Developpé: When the journey is no longer smooth

When I teach developpé to students, I often explain: “It’s about the journey, not the destination.” Sure, the leg extension is satisfying, but the path the leg takes to get there is what really makes it dance. For a long time, I enjoyed demonstrating this as I taught. I liked showing enjoyment in the process of getting there, not just aiming for the end point. And it was an apt metaphor for much beyond that singular movement.

Somewhere along the road, my body hit some bumps. It happened gradually: a twinge here, a pop there. Suddenly, I’m complaining about my knees and hip and a bad back, googling bunion surgery, and wondering when I turned 80, which seems impossible since I’m pretty sure I’m still 29.

I experience developpés differently now. It’s a movement that is still delicious and fun, but it’s also uncomfortable, sometimes excruciating. The journey is no longer smooth. It’s like I’m wrestling with my own body, fighting what it’s telling me it can and can’t do.

One of my favorite stories in the Hebrew Scriptures is the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel. Though Jacob is privileged to encounter God, he doesn’t escape this all-night wrestling match unscathed. The defeated angel delivers a blow to Jacob’s hip. Jacob walks away victorious, but limping.

It’s been said that “God comes to you disguised as your life.” Wrestling with life - indeed, wrestling with God - the blows of injury, age, grief, loss, difficulty, pain, and disappointment change our gait, our outlook, sometimes our spirit, permanently.

After Jacob limped away from his all-night angelic wrestling match, he experienced not just pain, but wonder at the fact that God Herself had paid him a visit. We don’t know anything about the aftermath of his injury. What we do know is that he named the place where the wrestling match happened: Peniel. The face of God.

I still dance, even though it hurts, because I meet God there. Underneath the pain is an awareness of something infinite, or at least possible. Something that extends beyond this moment. A rootedness in hope.

When have you encountered God in painful places?