Thirty‐three, thirty‐four, thirty‐five, thirty‐six… and she fell to the floor.

After thirty‐six fouettes, pain reached a new level, way beyond unbearable. Unbearable she could take any day of the week. To be a ballet dancer was never knowing absence of pain. This time it was different.

She would do whatever it took. Life wasn’t supposed to be like this. Finally she went to the doctor.

‘Couldn’t I just cut it out?’

The doctor looks at her with startled eyes. He seems to need some recovering before coming back to her.

‘You could. I wouldn’t do it though; I don’t think you would like the consequences.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘In fact, you would have to change your whole life to be without your big toe.

It is essential for your balance. Possibly you would no longer be able to continue to be a ballet dancer. Possibly another type of dancer, maybe. I dare to think you cannot do these ballet point shoes without it.

You could be the first in the world to do it, still a huge challenge.

Even walking won’t be the same.

Your identity will be changed, there will be a discovery will have to be made on “who am I without my toe?”’

She thinks furiously.

‘But why!? Why is it doing this to me? I just want to get on with my life!’ She exclaims.

‘I understand your frustration’ The doctor replies.

‘What I’ll ask you instead is what have you been doing to it, to make it so angry at you?’

‘Just dancing!’

‘Just dancing… Really?’

‘Well, the nail fell a few times. But it grew back every time.’

‘How many times, specifically?’

‘Four .’

‘Four. You lost your toe’s nail four times and didn’t think your toe needed some attention, some better care?’

‘No, it’s how toes are.’

‘No, they are not!’

‘I mean, ballet dancers’ toes are.’

‘Are they? All your ballet friends are at the doctor, right now, considering chopping their toes off?’

‘No. Just some of them… some stop dancing too because of the pain and the points.’

‘Ok. So what do the others do differently?’

‘They have such ridiculous patience! They bind their toes in bandages before each class, toe by toe. Then they clean them after each class and re‐do the process. It takes a long time.’

‘Hummm’ is his only comment. She continues:

‘And they’ve bought gel protectors to put inside the shoes, my teacher said it is for the weak, not for real dancers.’

‘Do you think that protecting yourself and your health is a weakness? That your teacher is thinking straight here?’

‘I’m strong! And I don’t have time for this ridiculous caring of small toes!’

‘Or patience?’

‘Or patience. I have more to do.’

‘When you don’t have time for your body, your body obligates you to create it. Your toe has been showing you something is not right. That it needs better care, that something has to change. Right now, it doesn’t feel safe. It feels like you will chop it off at the first chance you’ve got. So it is giving you pain. It is on defensive mode fighting for its own existence.’

‘What do I do?’

‘When you got here you told me you are willing to do whatever it took.’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you, even, be willing to let it go, the idea of cutting the toe off?’

‘Maybe, yes.’

‘Then, I won’t cut it off. I won’t do it because it would be irresponsible of me.

It would be the quickest and apparent easiest solution.

But the consequences could be life shattering. So I ask again: whatever it takes?’

‘Yes.’ She agrees, But she pouts.

‘You will have to be good to yourself. Not only to your toe. Stop the punishment. No dancing for a month, at the very list.’

‘A MONTH???! NO WAY! I have a performance and…’

He cuts her off. ‘A month. Yes. That is what it takes. Forfeit the performance. Then do everything differently. Eat carbs. Do yoga – with no shoes. Meditate. Build patience in every way you can. Challenge yourself in the areas you don’t do it as a dancer: being calm, being happy. Eat something for goodness sake! And then, take care of your toe, every day,

Four times a day. Change the bandages and clean it thoroughly as I’ll show you in a minute.

Soak it every time in hot water, “feed it” the right medicine I’m prescribing.

Also you will have to wake up every night, put an alarm for midnight, and repeat the process.’

‘Waking up? You are kidding me aren’t you?’

‘No, I’m not kidding. This is what it takes, and by the way, this is real sacrifice, pain for the greater good, not inflicting yourself unbearable pain over and over again purposelessly.’

She rests silently. The doctor continues…

‘The nail will fall again and, if you do it right, will regenerate once more. There will be pain, but the pain will diminish every day. By the end of the month you can go slowly back to dancing.’

‘Yey!’ She exclaims in a very small voice with false excitement.

‘I feel I have to tell you one more thing.’

‘What?’

‘You may find out you don’t want to continue being what you were until now.’

‘That is what scares me the most…’

‘I know Sweetie, I know…’

22 Orble Votes

Junaid at his competition, with four layers of spray tan and all / Junaid and his Coach in his normal state performing at LDA Ball

When asked why he did it he told us: ‘I was fat and ugly’. These were his words, not mine. I’m pretty sure his mom would strongly disagree.

The fact is that my dance partner and friend Junaid decided to go for a Body Building contest… with all that comes with the package.

It is like when you look a pair of jeans with diamond buttons. It is so unachievable you simply don’t consider it seriously. When people like me, reasonably fit, with a few love handles, my honest share of cellulites and a normal body see a body builder we think “oh cool” and move the conversation to the next topic.

We see what is there but we have no idea of the lunacy behind.

I’m talking here about the competitions with no drugs. Just powders. At least that was what I saw my partner eating in all rehearsals: some powder with water, broccoli and chicken. The kind of actions they take are totally insane, If you want to know details and timetables or the processes get a trainer, here I’m just going to highlight a few of the crazy stuff I witnessed and that he told me about.

Most of it, he told a bunch of friends and me around a table, eating cake, after the competition.

First, I think the whole process takes around 7 months.

That means seven months of very hard work and some kind of crazy diet.

At the beginning there was weight to gain so every time I looked at him, he was eating. We didn’t see each other frequently, only at rehearsals, but even then, if we had 5 min of break, he had to get one of his powdery shakes, eat something from a container before and after the rehearsal.

He had to train everyday, Train is lifting heavy weights for more than an hour if I’m not mistaken. It got worse as the time went by.

Near the competition he was training twice a day on weekends. Hours and hours mornings and nights. Why? I have no idea!

After he gained weight and muscles for a few months, he then had to loose weight again. It was time to start a new diet. No sugar, and no oil at all, no fruits, what I would certainly classify as “no life”.

Our rehearsals suffered a bit, he was all the time hungry and tired. But I had to excuse him, if I was doing what he was I would have either died or killed someone by then.

I imagine a dialogue:

‘Who did she kill?’

‘Some guy on the street’

‘Why?’

‘For a bar of chocolate.’

‘WHAT?!’

‘The guy refused to give her the chocolate and was doomed!’

And if I was doing what they called dead‐lifting 190kg, I would certainly have had the power to kill someone for the chocolate!

At a certain part of the journey, they give up eating any sodium. It means salt. For a Brazilian like me that would be it. After months of training that would have made me give up for sure. If not that, it would be the water business.

There is a phase they have to drink 10 litters of water per day. Junaid told me that one of his friends was found by his girlfriend sleeping seated at the toilet so he wouldn’t have to wake every twenty minutes bursting to go.

‘How did you deal with the cravings?’ I asked my dance partner.

‘I made a list. An enormous list! Every time I had a craving I put it down on the list to eat after the competition. I got a few things crossed from the list today: cake, cheese, more cake, chocolate, more cake, cheese, ham and of course, more cake.’ He told me the at the brunch we organised for him after the competition.

One of his fellows competitors said the only thing he never craves is ice cream, because he was a recurrent body builder and after one of the competitions he devoured a bucket of four litters of ice cream and could never see the stuff again.

To do something this extreme you have to really embrace it. I’m not very good of hiding what I think so during the talk I ended up confessing that I think that underwear they use are simply atrocious.

He said he knew and since he was embracing the thing he ended up buying 3! The 3 colours they had and spent the next half hour showing us his pictures of him with the blue, the red and the black. He also had to tell us which one he was on the pictures.

You see, they go through four layers of spray tan plus something that is called slap tan and spray on cooking oil. This means you cannot recognise anyone unless you are a dentist and recognise the teeth. They are all so coloured they are completely different from their regular state. 

He told me also that during the spray tan, being his first time, he used the thong back to front or something like that. The girl at the tanning saloon found it very funny. I didn’t get the picture and certainly didn’t ask for more details! 

‘What is this slap tan?’ I asked, curious with the strange name.
‘That is how I call it. It is something that only is absorbed by the skin if it is applied with slaps. That means my friend had a hell of a time slapping me with no retribution from my part.’

‘Oh!’

From all this, my loony dance partner said he believes he can do anything he wants, anything at all. I bet he can. If all this is not a case of temporary insanity, I don’t know what it is!

Junaid in his normal state performing at LDA Ball

113 Orble Votes