Tale #34: Stuck In My Ways

A personality quirk, flaw, hiccup, issue, however you want to put it, of mine is that I often try to do things all by myself without seeking help.

Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy teamwork. I love a good collaboration session with ideas bouncing all over the place. I love when a team sits back at the end of a successful run and feels proud of what they accomplished together. I love when we all go out to the bar to get drinks and talk about how amazing of a team we were.

There are four reasons why I may not ask for help:

1) There are situations when time is limited and I find it faster and more efficient to do something myself rather than take the time to explain to someone how to help.

2) There are elements of my projects that are very conceptual. Everything is stored in my head and I don’t even know how to ask for help or what to ask for help with.

3) I don’t always know I need help until I’m right in the moment and there is often no help to be had right at those moments.

4) I’m impatient and don’t want to wait for someone to be available to help.

Reason #4 is the one that most often bites me in the ass. And this my friends, is the story of how I got stuck in a giant cheerleading mat.

With my first solo-directing project of Bring It On the Musical at VACT back in 2016, I felt I had a lot to prove. I was twenty-two, a little naive, a little stubborn, and extremely energetic. I wanted this show to be epic!

We were incredibly lucky to have a local gym, Gymfinity, donate the use of their gym space for our “cheer practice” and let us use their old tumbling mats for our actual production. These were huge tumbling mats that rolled out across the entirety of the stage. We had three that we used in our production. I could only fit one at a time in my midsize vehicle and by fit I mean they slightly hung out the back with the trunk open.

This show was rehearsed in our old Pole-Shed rehearsal space. Since the teen show was only one of four shows rehearsing at the time, we couldn’t leave the cheer mats rolled out at all times. So every Sunday, after the 3rd-8th grade show wrapped rehearsals, we would get the cheer mats rolled out for our practice.

My mom was directing High School Musical Jr. as the 3rd-8th grade show. On a typical Sunday, she would be able to stay after our HSM Jr. rehearsal to help me get the mats down. There was one Sunday when she couldn’t though because she had to go meet up with family right away.

So that Sunday I had a choice: I could wait ten/fifteen minutes for help to arrive and get the mats down or I could attempt to do it myself.

Based on how this blog post started, I’m pretty sure you know which option I chose.

I got the first mat down ok by myself. However, on the second mat, I ran into some issues.

I wiggled the mat all rolled-up and upright out to the center of the floor. It got stuck on a crack in the dance floor, so I unraveled it slightly so I could move into the rolled up mat and get it unstuck. Imagine a licorice wheel that you start to peel back to unravel. That was essentially what the mats did. However, once I was fully inside of the mat, it started to tip over.

“Oh no oh no oh no” I thought as this massive tumbling mat started to very slowly tip over as I was caught inside.

Luckily it was stopped from completely tipping over by a large set piece. So I was stuck in a mat on an angle and couldn’t wiggle my way out of it.

Thankfully, just moments later I heard a faint voice saying, “Alyssa? Are you here?” A cast member had been dropped off early but saw my car in the parking lot so they knew I was there.

I shouted, “Yes! Please help me. I’m stuck.”

They quickly set their things down, came over, and helped me wiggle my way free out of the large mat. Then they helped me set the rest of the mats up for practice.

You would think I’d have learned it can be better to just wait for someone to be available to help you. But I didn’t. And that my friends is the story of how six years later I threw my back out trying to carry a heavy table down the stairs by myself.