Muscle Amnesia

“Nic continues to mistakenly believe that, just because she studied ballet for 10 years before a knee condition stripped her of athletic ability at 13, any cardio-ballet workout will be a doddle, somehow forgetting that thirty years have passed with nary a plié nor arabesque to be seen.

#iHurt #KneesStillDontWork #UglyDucklingPuddle"

Yes, in a way it's just like riding a bicycle - once you know how to do it, you don't really forget. Muscle memory is a powerful tool in many respects, but muscle memory is not, repeat: is NOT the same as constantly putting those muscles to use over a long period of time. Anyone who's just ridden a bike for the first time in twenty years will tell you they're a bit wobbly at first, but then their subconscious and sense of balance will kick in, and they'll be pretending they're on their old BMX/Raleigh Racer in next-to-no time. Then they'll tell you the next day that they can't walk because their thigh muscles will have decided to shorten to half their original length, and that they're being haunted by the ghoulish pressure of a too-small, too-hard saddle between their cheeks, and can't actually sit down.

Yes, remembering the mechanics of how to do something you used to do a long time ago is so very much not the same as actually having done it continually over the years...

First position? Pff, please you don't have to remind me what that is!! Wait, I can't get my heels to touch because my calves are getting in the way... Hang on, let me really push them... Um, I don't remember my Achilles tendon twanging so much before, that can't be normal.

Second position grande plié. Ah, that should be fine. It's like a sumo squat without the pain. I SAID WITHOUT THE PAIN! Ah yes, my knees still don't work, but I'm sure that using my knee-supporting muscles, whichever ones they are, it'll be fine. Knees are supposed to grind and pop nowadays, aren't they? Add a port-de-bras first to fifth (holding a cardio ball) while you're dipping, and back again? Ok, but I'm not sure my core appreciates that its day off has been cancelled. There's a lot of internal moaning going on... More than usual, anyway.

Split-squats opening out into a low arabesque... I.. Oof. I seem to be too over-encumbered with booty to raise my leg more than a foot off the ground behind me.

I cracked open an old book of Haydn sonatas the other week, not having looked at it for years. Possibly even fifteen years. It lives sandwiched between my vocal scores, with some other piano music from That Time Before Singing, but I spotted the blue ABRSM cover and was overcome by a fit of nostalgia, opened it at an old favourite and sat down to play. Needless to say my actual piano technique has been shot to hell after being neglected for so long, but even though I stumbled a bit, my fingers, on the whole, remembered where to go. After a decade and a half! Then I felt my tendons in my lower arms twitch, and after half an hour of pretending to be Maria João Pires I had to close the book, and gingerly wrap my wrists in the elastic supports I have to use after a particularly long session typing up my thoughts on to my computer.

So yes, that cerebral muscle memory can be a double-edged sword, but practise, as they say, makes perfect less pain. Then again, practise also gives you the ability to do something you couldn't do before, too...

I visited Sorghvliet park last week to pay homage to Spring and her ability to carpet the place in bluebells for a month every year, and actually managed to crouch to take a close-up photo; a basic human ability robbed from me in my teens. But not only did I manage a crouch without too much creaking and complaining, I also managed to get up without my knees demanding that I get on all fours before attempting that tricky Standing Upright manoeuvre as they've done in the past. 

Those afore-mentioned knee-supporting muscles with whom I'm only now becoming acquainted might come in useful, after all...

Jessica Smith, I hate you, but I love you, too.