Every Friday at 9 a.m., we dragged blue crash mats out to the middle of the large, creaky wooden room and planted them in garden-like, horizontal rows.  Christophe, an endlessly bendy old French-German man, demonstrated stretches which felt straight out of a French Jane Fonda video—palms out, other hand at our waist. Point the foot, flex the foot. He was preparing my 70 person class for “Acrobacie.” Looking back, I’m sure the teachers at Ecole Jacques Lecoq (maybe even Lecoq himself) had thought that it was a treat to have our once weekly acrobatics class on Friday, a kind of gimme before we presented “auto-cours,” self-made and devised pieces that usually failed, for the panel of teachers. We usually presented about 30 seconds of the piece and then we were stopped with a loud “ALORRRRRSS…” from the head Professor, indicating that our work wasn’t “juste”—Lecoq for right or justified or clear. So Acrobacie was supposed to be the sweet amuse bouche before the unappetizing head cheese of the afternoon performances.

24-year-old me was still unclear on what I was doing at this strange French place—learning movement, mime and design. I was hardly a talented “mover”; my mom tells a story about me running the wrong way around the bases at a middle school softball game, which is unfortunately plausible, to give you some idea of just how bad at moving I was. I had auditioned for acting schools and was rejected. Still, I knew that I wanted to be in a rehearsal room every day of my life and I knew I had to get some real training. I had heard of Lecoq because of Julie Taymor, Ariane Mnouchkine and Simon McBurney, heroes of mine. So I shipped myself off and spent afternoons at the local cafe with smoking classmates discussing our philosophy of art. I remember a particularly frustrating conversation when I was the only one speaking—everyone else was moving around—though I spoke French, being at Lecoq was learning that I didn’t know the language of the body.

Our first trick we learned was a somersault ( a “Roly–poly” en Francais). I had a lot of trouble trusting that I would come out right side up again, but learned that if I could get enough of a running start and tuck my head sufficiently, the somersault was over before it began.  Once we graduated from Roly Poly academy, we started working on handstands: “le verticale.” This was horrifying to all 5’10’’ of me. It meant facing all of my body image issues and really putting every ounce of my authentic self into trying to get upside-down. It meant trusting that the floor would still be there. No easy feat for someone who describes herself as “grounded” and “earthy.”

Through my tears, I recognized that a classmate, a 5’8’’ British woman named Julia, was equally petrified at the prospect of standing on her hands. We became partners and week after week cheer-led for each other, even forming the comically non-functional acrobatics troupe “Ginger and Babes” in order to give ourselves confidence. I never managed to do a handstand, but to this day, we send each other emails addressed to Ginge and Babes.

I recognize that this story epitomizes the best of arts education. To me, an education in the arts is about the freedom to fail and the recognition that we are all human, with human limitations and vulnerable hearts. Through this vulnerability lies connection. I now teach acting to opera singers and the year I spent at Lecoq endlessly feeds my own work as a teacher. I use exercises I learned in shows I direct, and am constantly interested in ability of the human body to do strange and unusual and magical things. I continue to take larger risks in my own work—ever trying to trust that the floor will still be there after I turn myself upside-down.