Mental Strength.

Jilissa has been hitting a certain topic recently.
"Your mind is stronger than your body."
And, boy, is she right.

I thought I understood this before, but I'm really starting to understand it now.
I have a long way to go. I need to get stronger. I need more flexibility. I need better arches.
All these things I need to work on daily to get to where I'm heading, and sometimes it seems impossible.
My pointe shoes are giving me a really difficult time. My right foot's big toe gets crammed and starts hurting at the joint really badly. It scares me, I don't want to press through something if it's going to be detrimental in the long run. At the same time, I don't want to make excuses for something I just have to press through.
I noticed the truth in Jilissa's statement yesterday.
After point class, I noticed the joint didn't hurt so much, and my arch was feeling like it got more work into it.
These are both great things.
So as we started learning new and complex things I can't physically do (yet) I kept reminding myself to try my hardest and do it right, even if it didn't look the best. Don't cheat and make bad habits from the beginning. Work up to it.
When I didn't think I could do something, I would just shove the doubt out of the way and try.
It's amazing what you can do when you tell yourself you can.

I have a lot of improvement that needs to be done, but at least I'm seeing it.
No excuses.
No, "I can't."
Those two words are going to be removed from my ballet vocabulary.

I'm only going up from here.