflection response. If, in the scenario above, we began talking about the car damage that was done, or damage to nearby property, this would be a complete invalidation of the fact that a life was just lost. I realize this is not a perfect analogy, but you get the point. It is a bit like saying “I love you” to a person and then saying, “BUT…” Suddenly, the “I love you” statement is weakened, it loses priority as the CENTRAL focus. That small little word, "BUT..." erodes any sense of trust, sense of alliance, or deeply felt connectivity. Likewise, if the statement is "I love you, AND, I love my cat, and I love cake, I love my ceiling tiles, I love green grass, sunsets, the oceans, my friends, my siblings, cousins, etc." , the original statement "I love YOU" is weakened. What is the point of adding all of the other "loves," if you are interested in communicating solidarity and affirming that specific person? The same is true with the “All Lives Matter” statement. It dilutes the power of saying “Black Lives Matter.” Black lives have been consistently left out of “ALL Lives,” so the goal is to attend to that omission. 

As soon as there is a re-direction to focusing upon all the damage the looters are doing, it subverts the main issue at hand – which needs to be the priority focus right now. In this case, every re-direction is a way of saying, “Yes, I care, BUT…”

Why not change it to “Yes, I care,” and leave it at that! Let that be the origin, the center, the priority under which ALL other priorities or issues fall. Placing these other factors upon equal “care” is highly problematic. If someone is bleeding, you don’t start commenting upon how their blood is staining the carpet, or splattering your white walls and how that issue needs to be considered. You address the well-being of the person that is bleeding.

Again, I know that these are not perfect analogies, but they are meant to draw out some of the missteps in logic that people (white people specifically) seem to be making when they try to defend their positionality or perspective. Just embrace and understand the real problem driving this current social and cultural moment.  It is historical. It is statistical, fact-based, current and constant. Although in your particular reality, this issue may seem like a non-issue for you; understand that there are other realities, and they need to be paid attention to…WE ALL need to pay attention to them.

Such Beautiful Dysfunction...the Disabling Effects of Ballet. A Dancer Re-learns how to Stand and Walk...

I watched the young nine year olds with their hair up in little ballet buns dancing about - so excited, so exuberant in their desire to express themselves through movement. The ballet class had not begun yet, and so these young dancers were simply "playing" before the class. Over and over again many of them kept trying fouettés and many other types of balletic turns which were far beyond their current skills, but, they were undaunted in their effort to try: replicating whatever images danced in their heads of what dancers, ballet dancers specifically, do.

I watched their joy and their enthusiasm with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was delighted to see their spontaneous energy and natural instinct for dance. On the other hand, I worried for their futures: how their minds might be molded, how their bodies would likely be damaged, how their natural dancing instincts might collapse under the pressure of extreme expectations of perfection - of false ideas of what it means to be a dancer.

A part of me could not help but think: the implicit brainwashing had begun for these young minds. In fact, it probably began at age 5. The indoctrination of the balletic aesthetic and the balletic "rules" as the superior dance form, the ideal of what the term "dancer" meant had made its mark.

I recall my own joy in dance, my own childhood growing up in the ballet world. I was also exposed to other dance forms (thankfully) but, classical ballet, was my primary training base: I began dancing at the age of 3. Dancing has always been in my bones.

I write this record of my personal journey with ballet, not to negate the good aspects of the balletic practice, or to suggest that dancers not study ballet. I still teach ballet and I believe it CAN be taught well - with the dancer's health and longevity in mind. But, in order for that to occur, ballet practitioners must listen to the dance medicine/science community, pay attention to the research, observe the teaching practices in other dance forms, listen to dancers who know their bodies, and evolve the balletic practice for the better. The pedagogy must be more keenly questioned in how it trains a body for qualitative artistry, movement versatility, and longevity. Even more importantly, we must question whether we believe in longevity in the field of dance. If we do, then the training practices and perhaps the artistic products need to evolve with that goal in mind. If we don't, then dancers are like a mechanics' tools: replaceable commodities which, once used up or broken, can be thrown out and replaced.

I never stopped dancing. From age 3 through a Masters of Fine Arts in dance, I never quit. I pushed myself, I pushed my body. And, then, it broke. At age 23 my body broke. It had really broken before then. There were clear signs that my body just could not keep up with the physical demands I had placed on it. With several technique classes per day, rehearsals evenings and weekends, etc. I had reached physical burn-out. In a rehearsal where I was hardly doing anything stringent except shifting off of my standing leg, my kneecap (patella) slid out and dislocated. I fell to the floor, yelling out in pain. The knee joint felt like it had become jello, an odd feeling of eerie liquid instability. The injury was, in largepart, a result of technique training: the years of forcing my legs into the twisted, torque of 5th position - misaligning my patella, and softening/weakening the muscle tissue of the medial knee area (and, yes, I attempted to use the turn-out from my hip foremost, but, the expectations in the ballet technique class still demanded the flat 180 degree 5th - requiring torque). Like most injuries in dance, it is repetitions of harmful patterns over time that predispose the dancer to a more serious injury.

Before this point, I remember my body giving me indications that it was not okay. I realized at some point that I could not really stand up for any length of time. Instead, I always propped myself - leaning against a wall, or leaning down to rest my arms on top of my legs, or sitting if possible. I could move with no problem - put me in motion, and that was fine. But, don't ask me to stand in one place on my two legs. I always thought it was such an oxymoron: I am a dancer who can't stand up. How do you explain that? Of course, at the time, I did not realize or understand what was happening, I did not recognize this as a major problem.  I just knew I had to keep moving, I had to keep pushing myself. Later, I realized my joints - especially my hip joints had become extremely unstable. I assume I must have overstretched the ligaments, and my joints were clearly hypermobile. Not only that, the often torqued positions of legs and feet in ballet had created unstable kinetic chains.

I have spent the last 20 years re-learning how to stand and walk. I say that in complete sincerity. Ballet technique practice, specifically, disturbed my ability to have a normal gait (heel-toe, parallel) and to feel a connection with the ground/the floor in a stable manner. If the gait pattern is disturbed, it effects muscular patterning all throughout the body (pelvis/spine/torso). The body is a thoroughly connected and integrated kinetic ensemble - a change in one part effects the others. I remember my medial thigh muscles were so over-stretched (from split stretches) that the dichotomy between how I sensed and felt control of the lateral part of my leg was drastically different from the laxity I felt up the medial thigh/leg. I felt so fortunate to be introduced to modern dance while in college - that was a breath of fresh air, and it helped my body find balance. Although, it takes a long time to undo early and long-term motor patterning. It was not until after graduate school, that I finally felt what it meant to be "grounded" and to "drop your weight" (as modern dance teachers would say) and actually feel a sensation, a real, enlivened connection from foot, to ankle, to knee, to pelvis and hips and even up into the torso. Once I found that connection, I could finally actually move through space with power - instead of always lifting away from gravity, as promoted in ballet technique.

I also recall a performance before this major injury occurred in which I could not really feel my feet or toes. I had this odd numbness sensation. It was a ballet performed in pointe shoes, and I could barely feel my feet. Luckily, the sensation did not last, and once I stopped doing the performance, sensation returned. During this time, I often noticed that when I would stop dancing, my body worked better, felt better, had better circulation, etc. My body was begging me to listen to it. But, I just had to keep going.

Over the past 20 years, I have worked to undo the unhealthy motor patterning that was, at least in part, caused by balletic technique practices. I had to stop stretching and instead focus very intentionally on strength building and re-education of my neuro-muscular system. I completely stopped forcing my body into the contorted position of 5th, which always created such unnecessary torsions from feet, to knee, to hip, to pelvis and spine that I felt like a wrecked corkscrew with no real sense of stability. I would describe it as "contrived stability": jamming your legs into a contorted position and then using muscular strength to hold it all in place. There are some bodies who appear to be able to withstand these types of contortions. My body wasn't one of them. However, no one would have known that by watching me. Dancers often learn to conceal and compensate very well - create the appearance that their body is fine. I call it "beautiful dysfunction." Ballet has, in many ways, perpetuated this phenomenon.

Regarding the mental brainwashing that strict ballet training can do: it was not until I finished graduate school that I could actually look at a (purposefully) non-pointed foot as possessing its own valid aesthetic within a work of choreography. The first time I saw a modern dance (around 12 or 13), I was horrified at the non-balletic forms and lines. It looked "ugly." I am not alone in being aesthetically brain-washed by the balletic dogma of "correctness." In my young, impressionable brain I believed that my authoritative teachers were right when they espoused the right and wrongness of specific movements. The "rules" of the ballet canon were like laws of the universe which necessitated adherence. Of course, I cannot really fault my teachers - they were trained in the same way - what else did they know? When I look back now I am saddened to realize that I was actually unable to see dance in any other way. I had a permanent imprint of what "correct" form for dance meant - and that was the classical ballet aesthetic. All dancers should be trained to see and appreciate dance in all of its myriad forms. That does not mean I am not an advocate of artistic rigor - there must be qualitative nuance and proficiency in dance and dance must speak/communicate to its audience. That is its purpose, afterall: communication and expression. How often the balletic practice has perhaps forgotten this underlying and overarching goal of dance. Young minds are particularly impressionable, thus, dance educators have a tall order in that regard.

Are there aspects of ballet practice which I find useful and beneficial? Yes. I am appreciative of the sense of fluidity, upright posture/verticality, precision, and general poise which ballet technique supports and perpetuates. We simply need to evolve the practice so that it strengthens and enhances dancers' abilities, and does not tear down and debilitate so many bodies (not to mention the mental damage ballet can do to young dancers).

I naturally gravitated towards an interest in dance medicine/science, probably intuitively due to my own bodily experiences in dance. If I could tell dancers any words of wisdom, I would say listen to your bodies! It is sometimes difficult to decipher what exactly is going on, but the body is usually trying to tell you something important if you listen. Tune-In.

A Culture of Ridicule

One cultural condition which feels as if it continues to escalate without being called out for its intense damage and oppression is ridicule. It certainly has exhibited itself in the current political context quite strongly, but, I continue to observe its presence like an infection, seeping into every social context, becoming a type of normative condition. When did ridicule and mockery become okay or become normalized? Ridicule is a master of deception. It masquerades as just "fun." Or "light-hearted." Yet, like an infection, it spreads, it deepens, and the more it is accepted as "fun," or not really serious, the more it is entrenched into the very DNA of human experience and social exchange. People begin to bond with one another through the rhetoric of ridicule. Yet, perhaps without realizing it, they have exchanged more productive and deeper exchanges with a false social bond, a mirage of meaning constructed through the game of ridicule. A culture of ridicule crumbles in the face of human realities - real trauma, real despair, real problems, real issues. It also disrupts any efforts at unity. Ridicule is a destabilizing, destructive force, obliterating any notion of trust or respect.

Real critique is valid - constructive, pointed critique with keen sensitivity is valid. But, it seems that it can become easy to substitute that constructive critique for ridicule. There is a spirit of ridicule and mockery which can easily sweep us up into its pretentions, if we are not paying attention. I have been surprised that although bullying has been overwhelming decried in schools and has had a heightened focus, the examples of bullying or ridicule that are displayed in the adult world are not called out in the same way. Human relationships will never strengthen or heal in a culture that supports and practices normalizing ridicule.

An article I found useful which is relevant to this notion of ridicule  and describes a similar destructive force, contempt, may be found here:

"Our New Age of Contempt"

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/opinion/our-new-age-of-contempt.html?_r=0

More

Another post on exploring more information needed for this conflicted political atmosphere... with an explosive inauguration about to happen... 

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/13/509711017/website-goes-down-at-office-of-government-ethics-amid-political-storm 

Journey into Reflections

I begin this personal expression blog as a way to perceive and ruminate more things than anyone can ever fully comprehend in our great world.... things that are often outside my immediate arena of arts, ballet, disability, and education, yet, still relevant and in some way connected to these areas. These are things which I intensely wish to examine, to understand, or perhaps even to form an opinion... even if it is an evolving or ever-changing opinion.

Communication Diagram courtesy of http://image-store.slidesharecdn.com/d8f966c7-916a-4753-ac83-5d38d1fb530b-original.jpeg

The election of 2016 especially made me realize how much I wanted to further my understanding of things outside my career field. I investigated and thought on many sides of the political debates.... many times not forming solid opinions because I needed more .... more information, more time, more investigation, more thought, more logic, more of me reaching out to understand.... more.

Trump and Clinton grew to obsession in those around me... and still keep us spellbound in all the ramifications.  I found one in depth article on Trump written by a writer and the ghost writer of his book years ago "The Art of the Deal".  It was an eye-opener as the author spent a couple of years with him every day.  As Trump is now President.... I reference the insight here with a cautious opinion forming .... and hope to continue in the ever evolving search to understand Presidents, people, politics, our world, and our spiritual lives.... sometimes only feeling things as emotion more than solid fact.... but to begin the journey of all that is life and love and all that matters in the Grace of God.

~ Reflections.... on evolving Thoughts / Emotions / Logic / Love ~