MY SPINAL COLUMN is an ongoing series. To start at the very beginning (a very good place to start), click HERE.
1995-1997 / MICHIGAN
Fact: The theme from “Mortal Kombat” CANNOT BE IGNORED IN A CONVENTION HALL.
Concocted by a pair of Belgian artists assigned to binge the video game and craft songs to promote its content, this undeniable jam underscored my body’s first exposure to fighting – in choreographed, martial arts-infused jazz steps.
“Mortal Kombat” rocked my competition repertoire throughout middle school with its winning combination of (literal) kickass steps and hard-hitting beats. I displayed my black Spandex ninja costume proudly at the front of my Company garment bag, sequined sash and gold ankle bracelets in a plastic Kroger bag tied securely to labeled hanger. (Behind it, a silk-topped jockey suit and green-painted riding crop, tale for another time…)
In the mid- ‘90s, I spent most weekday afternoons during the schoolyear dancing a variety of styles around one of two rectangles, located one atop the other, at the same Michigan address. Back when the competitions started, Mom convinced an optometrist (with a perm!) at the Eastland Mall D.O.C. (home of “sexy specs”!) to write a contact lens prescription for a child in a dance company. In the beginning, I’d suffocate my eyeballs only for the stage; rehearsals remained a blur of black-topped, pink-legged figures I’d copy best I could. Over time, my fingertips formed an uneasy alliance with my corneas, and slipping on the silicon discs each morning evolved into part of the routine.
It was a whole new world: observing toenail cuticles on my lyrical sandaled feet, scuffs on the grey Marley floors of the studio, screw heads in the birch barres lining the back wall, smudges on mirrors lining the front – out the windows “stage right,” a former parade of colorful blobs whizzing down Mack Avenue sharpened magically into SUV tops – some with ski racks?! – BEARING STICKERS I COULD READ!!
Suffice it to say, sight while dancing was a game-changer – and karate marked the first “new” physical vocabulary I could see clearly from first lesson.
While constructing the combat, our choreographer brought in a karate specialist to teach her troupe of ballet-focused white girls how to punch, kick, and block convincingly (“No, Juliet: GORO DOESN’T WANT TO JETÉ.”). I struggled to feel inherent rhythms in karate, as if my body hadn’t yet tapped into its fighting frequency. So, when the studio offered a series of Sunday self-defense courses, I attended every single one, committed to make my body match the shapes in sharp focus before me.
The extra practice paid off – in the form of an assigned “Special Part”: two 8-counts of a mock sparring match that involved multiple kicks and a leg trip. Special Parts were not my forte in the dance world: butterfly shoulders, defined thigh muscles, and a swimming schedule that kept me spending the bulk of each summer in a pool made me prime candidate for the end of a choreographer’s back line in most formations – including the majority of those in “Mortal Kombat.”
To make center stage in time to spar required covering extra space, off a preceding knee roll. Midway through an added pre-competition practice session, this maneuver tore a muscle in my right quad.
Music stopped. Heads turned. Ice appeared. Questions were posed regarding my condition, but I couldn’t answer with any authority: nothing like this had ever happened before. Usually, I’d just push and my body would respond: The End. Stunned by this sudden plot twist, I crawled to the front wall, resting my sweaty back against foggy mirrors: leg iced and elevated, holding in tears, I watched my sparring partner fight my ghost for the rest of rehearsal.
It was my first experience with shooting, temporarily debilitating pain. A doctor would teach me about my vastus lateralis (muscle connecting femur to patella, causing extension of the lower leg to rise from a squat) – and advise me to “rest.”
Ninjas don’t rest. I picked-up again next practice: I fed on praise received for my “fighter spirit” like a magic healing spell, finding slight physical adjustments that allowed me to shift weight to surrounding muscles. I took pride in every full-out run, finishing each with a toe-touch down into a low, long-held ardha malasana (asymmetrical squat – cruelly, also calling for a deep bend in the right knee). I was a “fighter” – and would NOT lose my Special Part.
First injuries are an inevitable rite of passage for dancers; this was mine. From that point forward, my feelings toward time spent with the Company shifted: out of the freedom I felt dancing had come something that hurt me, limited me, affected the way my limbs performed movement – a dancer’s primary language. As my body continued to mature, and muscles continued to tear, I spent more and more bandwidth my final seasons finding clever ways to recircuit pain that never fully waned, worried constantly someone might notice and make me sit one out.
2001 / PENNSYLVANIA
I would not fight again until Freshman year of college – four years following the relegation of my ninja suit to the back of a basement closet, in a house where I no longer lived.
Cast “Stroke” seat on my university’s Crew Team, I came to consciousness most weekday mornings with an oar in my hands, mid-stroke, in the middle of the Schuylkill River – dressed, contacts on, a tiny woman screaming inches-from-my-face…directions that I seemed to be following?!
As it also happened, my move East kicked off with 9/11. Accordingly, I attributed the fatigue to a logical combination of sleep deprivation, adjustment to my new “home”; the shock of a national tragedy and talk of looming war. I assumed my systems were rebooting to keep me sane. While this may have been part of the equation, a bullseye-shaped bruise and subsequent blood test soon revealed another: Lyme disease – contracted, presumptively, from stretching near deer ticks at the Conshohocken warehouse where the crew team practiced temporarily, on account of boathouse renovations.
I celebrated my 18th birthday later that September with a 6AM crew practice, early into my Lyme disease meds. Still rowing woozy, our Head Coach took me aside post-workout and invited me to compete in an upcoming regatta that would require extra training sessions and travel during a university break – “a big honor for a Freshman.”
Now, extra work was my specialty (and offered on a milestone birthday!) – so I surprised even myself when the words that emerged from my mouth expressed concern for my body, uncertain whether this was a good time to push it. (I had reported the Lyme disease upon diagnosis.) I politely declined, thanking him sincerely for the opportunity.
He shrugged me off, coldly: “guess you’re not good enough to matter.” In another – wildly – uncharacteristic move, I quit the Team on the spot. Later that day, I bought a (losing) lottery ticket, a pack of Camel Lights (for a friend) (No, REALLY) – and gleefully cancelled my 4:34AM alarm.
Never one to stay still for long, I accepted a dormmate’s invitation to accompany him to Karate Club practice the following week, held in a basketball gym over on West Campus – at the reasonable hour of 7PM.
At the time, my university hosted a local sensei to train a group of students in Okinawan Ryu Te (琉手), a self-defense based martial art that targets an opponent’s weak points (and minimizes harm to them) through swiftly executed joint manipulation techniques.
Bowing in the doorway (at my dormmate’s instruction), I entered that gym ready to channel faded “Mortal Kombat” memories, enticed by the crisp, white gis and rainbow of knotted belts.
That fall I learned my first handful of Japanese words (numbers, to count drill reps) and performed my first kata (形, patterns of movement to demonstrate technique) – which my body accepted as choreography. On those walks to West Campus, I became better acquainted with the dormmate who’d first invited me – a Portuguese mechanical engineering major who followed (European) soccer, played guitar, and listened to most of the same music I did.
By the end of Freshman year, the Club would award me a Yellow Belt and elect me its Vice President; the dormmate would become my boyfriend (though, come springtime, he’d trade karate practices for the university’s soccer team).
Strike One: 2002 / PHILLY
My Catholic university’s library lacked many of the more stimulating books I sought for the Philosophy of Human Sexuality course I took Freshman Spring Semester – which led to a series of researched-focused Saturdays spent in Philly, long afternoons holed up at the Free Library’s Independence Branch on South 7th Street, bookended by ambles through Chinatown, Logan Square – on particularly nice days, a victory run up The Rocky Steps before heading back to the Main Line.
High on the “mandatory” hit list of nearly every out-of-town friend and relative who came to visit me in Philly, I climbed The Rocky Steps frequently – once alongside my Uncle Bill, while he ate from cheesesteaks in each hand (Pat’s right, Geno’s left). Though I’d yet to watch any of the ROCKY movies, (a cinematic blind spot since addressed), I formed my own fond memories on those museum stairs – and liked to channel them, taking a lap alone after any particularly grueling day of…reading.
On one such afternoon, having lost track of time, I found myself passing through Logan Square at dusk, rushing to catch a train – clocking a man just over my shoulder, belligerent, attempting to get my attention. This was not a man I knew, his words unfriendly, I owed him no time; I continued walking, quickening my pace. When the man grabbed my forearm from behind, karate kicked in: I pivoted intuitively, twisting my left arm from his grasp; my right fist connected with his cheekbone, causing his body to drop.
I ran for a taxi, my hailing hand throbbing, knuckles starting to swell. My first real fight, I cried the whole way back to campus, cab windows down, driver’s dance mix blaring: when the “Eye of the Tiger” intro kicked in (to be expected on any Philly pump-up playlist), I released a sob-belly laugh hybrid so deep I didn’t recognize its sound: I had tapped into a new fight frequency – and it f*cking hurt.
Strike Two: 2003 / MADRID
I declined a second year as Karate Club VP to study abroad in Spain my Junior Year.
By November, Madrid’s language and streets had become familiar, my commute back to the Parque de las Avenidas stop on the 7-line second nature. Even at night I’d started to surrender into headphones on the Metro, trusting Dido’s soothing voice to sing me home safely via the bulky discman I stashed in my maroon PUMA satchel.
One Sunday midnight, two men entered my otherwise empty Metro car. Reeking of sewage and alcohol, they sat down next to me, one on each side. I looked to the entrances, eager for other bodies to board – none did. Once the car began to move, the thinner of the two men stood up and began to curse, loudly. He then turned to his catatonic companion and punched him, square in the face. I let out an audible gasp as blood began to drip from the man’s upper lip.
At the next stop, several men boarded. I stood and moved to sit closer to one of the new passengers, breathing along with Dido’s soothing beats to slow my racing pulse – but the bleeding man followed, taking a seat at my left hip, while the thinner and decidedly more aggressive of the two paced the car with a bottle of rum, continuing to shout obscenities. I whispered “ayúdame” to the new passenger, who acted as though he didn’t hear, turning his face away – as a dirty hand coming from my left reached disturbingly down my shirt: still bleeding from the mouth, his fingers squeezed my left nipple.
Ears ringing, I felt paralyzed. “Ayúdame,” I spoke louder (I think), though no help came.
After several seconds, I regained feeling in my arms and swatted his hand from beneath my blouse: the skin-on-skin contact made a sharp, slapping sound that attracted the attention of the cursing man. He stomped in my direction; I winced and readied myself for a blow. As he stood over me, I could smell rum on his breath. He tipped the bottle in my direction, dumping roughly a double-shot’s worth of the liquid onto my crotch – as the same hand made another pass at my breast from the left. Blood now pumping heavy throughout my body, I slapped the hand away: “¡Basta!” I cried out—enough.
It happened in a split second: as the standing man lunged, my karate came back. I kicked out his front kneecap with all the force I had available from a seated position: the joint gave way, letting out a sickening, defeated crack. He crumbled.
The Metro stopped and I ran until my lungs felt fresh air: for a second time, I treated myself to a taxi in the wake of unchoreographed combat. I spent several hours that night huddled in my building’s elevator, afraid to cross paths with my Señora, another night owl – who would have questions I wouldn’t want to address. Dido’s Life For Rent album on a loop, my head spun with details I could barely bring myself to admit: a filthy, drunken man had reached into my button down, touched my bare breast – and for several moments I was so stunned, lulled into submission by a singer’s sweet serenade, I did nothing to stop it.
Strike Three: 2004 / LISBON
The following summer, while living briefly in Lisbon, I boarded the wrong bus at the end of a beach day spent solo in Cascais. Light on language skills (early into an immersive program), I failed to communicate effectively with the bus driver upon my discovery and disembarked at the next stop, confident I could find someone nearby to set me on the correct course back to my homestay.
Blonde, tanned, and bathing suit clad, I had the immediate attention of the first group I approached – a small gathering of older men, smoking outside a bodega. In broken Portuguese (borrowing heavily from Spanish), I explained my situation and learned that I was but a few blocks from a different bus stop that would take me to my intended destination. I declined an offer for a chaperone – which, in retrospect, I regret: not long after leaving their sightline, another man approached. Though I did not understand his words, his intent was clear: he grabbed for my bag, and I swung wildly at his face, palm open, moving too fast to form a fist. It wasn’t an impressive maneuver, but it was sufficient to release his grip and sprint to safety.
Out.
Three attacks, in three countries, in three consecutive calendar years. I remember none of the faces, though the smells remain filed away – and in two cases, a soundtrack.
I recall no song underscoring this third “strike.” I do recall staying supine for days thereafter, unable to shake the feeling that I wasn’t safe inside my own body. After a series of phone calls, I was ultimately reassigned to another program and homestay – with a roommate (and future beachgoing buddy).
As introduced initially, fighting had expanded my world to include cooler moves and colorful belts – affiliated with an ultimately abstract understanding of the utility behind them. The moment I landed my first punch, whatever “fighter spirit” I had, up until that point, distorted: on that first cab ride back to campus, my world started to shrink.
This was no longer about an ill-timed muscle tear threatening to re-block a dance routine: conditions much further from my control now aimed to remove me from ALL possibly remaining parts in my life, not just the 8-counts deemed “Special” by a choreographer.
When it happened a second time…and then a third… I resigned myself to the conclusion that my body must be the problem.
. . .
2016 / CHICAGO
Mercifully, my next fight (and most recent to-date) did not present itself for another twelve years: like “Mortal Kombat,” it came choreographed.
It also involved a donut costume.
My sparring partner a fried egg, “Food Fight” ended with a taco performing a neck snap on a turkey who deigned to love a gingerbread man in a rival gang.
(A short, comedic piece in the running order of a Choose Your Own Adventure-themed show produced by my Chicago-based dance company, you’ll just have to trust me that it all made sense in the moment.)
I pray that I may be so fortunate to continue fighting from studios and stages, not streets and subway cars.
. . .
(NOW)
This particular revival of my “fight files” comes in the wake of a recent stroll through my neighborhood, taken unaccompanied: I stopped at the launching dock of a boathouse to join a daily gathering of 30-odd Canadian geese, all of us sharing a magnificent sunset over the Palisades. A male voice from behind: “can I ask you a question?”
What a luxury, to choose the subject of a conversation.
I’d been processing some particularly heavy thoughts, and the directness of this very young-looking man had startled me: “I came here to be alone, I wasn’t expecting to speak to anyone,” my reply.
His follow-up: “can I ask you a question, and then you can judge me for it and tell me how I did?”
In the (unfortunately large) data set I’ve acquired of such circumstances, a “Yes” ends such interactions faster and neater than a “No.” (Men who approach women in this way tend not to process “No.” There’s never a happy ending – and, every so often, it ends in my being spat on – which, while always unpleasant, is unfortunately, not even close to a realistic “worst case scenario.”)
“Sure.”
His question took a minute to emerge: he complimented my physical appearance bashfully, then asked me out on a date.
When he finished, I exhaled fully: “you wanted to know how you did, right?” I confirmed.
He nodded: he’d been at it all afternoon, “trying to get a girlfriend,” and “people ha[d] been really mean.” Before I could respond, he made a fainthearted prediction: “I did bad, didn’t I?”
I asked his age – 17. I revealed mine (36), and confirmed his suspicions, letting him know that approaching a lone woman from behind can be scary and unpleasant all by itself. Men who use this method in the real world are (in my personal experience) often vulgar, occasionally abusive: to open on blocking with such an overwhelmingly negative history, a nasty energy exchange becomes expected. I divulged further that I’d fought off three attacks by men who demanded my attention – providing no details beyond the statistic.
He had not anticipated this response (nor my age), but took it all in: “That’s so …terrible.”
I agreed – adding that every woman I know carries her own version of such baggage: now aware of this “terrible” truth, he had the option to adjust future behavior accordingly. I ended the conversation soon thereafter: the geese were on the move, in our direction, as the sun slipped below Jersey’s treetops – nature’s nightly cues for me to head home.
Home, where the tight ring of piqué turns I make around my living room outline a safe space where my body can endeavor to find its center, uninterrupted in thought, uninhibited in shape.
I can still recall most of “Mortal Kombat,” even without the music. But in the silence, I am free to sing my own symphonies, create my own Special Parts: it need not be perfect anymore – and it need not hurt.
P.S.
I admit to editing this “footage” under the influence of a 2018 video featuring John Lewis at a rally – dancing to Pharrell’s “Happy.”
It is likely this clip, watched on a loop as I revisit the late Congressman’s comics on the Civil Rights Movement, that leads me to wonder if all the shapes we make, in all dimensions, are merely forms of fight choreography in-process: seeking the right sequencing, the right music, the right partners.
If so, I can only double down in defense of dancing.
More next week. xo
(Spoiler alert: there’s a basho starting in Tokyo [15 Days, starting 7/19!] – and I have more to say on the Venn Diagram between ballet and sumo…)
TURN TO CHAPTER 3: HIPS DON’T LIE
. . .
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