#my right leg was always better at oversplits

[katelynnwrites]

You did rg?? Were you good at it? Could you do oversplits? We do similar stretches to rg but we don't do the chair splits

chair splits were a whole different level of pain but the best kind

[viktoriakomova]

in all sinceritea 🍵 tho, basically every beam rotation of an ncaa meet on the sec network/espn that is commentated by kathy johnson clarke is a *masterclass* in excellent gymnastics commentary.

ive always felt like gym commentary is one of those things where if it's really high quality, you tend not to notice it. kathy's really feels like it's PART of the meet you're watching, as opposed to talking heads reacting to footage they're showing you (picking out the names of skills, pointing out deductions but just saying something like 'oh, a little mistake there' or 'yikes, that was a major error' when they fall or even 'they will deduct X tenths for that' if you're really lucky). kathy talks, DURING the routine, about what the judges are looking for (amplitude, hitting and holding positions, hitting handstands on bars, connections on beam, keeping legs together and straight). when a gymnast makes a mistake, kathy not only points out that it was a mistake and what the mistake was, but WHY the gymnast made that mistake (wrong angle punching off of the floor, drifting off the center on beam, missing the release point swinging into a skill on bars, etc.), as someone who never did gymnastics at any level, I find those comments to be very insightful and informative.

one of my absolute favorite things she does, which is exceptionally rare in comparison to other commentators, is how often she draws attention to minute details of form like pointing the feet, hitting oversplits, posture, hand accents, turning out the legs, keeping the shoulders down and back on leaps, etc. she highlights the dance elements of the sport and has a clear respect and appreciation for ballet, whereas tim daggett on nbc will (again, if you're lucky enough to get anything this substantial out of him) touch on something like a gymnast's lines, toepoint etc. tangentially, usually with some coded phrase like "she has that international look that the judges love" (by which he almost always means skinny, and by the way you can have great lines and not be stick thin, and vice versa)

i even feel like her commentary has given me a keener eye as a gymnastics fan for form deductions and finer points of technique than i did before i started following ncaa gym (I watched starting in 2013ish but didn't follow it seriously until the 2016 season). i have a strong dance background so I can spot unpointed or sickled feet and bent knees and incomplete split leaps from a mile away lol, but things like handstand angles on bars, proper vault blocking technique, punching into tumbling passes, regrasping the bars with straight elbows, etc. are all things I had to learn about second-hand. reading in the code of points all deductions for doing that stuff wrong is one thing, actually seeing it and having someone say if it's good or bad is another.

i especially love how beginner-friendly her commentary is, for the reasons i stated above. you don't have to know anything about gymnastics to watch a meet she's calling and follow along and understand what you're looking at. that's so incredibly important for a sport that seems impenetrably complicated at first glance. my mom, who knows next to nothing about gymnastics, has seen like MAYBE 4 ncaa meets on TV. kathy and bart were commentating the second one we ever watched together, and my mom even told me that she loved the way kathy explained things.

she makes it easy to understand without dumbing anything down. she names some of the skills a gymnast is doing in that moment, but that's just punctuation for the more in-depth description and analysis. she doesn't shy away from technical terms, but she doesn't let it get jargony (that's a fine line to walk tbh) and viewers can infer what it generally means based on context.

she also makes a point to be positive and constructive, not to talk about a fall on beam like it's the end of the goddamn world (ahem tim), to acknowledge when a gymnast has improved on something over the course of the season, to point out what the gymnast is doing right as well as the deductions she's incurring (instead of just doing the latter, ahem tim).

there's a reason seasoned gym fans love listening to her just as much. if you haven't noticed by now, we LOVE kathy. her commentary is easy to follow if you don't know gymnastics, but as a gymnastics nerd it's also a joy to watch the meets she calls because she DOES go into detail. the breadth and depth of her knowledge of the sport is incredibly impressive. she gives thorough analysis of routines, we get to hear an expert break down every skill in real time and critique it. and in addition to all that stuff, her enthusiasm for the sport is evident. she reminds me of the things i love most about gymnastics.

tl;dr:

every commentator should have to write a 5 page essay analyzing queen kathy johnson clarke's commentary before they're allowed on the air. it is literally Impossible to do it better than she does, she's the gold standard

[vexedtonightmares]

last dance (elu ballet au) chapter quatre

Lucas is in his final year at the Paris Opera Ballet School and he’ll be damned if he lets his former friend-turned-rival Eliott steal the lead role in their production of Swan Lake.

aka- lucas and eliott are rivals who are forced to room together for their final year of ballet school before they try to enter the company. we can all see where this is going.  

i. ii. iii. iv.

ao3

Vendredi 8:00

When Lucas was anxious, he stretched. As he sat in the hallway waiting his turn for his solo audition he alternated between a right, center, and left side split as if doing so would calm his nerves. Manon would hold his leg in an oversplit every now and then, sometimes forgetting she was even doing it when she went into one of her pre-performance dazes.

Lucas was the type of person to mark everything out with his hands before combinations or performances, but Manon marked in her head, face going completely blank as she entered her own mind and didn’t come out until she had her routine perfected. While Manon was enraptured in one such daze, Imane sat down directly in front of Lucas as he stretched, looking at him pointedly.

He took out one of his earbuds and raised his eyebrows at her. “Yes?”

“I just wanted to wish you luck,” she said casually. He raised his eyebrows further. Imane wasn’t usually one to wish him luck or compliment him. They’d stood beside one another at the barre since the first day but they hadn’t really talked much outside of class, at least no more than they normally did.

“You… wanted to wish me luck?” he clarified, shifting from a split to butterfly position, rolling out his feet as he spoke.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes.”

“Ok…”

She rolled her eyes again. “You could say thank you.”

“Thank you, Imane. Can I ask why you’re suddenly concerned with wishing me luck?” He propped his elbows on his ankles and leaned forward to put his chin in his hands.

“Because.” She glanced to the side, lowering her voice. “I’m rooting for you.”

He was surprised by her explanation. “Really? I thought you and Sofiane were friends, and isn’t Eliott friends with your brother?”

She shrugged. “Sofiane doesn’t want the Prince. He wants Von Rothbart. And Eliott… well, Eliott’s my friend too, but he doesn’t need my luck.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I’m not saying he’s better than you, I think you have a real chance at the role Lucas. Seriously. I just know think Eliott likes to tackle these things on his own, so he doesn’t need me wishing him luck. Part of what makes him so good is that he does this because he genuinely loves it, not because he wants a role, or a company spot, or whatever,” she explained. “You’re the same.”

Lucas agreed to disagree in his mind. If Eliott danced simply because he’d loved it, he would still be the same Eliott Lucas had been friends with as a child. Unfortunately, that Eliott was either long gone or buried too far to ever come back out again. Lucas was somewhere in the middle. A part of him didn’t care if he was ever a principal dancer, so long as he got the opportunity to dance for as long as humanly possible, but the other, slightly louder part warned him that it would all be for nothing if he didn’t get this role, the company invitation, the successful career most dreamed of but never achieved.

“Plus,” she added, “You have a real chance, unlike us girls.”

He furrowed his brows. “What are you talking about?”

Imane lowered her voice, but Manon was still in a daze, headphones in her ears. “Please, we both know Odette is Manon’s role and they’re probably just going to go ahead and cast her as Odile as well.” She grimaced, but looked resigned to the fact. He understood how she felt, it was how he’d always felt about Eliott. He wanted to argue with her, tell her that he thought she had a fighting chance as well, but it would have sounded hollow. They both knew it wasn’t true.

“Well, good luck regardless. Maybe you’ll be the Queen Mother,” he suggested.

She gave him a half smile. “Maybe. I’ll just settle for not being cut.”

“Psshh, come on, that doesn’t sound like the badass competitive Imane I know. You’re going to get a role, and it’ll be better than Odette, but don’t tell Manon I said that,” he said, grinning at her.

She laughed and held out a hand. “I won’t tell if you don’t tell anyone I wished you luck. My reputation would be ruined.”       

He clasped her hand and shook it once. “Deal.”

The door to the studio opened and Yann came out, widening his eyes at Lucas and shrugging helplessly. That wasn’t a very promising reaction, but Lucas knew how hard Yann always was on himself, so he expected that the audition had probably gone better than Yann thought it did.

“Lucas Lallemant?” Madame Rigaux called, as if he wasn’t right in front of her. He stood and took a deep breath, looking back down a moment at Imane before starting towards the door.

“Break a leg,” she whispered to him as he went, and he couldn’t help but smile. As the door closed behind him and he stood in front of all of his instructors waiting to be judged, he was filled with a surge of confidence. He could do this.

He smiled again to himself as the music came on, and he let himself remember the days he and Eliott spent rehearsing this same piece back when they were seven, eight years old. Granted, they hadn’t known how to do any of the steps at the time, but he was just as passionate about the dance then as he was now. He channeled that passion, feeling every movement, every pause, every breath, forgetting that this was even a competition at all.

Vendredi 21:39

Lucas hadn’t stopped overthinking since he’d finished with auditions earlier that evening. Sure, they’d felt great at the time, but what if he was being overconfident? What if he really wasn’t as good as he thought he was? Why did he have to wait until tomorrow night to find out if he’d achieved one of his dreams or failed miserably?

He sat in a slightly catatonic state on the couch, not even worried if Eliott would show up and try to engage with him in any way. Eliott, oddly enough, hadn’t even returned to the room yet, even though auditions were long over. Lucas decided not to think about it too much, decided to just be grateful.

His phone buzzed at his side and he picked it up to see that he had a message from Yann in a group with him, Yann, and Arthur. He rolled his eyes at the fact that Yann was texting them when he was just down the hall from Lucas and a room away from Arthur.

GROUP CREATED: ballet bros

Yann: Feeling up to talking about auditions yet, anyone?

Lucas: *insert zombie noise here*

Yann: Oh, good, glad to hear it

Lucas: Just come in here if you guys want to talk, Eliott’s god knows where so I’m alone

Yann: Can’t, I’m making noodles

Yann: Also, Arthur is out

Yann: You can come in here?

Lucas: I physically cannot move. I will not be able to move until cast lists are posted.

Lucas: Wait, where’s Arthur?

Yann: Where isn’t Arthur is the better question

Arthur Broussard changed the group name to “ballet hoes”

Arthur: You’d better be able to move before results are up! The party, remember? Night of our lives?

Lucas: He lives!

Yann: Night of our lives might be a stretch, but Arthur's got the right spirit

Lucas: I don’t know guys…

Arthur: Come on, Lulu. You promisedddddd

Yann: ^^^

Lucas: Ughhhhhhh

Arthur: Would it make it better if I told you that there will be a ton of hot guys there?

Lucas: …

Arthur: No? Damn, I thought that’d do it for sure

Arthur: Would for me

Arthur: Fuck, I miss Alexia, the only one I could freely thirst with

Lucas: Easy there, loverboy

Lucas: I’m just not really in a dating mindset, there’s more important things for me to be focusing on like, hmm, I don’t know, ballet?

Arthur: Who said anything about dating?

Lucas: Ugh, Yann where’d you go

Yann: … I regret to inform you I’m with Arthur on this one

Lucas: I hate you both

Yann: Hey! Come on, what’s so bad about a one-time hookup? Might help you get the stick out of your ass

Arthur: Or in your ass

Lucas: A R T H U R

Lucas: I’m blocking both of you

Lucas: I hate you

Arthur: Hate us all you want, you know we’re right

Lucas Lallemant has left the group “ballet hoes”

He did know they were probably right, which was why he left. He didn’t want to deal with anything other than his own melancholy at the present moment. Then again, a ton of hot guys didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world. If anything, it could help distract him.

Arthur Broussard added Lucas Lallemant to the group “ballet hoes”

Arthur: Not so fast Lulu

Lucas: Should have blocked when I had the chance

Yann: You could never block us and you know it

Lucas: So…

Lucas: What time is the party again?

Arthur: WE GOT HIM

Yann: HELL YEAH

Arthur: It’s at 22h but we’ll probably get there a little later

Arthur: Fashionably late is back in style

Yann: And it’s going to take you an extra hour to pick out your outfit

Arthur: Yes, that too

Lucas: Fine, fine. The booze had better be worth it

Arthur: *boys, but yes

Lucas Lallemant has changed the group name to “I hate both of you so much :)”

Arthur Broussard has changed the group name to “Way harsh, Lulu”

Yann Cazas changed has changed the group name to “Yann and Arthur are the best.”

Lucas Lallemant has left the group “Yann and Arthur are the best.”

Samedi 22:47

“What’s up bitches!” Alexia greeted Yann, Arthur, and Lucas at the door, grinning so wide Lucas was sure she was going to pull a muscle. There was already quite a few people there and Lucas felt a bit anxious about arriving at the time they did. He very much liked to be places on time or early and even though this was a party, he couldn’t help but feel his stomach twist at the thought of being so late.

Alexia pulled Lucas into a hug and he hugged her back tightly. He’d missed her presence at the school quite a bit, but she seemed to be thriving away from it, which was good. The ballet lifestyle wasn’t for everyone. Sometimes Lucas wondered what his life would be like if he was a bit more like Alexia, or even Arthur.

He was pulled from his thoughts by Arthur’s hand gripping his arm and pulling him further into the house, aiming for drinks. Lucas pondered a moment about whether the extra calories would be worth it, but decided he could risk it for the night. It wasn’t like he drank often enough for it to cause a problem for him.

Arthur mixed him up something that tasted awful, but that was to be expected. He downed as much of it as he could in one gulp, staying true to his plan to try to get so drunk he’d forget that he was a mess of anxiety over the casting that was due to be released in any minute.

“Easy there, save some for the rest of us.” Arthur patted Lucas’ shoulder and refilled his drink before drifting away into the middle of the crowd. Yann stayed with Lucas, watching from afar.

“It’s strange, huh?” Yann asked, gazing at all the people.

Lucas turned his head up to look at Yann. “What is?”

Yann took a drink and shrugged. “The normalcy of it all. Most of the people here do things like this every weekend.” “Yeah,” Lucas agreed, following Yann’s stare. It was sort of weird to think about, how all of this was so normal for so many people, and such a treat for people like them. Well, maybe treat wasn’t the best word, but he didn’t know a better one. Anomaly, maybe. That’s what he felt like, at least.

“Would you like to indulge in this mirage of the ‘normal teen experience’ with me?” Yann asked, holding out a hand. Lucas laughed and rolled his eyes at the melodrama of it all, but he took Yann’s hand and allowed himself to be led for the second time that night, this time into the center of a room full of people dancing.

He saw Imane, Daphné, Manon, and Emma dancing with Alexia in a little circle of their own making, each of them looking happy to be reunited with one of their best friends. Basile was with Arthur, the latter trying to teach Basile how to do the robot dance and failing miserably.

Imane’s brother Idriss was even there, standing in a corner chatting with Sofiane and Eliott. Wait— Eliott? What was he doing there? Lucas racked his brain to try to remember if Eliott had mentioned that he would be out that night, but Lucas quickly realized he hadn’t seen Eliott all day. He hadn’t come back to their room until nearly one in the morning the night before, going straight to bed without saying a word to Lucas, and then was gone before Lucas woke up that morning. He wasn’t complaining, but it was a bit weird.

It still didn’t answer why Eliott was there, either. Sure, he was friends with Sofiane and Idriss, but as far as Lucas knew he and Alexia hadn’t been very close. Yann noticed Eliott at the same time Lucas did and sighed. “Ignore him, Lucas.”

It’s not that easy, he wanted to say, even though it should have been. Why was it never easy for him to ignore Eliott? Eliott happened to look his way right at that moment, locking eyes with him over the heads of a sea of people. There was a hardness in his eyes that wasn’t usually there, uncharacteristically closed off. Lucas wondered if it had anything to do with their talk a week before. They really hadn’t spoken at all since, Lucas realized. Good.

“Let’s dance,” Lucas decided, setting his empty cup down and trying his best to sway to the beat in a manner that would constitute as normal for anyone who wasn’t training to become a ballet dancer. It was harder than he’d anticipated, and Yann was on the verge of laughing at him. “Fuck off, like you can do any better,” he spat bitterly, watching the way Yann’s eyebrows raised in amusement.

As it turned out, Yann could do better than him, which was utterly infuriating. Now he didn’t just have to worry about his actual dancing, he had to worry about stereotypical party dancing as well?

Someone bumped his shoulder, and Lucas turned sluggishly. Maybe the alcohol was finally starting to get to him. Wow. The guy that had bumped his shoulder was kind of hot, and, judging by the way he was looking at Lucas, the bump hadn’t been an accident.

“Sorry,” the boy said anyway, but he didn’t look it. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. I’m Jackson, you?”

“Lucas,” Lucas replied.

“Lucas.” The boy mulled over the name a minute before smiling. “It suits you. Would you like to dance, Lucas?”

Not the way you want to, Lucas thought to himself. There were worse things in the world than dancing with a pretty boy, of course, but then again, Jackson wasn’t even that pretty. Not like Eliott or something.

What the fuck Lucas? He couldn’t just go around thinking about Eliott being attractive, pretty. Where the hell had that even come from?

Sure, Eliott was objectively attractive, he would be an idiot not to notice, but Lucas hated him so much that normally this was just another thing to hate. Countless girls would end up falling for his wild hair and pretty eyes, unaware that their attraction had led them into the nest of a snake.

Jackson was still looking at him hopefully, eyes green and bright. “You know what? Sure,” Lucas found himself responding, taking an outstretched hand for the third time that night and allowing himself to be swept away.

They were playing a song he actually knew now, and it was easier for him to dance more ‘normally’, whatever the hell that meant. Yann caught his eye and winked, which made Lucas blush. Jackson noticed Lucas blushing and blushed back, giving Lucas a small twirl. Maybe Arthur had been right, maybe he could pretend to fall in love for a night and let things happen as they so often did when one was young and stupid and drunk.

Lucas was feeling a bit more bold, so he brought his hands up around Jackson’s neck. There were some perks to being short, after all. Jackson blushed even harder at this, leaning closer very hesitantly.

“I think you’re very beautiful Lucas,” Jackson said quietly. Lucas couldn’t find words to respond so he just smiled. Something about it felt real, something about it felt fake. It wasn’t every day a boy called him beautiful, but the flutter in his stomach that should have accompanied an admission like this wasn’t there.

Jackson leaned closer still. “Can I kiss you?”

Lucas found himself nodding, wanting to feel something for a boy that he should have been feeling everything for.

Their lips met softly at first, Jackson letting Lucas take the lead, pull back if he wanted to. He wanted to, and he didn’t. He wanted to be kissed, he realized, but for some reason Jackson wasn’t giving him the kiss he hadn’t known he was longing for.

It wasn’t a bad kiss, quite the contrary, but it didn’t make Lucas feel like he was flying, like he was alive. Granted, Lucas had never had a kiss like that, but he’d hoped it would happen sooner rather than later.

Another thing he realized while kissing Jackson was that he couldn’t do the one-time hookup thing. Maybe it worked for other people, but he couldn’t just be intimate like that with someone with no sort of follow up. It was all or nothing, something that kind of carried over to his life as a dancer as well.

Having a boyfriend would probably be nice, but Lucas couldn’t stand the ‘talking’ phase, wondering if a person actually likes you or if they’re just being nice or if they just want one thing from you, so he’d settled for nothing at all, not even bothering to try to look. As far as he knew, Arthur was the only boy in his year that wasn’t straight anyway and that was just too weird to think about, so what was the point in trying? Looking elsewhere was impossible, he was too involved in ballet to care about anything outside it.

He was vaguely aware that he and Jackson were still kissing.

They broke apart after an eternity and Lucas was met by a look of utter adoration. Jackson really was beautiful himself, but if being looked at like that couldn’t stir something inside Lucas, this whole thing was fruitless. He blinked and when he opened his eyes again he was staring right at Eliott again, who was staring back.

The expression Eliott wore wasn’t as blank as it had been before, but Lucas still couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. Not that he wanted to.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” Lucas said abruptly. Jackson blinked, then smiled.

“Do you want me to come with?” he asked.

Lucas laughed and hoped it didn’t sound as harsh as it felt in his mind. “No, no. I actually really have to piss.”

“I see,” Jackson laughed, releasing Lucas, “See you in a bit?”

Lucas couldn’t force himself to answer, choosing instead to smile before rushing off to the bathroom. Once inside he caught a look at himself in the mirror and was struck dumb by the sight. He didn’t look great, to say the least. The bags around his eyes looked deeper than they had been an hour before, his hair was disheveled from Jackson running his hands through it, and his eyes looked wide and shocked.

He’d barely locked eyes with the mirror longer than a few seconds before he was bent over the toilet bowl, spilling everything he’d drank back out the way it came. He hated vomiting, hated it so much.

There was something about the lack of control he felt with his head in the toilet that made him begin to shake, barely able to breathe between spurts of throwing up, tears starting to stream down his cheeks involuntarily. The shaking wouldn’t stop and he was barely able to grip the toilet seat properly, almost banging his heat on it when his hands slipped. He allowed himself to collapse face down on the floor, curled into a fetal position on the mat in front of the toilet, silently screaming inside his mind.

He felt like he was in one of those dreams where something is chasing you and you open your mouth to scream but nothing comes out or you move your legs to run but stay in place. He blinked quickly and frequently, trying to figure out if his vision was actually spotting or if he was just blinking so much it seemed that way.

He didn’t know how much longer he stayed on the floor like that, lungs screaming for breaths he couldn’t take properly, mind screaming at him for being so stupid as to allow himself to get drunk to the point of vomiting in the first place. Had he even been that drunk? He didn’t think so, he could still stand straight and think straight for the most part.

When he finally felt like he could possibly sit up, seeing more than just blurs of darkness at last, he took a deep breath, grunting into a seated position. He rested his head back against the wall and pulled his knees up to ground himself further. His phone lit up beside him and he saw that it was past midnight, which meant that the casting had to be up by then. He’d been so preoccupied with the façade of normalcy he’d forgotten what he had put on the façade for.

Immediately, he was sober, all remnants of everything that had just happened clearing from his system. Indeed, when he checked his email, there was a message from the director with the cast list. He closed his eyes before clicking on it, praying to any deities that might be listening.

SWAN LAKE CAST LIST

ODETTE - MANON DEMISSY

PRINCE SIEGFRIED - ELIOTT DEMAURY

BARON VON ROTHBART - SOFIANE ALAOUI

ODILE - MANON DEMISSY

BENNO VON SOMMERSTERN- YANN CAZAS

WOLFGANG - JULIAN DAHL

QUEEN MOTHER - DAPHNÉ LECOMTE

CYGNETS - EMMA BORGÈS, INGRID SPIELMAN, CHLOÉ FARGE-JEANSON, IMANE

BAKHELLAL

CORPS DE BALLET* - EMMA BORGÈS, IMANE BAKHELLAL, ARTHUR BROUSSARD, MARIA LANIER, LUCAS LALLEMANT, INGRID SPIELMAN, SARAH BUI, CHLOÉ FARGE-JEANSON, VALERIE THOMAS, JACQUELINE PAGE, LEIA BISSET, CHANTAL MARCHAND   

UNDERSTUDY TO ODETTE/ODILE - IMANE BAKHELLAL

UNDERSTUDY TO PRINCE SIEGFRIED - LUCAS LALLEMANT

UNDERSTUDY TO BARON VON ROTHBART - ARTHUR BROUSSARD

*Some dancers in the corps may be selected for secondary roles to be established during rehearsals; understudies will be expected to practice alongside their counterparts for the majority of the rehearsals, filling spots in the corps only once they have perfected the roles they understudy.

REHEARSAL SCHEDULES WILL BE IN YOUR INBOXES BY 23:59 SUNDAY NIGHT.

Lucas’ phone fell from his hands in a dull clatter. He’d failed. An understudy. An understudy. Eliott’s understudy. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes and he didn’t stop them from falling. He’d earned these tears, would let them flow freely as they wished until he had to return to the party and pretend his dreams hadn’t been crushed once again.

He was unsurprised by Manon’s role, and happy for Yann. Yann was never really singled out either, so this would probably come as a welcome surprise to him. Julian must have been the dancer from the year below them that had made it into the show, so Lucas didn’t totally know what to think about that yet. Arthur was an understudy, just like him, but he didn’t think Arthur would be too upset about it. There was no possibility of Sofiane having to back out from his role, so Arthur would just have more free time on his hands. Imane was in a similar situation to Lucas, but she was also one of the cygnets, performing the famous ‘Little Swans’ pas de quatre, so she’d get an opportunity to shine regardless.

His phone was buzzing continually, filling with messages from Yann, Arthur, and Manon. He didn’t bother to read any of them, knowing they all held condolences and not wanting to deal with it. Turning his phone on silent, then turning it off completely, he slowly made his way to standing, bracing himself up against the counter as he looked directly into the mirror again.

The tears were gone from his face, but there was a hollow look in his eyes that everyone would see right through. He splashed a bit of water on his face and forced a smile, trying to look every bit as nonchalant as he would be expected to look. He could fall apart in the privacy of this bathroom, but he couldn’t be a sore loser out amongst the throngs of people. From their point of view, he was probably lucky to be an understudy. At least he’d get to practice for the role he’d dreamed of, right?

Stumbling back out into the party, the low lighting made it difficult to see at first, which made for a good excuse when he pretended not to see Yann, Arthur, and Basile huddled together in conversation. It was improbable that they were talking about the casting, but it was hard for him to think that they weren’t. Maybe he was just being narcissistic, but it felt like everyone there was looking at him with pity. He had to get out of there.

Jackson caught his eye and smiled, raising one eyebrow suggestively, but Lucas ignored him, brushing past without a word towards the door. He cast one last glance around the room before leaving, gaze landing on a pair of eyes he hadn’t realized he’d been searching to find.

Eliott looked at him not like he’d won, and Lucas had lost, but like he understood exactly what Lucas was feeling in that moment. It was unnerving, but Lucas couldn’t look away. Something passed between the two of them, something that Lucas might have considered further if he hadn’t been completely defeated. Lucas finally broke the stare, looking down at his feet before glancing back up to find that Eliott was still looking at him. It felt like they could communicate without words again like they used to. Are you ok?

No, Lucas wasn’t ok, but he found himself nodding. Eliott gave him a small smile that should have been infuriating, but it was comforting. It was a true testament to how out of it he was that he didn’t feel disgusted by the fact that he’d found comfort in Eliott’s smile. Maybe he would tomorrow, but for tonight, it was exactly what he needed. Thank you.

Lucas barely had time to register the surprise in Eliott’s eyes before he was out the door, wandering aimlessly through the streets until he found his way back to school. If he stopped on the way home to scream and punch a fence, bloodying his hand to the point of tears, he didn’t have the mind to care. If he collapsed onto his bed without setting an alarm to wake up to work out in the morning, he didn’t give a shit. Let lives of perfection be left to those who had earned it.

[neurohm-yoga]

Left side, strong side

“If you’re a righty, raise your hand – good – now let me tell you something: this is going to be your better side”

I hear this line every time I take a class with Vic. We get to fairy dogs and we pick up our right leg first, and while we rest in child’s pose she tells us all that the left leg up will be our better side. I know this is encouragement, meant to make the second side feel like magic, but in the beginning I felt gypped. “But I’m a righty! She said this is supposed to work!” My first side is always better than my second.

As a child I was a gymnast, and I practiced until the day I shattered my right elbow in 2000.  It was totally devastating. I thought I would be the next Dominique Moceanu. Regardless, it was there that I realized I was something of a rarity: although I wrote with my right hand, I was left-footed! That means that I step forward with my left foot first and I balance better on my left side. My one-handed tricks are always done left-handed, my pirouettes counter-clockwise, and my tumbling warmups aligned on the right side of the floor (to avoid kicking my teammates). Later in life, this translated to snowboarding – your dominant foot steers the back of your board – and I ride “goofy” with my left foot behind and right foot forward. Furthermore, I bat, golf, and play lacrosse lefty. How bizarre!

There was a while where I convinced myself that I was a corrected lefty, but my left-handed penmanship is way too terrible for that to be true.

Anyway, I digress. My “good side” is my left side; my left hip and shoulder are more open that my right, my left arm is stronger (and longer) than my right, and I kick up more successfully when I use the power of my left leg. This isn’t to say that my right side is “bad”. I am still successful kicking up with my right leg, my right split is also a full expression of the pose, and my right side crow is awesome. I was told once that we should never practice a deeper expression of a pose on our better side just because we can; that we should practice both sides to the ability of the weaker side to keep our body balances. That makes sense to me. Although my front leg can be parallel in pigeon prep, I keep it bent slightly toward my body the way my right leg is. While I can take an oversplit on my left leg, I honor my right by maintaining the balance. I feel cognizant of these imbalances and take steps to correct them.

The text asks us to confront parts of our body that we wish to cut away, as Bhrigu wished to remove Parvati. I have already addressed how I confronted my body image issues and made peace with them. These days, I am content with how my body looks and feels, and completely enthralled with the things it can accomplish.