A couple days ago, the somewhat-overdramatic juris doctor had a guest instructor in. I don't usually bother to go when he does that; I'm too old to waste time taking classes with anyone whose choreography doesn't make me desperately want to get up and dance. But the SOJD was going to be in class with us, and I thought, my, wouldn't that be an interesting thing to see? I've never seen him as a student before. So what the hell, I signed up.
The lady he had in is a successful commercial dancer, who was actually scouting for a performing arts academy the week she was here. She can fuck all the way off.
She said we were going to start class with a warmup. We did not. We slammed straight into a lot of high-speed, high-impact cardio. I have a mild case of asthma that can be triggered by sudden bursts of exercise in an unfavorable environment -- I've done it by suddenly running to catch my bus in August -- or just by excessive heat and humidity. We're still stuck in masks, so I went from 0 to wheezing instantly.
I have a rescue inhaler. I hate using it. It's a short-acting sympathomimetic stimulant bronchodilator. It works, usually, but it doesn't last long and it has a very nasty crash at the end. I prefer to start with Bronkaid, which is a slightly less fast-acting sympathomimetic stimulant bronchodilator, which lasts longer and is less uncomfortable. I gasped and flailed my way through the "warmup" and then went for Round 1 of Digging For Medication in my bag.
A few minutes later, she dragged me into the front row. I hate being in the front row. There is the practical consideration that I find the mirror really distracting when I'm trying to learn something like street jazz, where it's more important that I get the general idea than that I look exactly like all the other dancers. There is the much larger fact that I have a lot of really nasty associations with being yanked to the front of the class from when I was a kid. I am deeply, madly uncomfortable being in the front row, for trauma reasons, and I learn absolutely fuck-all when I'm up there. I also frankly didn't like being moved so far away from my bag, where the rescue inhaler lived.
The trauma thing is non-standard and she couldn't have known, so I was willing to give her a pass on it. Right up to the point where she admitted, in actual words, that making people uncomfortable was the whole point. 'Get over it, you need to be in the front to succeed in auditions,' was the gist.
We were not in an audition, and I had no interest in ever working for anyone who thought that 'this sucked for me, therefore it needs to suck for you too,' was a good idea anyway. When I had to scuttle back to my bag for Round 2, which was the damnable inhaler this time, I just stayed there.
It's worth noting that the SOJD likes to pull people into the front row when they're doing well in class. He did it to me exactly once. I said 'why am I up here,' he said 'do you not like being in the front', I said 'NO I DO NOT' with as much emphasis as I have ever given anything, and he said 'okay you can go back'. Fini. I did explain all the stuff behind that a few days later, but he never brought it up again. This is the response of a reasonable human.
I stumbled through some more of the class, having visible difficulty breathing, and going back to my bag for Round 3, another blast from the fucking inhaler. I probably should have just slipped down the stairs and gone home before I maxed out on my medication for the day, but I am stubborn.
So of course during our last water break, while I was leaning against a wall to stay upright, this lady decided to make a snarky comment about people who wouldn't come up to the front. When I looked up she was staring very pointedly at me.
The instant she saw my face, she started to frantically backpedal ("Ha ha! I was just kidding!"). I imagine I looked very, very angry at that point, mostly because I was. I told her in a very loud clear voice that I was trying to not be too far away from my inhaler.
If the fate of the world ever rests on your ability to make someone else blind with rage in the next 30 seconds, this is an excellent way to do it. Very little pisses me off faster than someone insinuating that I am having a problem with something only because I am too lazy to not have a problem. I did not get a diagnosis for any of my very real medical problems until I was thirty, because all of the authority figures in my life told me that my chronic musculoskeletal pain, constant dislocations and joint injuries, untreated migraines, rampant anxiety disorder, and anything else I was suffering from would go away if I would just stop whining and do what they told me to.
This is bullshit, and I still have to deal with it all the time. It tends to come from people who believe both that I am still in my twenties, and that anyone younger than they are doesn't know shit. I couldn't swear to it in court, but I have a strong suspicion this lady would not have tried that if she had known that I am forty, and cranky, and able to defend myself.
I sometimes worry, when I get really attached to a teacher, that I'm letting the fact that I enjoy their class put an unwarranted halo over their heads. I try to remember that teachers are human, and that they shouldn't automatically get a bye for sometimes screwing up the same things that other humans do. If it's a terrible behavior from someone I don't like, it's also a terrible behavior from someone I do like, you know? I don't have to handle it the same way, but I shouldn't just pretend it's okay.
But the SOJD has never treated me like that. I don't think it's ever crossed his mind to treat anyone like that. He does have a very 'rah rah, everyone's awesome, fight for it!' attitude in class, which worried me slightly in the beginning. I don't normally give people a heads up on my medical crap; it's not something people can know about and not get kind of weird. (Understandable. I'm essentially telling them, "Something may or may not go catastrophically wrong with me at some unspecified time in the future. But don't worry, you can't do anything about it! You just have to stand there and watch me flail." Most people don't have a protocol for that.) But him, I did. Specifically, I apologized that I was going to have some issues keeping up with his class, and assured him that if I wasn't able to do something it wasn't because I wasn't trying, in a very calculated attempt to prevent him from doing exactly the thing that this goddamn lady did.
He startled the hell out of me my taking a third option, which was informing me he'd already spotted that, and everybody had their own things to deal with but -- and I quote -- "you are fighting." I'm sure I responded to that but I have no idea what with, because he's the first teacher I've had in forty fucking years who's ever managed to get there on his own. You'd think someone at some point would have had the thought 'hey, maybe she hits a wall suddenly because she's forcing herself to do things until she physically can't', but no, that never occurs to anyone until I spell it out in very tiny words.
This goes a long way, I think, to explaining why he is my favorite.
I am willing to put myself at a lot more risk in his class because I know that if I try something, and realize that I really shouldn't be doing that, I can just... not do that anymore, and there will not be an argument over it. I have outright said no to a couple of things, and that is always the end of the conversation. On the flipside, he also doesn't hover if I look like I'm running into trouble. I assume he'd do something if I actually passed out, but if I'm still on my feet and look more or less with it, he figures I know how to take care of myself. He does not bug me if I, for example, decide I'm okay to keep going as long as I stay within arm's reach of my rescue inhaler.
The guest instructor lady appeared to have realized she fucked up, and started giving a lot of lip service to 'this class is hard! you're all awesome just for showing up!' But I was pretty goddamn done with her at that point, and when she split the class up to try to choreo in smaller groups, I just sat down and did not get up again. If my attempts to participate despite a crippling lack of oxygen are not good enough, then I do not see why I should bother.
The second class was declared over, I picked up my bag and went straight down the stairs without saying a word to anybody. I don't know how much of the in-class shenanigans the SOJD was paying attention to, but he almost certainly noticed that, because it is the first and only time I have ever simply walked out of his classroom without helping him strike his stuff, or at least telling him I'm in a hurry and can't.
As for what he's like in class, he has the same pattern of 'nailed it - nailed it - flail in an approximation of the steps for a few counts - nailed it' that the rest of us do, which makes me feel a bit better.
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