In rehearsals, dancers will go over a section of a ballet
endlessly, repeating the same steps over and over and over again until the
ballet master is satisfied with the finished product. To save their legs,
dancers will often “mark” a percentage of the run-throughs.
Marking is when a dancer just goes through the motions by
walking the steps, counting the beats out with their hands, or not performing
the jumps or turns completely. Different dancers mark a piece in different ways,
but everyone does it at some point.
The problem with marking is that it can become a habit, and
a dancer might think that marking a piece is as good as dancing a piece. It’s
not. Nothing can take the place of dancing a number as hard and as fast as its
supposed to be danced. Nothing.
While marking has its place, marking can never be dancing.
The same is true of writing. You can talk about writing. You
can read about writing. You can dream of writing, but nothing can take the
place of writing—tens of thousands of words written as hard and as fast as you
can write them, full out and breathing hard. Writing that never stops, not in
the daytime, not in the nighttime, not even in the dream times.
In dancing, it’s called marking. In writing, it’s called
stalling.
