Lost

There is a phenomenon in the acrobatic arts where abilities and skills suddenly disappear. This is typically referred to as 'losing a move'. There's no particular reason behind it and the lost skill can be one of the trickier moves in the repertoire or something as basic as a simple salto. Skills that were once performed without a second thought suddenly cause the acrobat to freeze, panic, bail, stumble like a rank amateur, or if you're me, all of these things plus crying in a corner.

How long does a skill remain lost? Could be a day, could be a week. Could be longer... Seeing as there isn't usually a clear or even a good reason for the skill to suddenly be unperformable, why would there be a tidy end to the embarrassment and frustration of losing a move?

If you haven't already guessed, I'm currently suffering from a lost move. And if you're particularly clever, you'll even know which one it is as I've mentioned struggling with fear and that move before. Only now, I can't seem to overcome it. In every other city I hem and haw and get all anxious about performing it, but I always manage to do it in the end. But this time...

I spent hours training the day of the run through. I did wheel at three different times in the day in my attempts to do the move. During the run through, I cried for the duration of my act and absolutely gave up mid-way on the way into the move.

The following day, the day of the premiere in this city, I spent an hour and a half training that one single move. The atmosphere started out quite jolly. Then, as I went through each preparatory figure I got more and more nervous. When it came time to do the move, I couldn't even make it past the stomach drop.

By the end, what I felt didn't even really feel like fear. It felt more like there was a very real and tangible wall that I just could not get passed. I would get in position to do the move and give up before the wheel even had a chance to start rolling. At one point, I was in position to do the move and drew a complete blank on how to actually execute it. When you've performed a move literally hundreds of times, suddenly forgetting how to do it is like suddenly forgetting how to walk!

In the end, I had a choice to make. And for the sake of the show, my act and my sanity, there was really only one option. As frustrating and embarrassing as it is, I had to cut the move from my act. I've put in a similar, though simpler, figure.

In order to work through this, I am taking some space from the offending move. I've written to the Wheel God for advice as well as a friend on the Dutch national team. I've been working moves that have nothing to do with the show in order to rekindle the love I know I have for the wheel, but haven't really felt lately. Truthfully, the loss of this move is rooted in something much deeper than fear. And I have some serious digging to do in order to get back up to scratch.

But that's an entirely different post.