No pain, no circus

I am happy and proud to write that I have successfully completed the first semester of my studies and the subsequent exam period. I took hands-on exams before Christmas and I passed all of them – even handstands that had really worried me.

I really felt like my body needed a rest. During the holidays, I relaxed with my family and performed as well as studying and preparing for exams in theoretical subjects, which I took right after Christmas. I tackled even the difficult circus history and anatomy tests better than I had expected to.

Hooray! All that was left to do before completing the first semester was “only” to prepare our first class performance as a group. It didn’t seem as difficult initially as it turned out to be. Creating a full-length show in two weeks of rehearsals is not easy. I had known my schoolmates since September but we had never made anything like this together before, so it was sometimes difficult finding one collective solution in a team of 14 people from all over the world. Following two weeks of rehearsing, confusion and frustration, we eventually made something that nicely surprised us all, I believe. Of course it was not perfect or entirely to my preferences, but I think it was a successful performance and gave us all a really nice start in our “new” school.

Simply put, things went a bit too smoothly. I had a bad landing during a trampoline class one week before the end-of-winter holiday, and injured my ankle. In a modern Rotterdam hospital, they gave my swollen leg a brief look and an X-ray, and then they gave me an orthosis and told me that it was just a sprained ankle and that I could start moving it in a few weeks. I flew over to the Czech Republic with my crutches a few days later and, just to play it safe, took a check at a local orthopedic ward. In a not so modern Prague hospital, they gave it one more X-ray and then had me take a CT examination, only to find it was actually a fracture and not just a sprained ankle, and I got a plaster cast and was banned from walking for six weeks.

So I hope I will write my next post for the The Kellner Family Foundation blog in a more optimistic mood, and hopefully during my rehabilitation back in Rotterdam.