Last August I was planning to go to the world dance fair and participate in the workshop organized by the Marina Abramović Institute. The days leading up to the trip were extremely hectic, full of tension, rush, drawbacks and quarrels.

At the same time, I was setting up a flower garden near the house. I was using a sharp construction knife and instead of swiping the knife away from me, I was swiping it towards myself. The knife slipped and cut my thigh, piercing the muscle. There was soil and compost everywhere around me. I tried to stop the bleeding with a dirty glove, but in the end I called an ambulance and they took me to the hospital, where they stitched and burnt the cut, washed it out, gave me a tetanus shot and released home.

I thought everything was going well, as my wound appeared to be healing properly, so I went ahead with my trip.

But after a while, when I was at the dance fair in Germany, my leg suddenly got inflamed, all hot and swollen. After returning to Lithuania, I immediately went to the hospital. The situation was severe, I was admitted for two surgeries and a course of antibiotics. To this day, I still live with complications, the inflammation doesn’t want to go away.

There was too much tension and fatigue, so my body rebelled, rejected the rhythm of my life and warned me it was time to stop. I didn’t.

During my hospital stay, I had plenty time to think about the importance of both physical and emotional rest. What will you do if your own body rejects you? For two months, I was confined to a stationary existence and this allowed me to rethink my relationship with my body as a dancer. The sensation of pleasure that I felt upon returning to rehearsals was beyond words. I realized that if I feel so good about moving, I have to look at my body in a different way.

I keep telling my students that the body is our most important tool. However, I find it challenging to turn off the work button, and I tend to neglect my own physical limits. I keep thinking that I will manage, I will succeed, I will persist in dancing, but the body suffers: It wears out much faster and injuries occur.

I often think about how I can concentrate on fewer things at once.