Expectation is the death of joy.
Whenever I train with someone who’s preparing for a performance, I frequently find myself saying: don’t rob the audience of their enjoyment by telling them how many mistakes you made. No one cares what you planned to do because they only saw what you did do. More often than we realize, people want to like you. We were told this in every acting class ever – the audition panel is dying for you to be the bestest, most amazingest new talent ever because then their job is done. Audiences and judges are the same: they want to love you – you just have to let them.
But here I am, an A-1 Hypocrite, writing an entire blog for the internet about a mistake I made in a performance. Why? Because it was a mistake so unmistakeable that in the moment, the audience audibly reacted to it; so unmistakeable that my friend texted me right after to say it wasn’t that bad; so unmistakeable that a judge reassured me I’d done well, even though they had to award other competitors who didn’t fall.
So there I was, in my first national competition, streaming live worldwide… never expecting an aerial shoulder mount to be my downfall… and in the grand scheme of things, I was lucky that it ended with nothing more than a bump on my head. But the great injury was to my ego. People kept asking me how it happened – slippery pole? Sweaty plams?? Swollen forearms??? Sure, maybe all of those things. Maybe none of them. It doesn’t matter. You can do everything “right” and in the end, sometimes shit just happens. Now that my wounds have healed, I see the bigger picture: it is one moment in one performance in a lifetime of adventures. It doesn’t stop me from being proud of this routine and sharing it with you… and maybe wanting to be a pole dancing Leeloo at Comicon one day… ;)
So how did I recover from falling on my head? By venting to Steve; reflecting on it with Fontaine & Amy; and also, by sharing these thoughts with you.
Feel free to share your performance experiences in the comments – victories and defeats – both can be celebrated!
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