today’s slushee is partly a memoriam for Julia Cziller Redick, my first dance teacher who passed away in april. from our first lesson, she instilled in me a spirit of creative play, the necessity of functional movement , and a sense of taste and style. more than what that taste or style is, it’s for protecting what i always already had that i celebrate her legacy in this slushee. after getting my pull ups back on construction scaf- folding last summer, one of my 2021 pet projects has been teaching my body to do a muscle up: a pull up that lifts the torso above the bar through fully extended arms.
free physical therapy session sent me off with a set of exercises to help me—cross train—and so i took those exercises to a gym that offered free personal training (no sponcon here, iykyk) and built myself new shoulders– ones whose range of motion expanded because they were supported by a better coordinated core, back, and chest it was magical to feel the capacity of my body change. my traps and neck stopped twinging. my shoulders stopped clicking at the slightest rotation. much of weightlifting machines are designed to iso- late muscle groups. they seem to suggest one will optimize the body by dividing it into its component parts. and even after discovering the best of motion is actually circular via ice skating in march, i really thought i was going to teach myself a muscle up by isolating my lats—as if they have the range to propel me up there!! maybe someday it was raining one afternoon in april so lifting under scaffolding made it unsafe to work on the muscle up. but i dreamed about it that day, practicing partial motions til i (re)discovered a new trajectory of mo- mentum—the circle, of course. the next day should be an off day for my back but it’s sunny and i feel alive so i swing by the outdoor gym and decide to—mani- fest my dreams— i clutch the bar, circle my torso opposite of where i’m trying to go and send my body around to do a muscle up on my first try. i scream with delight as i go from two feet below the bar to two feet over it in seconds. 0 to 60 within my own body. since then, i’ve been trying to do multiple in a row—i hit 5 once and not once since. maybe someday i’ll do 10 or i’ll do a but- tery smooth linear one, hide the circle in my shoul- der blades, and just shoot up like a rocket. yes, i am afraid of heights
my outdoor gym features three bars of varying heights (visual below!). i began using the lowest to train the distinguishing motion between pull up and muscle up: how to rotate my forearms, elbows, and shoulders from below to above the bar. when start- ing above, straightening my arms was easy. in low- ering myself down (the negative motion), i taught my little neurons how to get in line but getting them to reverse the negative and do the thing… unfathomable to february—me! but i would try! when i first started lifting (i love how obnoxious this sounds tbh! more soon ) six years ago, i was on the verge of so many injuries: reaggravated stress fractures in both legs (performing on a strip of marley atop a concrete stage for my first #freelanceflailing gig... sigh!) and very uncertain shoulder joint stability (which led to recurring trap/neck flare ups... yikes!) a
from my years of lifting to be wildly chaotic
, i’ve known my progress
, managing unimaginable feats on days i’m exhausted and on others, despite being rested, barely managing 60% of my usual ca- pacity. linearity, functionality, optimization, etc. etc.
SUMMER 2021 in dance 41
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nce | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n amp l i f y u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n a p l i f y
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