A Hammer and a Dance

Going back to an old passion, and learning to better understand its value

I never knew how to dance. It’s not that music does not give me the vibe, I’m not unfamiliar with the subtle invitation tickling my spine and reaching my legs and arms, telling my body to move along the music. It’s just that, as soon as I start, the overwhelming consciousness of my own clumsiness forces me to stop.

It is probably related to the fact that I was a clumsy kid, always chosen last when making teams, always missing the ball, and always arriving last at the finishing line.

At around 14, after years of total lack of interest in anything that implied paying attention to the way I moved my body, something changed and I gathered the courage to give sports a try. I found the right environment, and in a few months, I could not miss a single training session. The lack of talent had not disappeared, but I had just learned that, up to a certain extent, I could hide it under a thick layer of commitment, willpower and hard training.

I begun with the simplest thing: running a long distance, beating the desire to slow down, to give up, to stop running. But then it became clear that my build was too heavy for that, even without an ounce of fat on myself. At 15, always keeping things technically simple, I began to try my chances as a sprinter and got some decent results.

At 18, I had the opportunity to experiment with something new: my trainer had…