"They put me in a harness, like a horse, to learn the back somersault. It was weird up there when I put on that harness for the first time. The courage came with practice"
About this Quote
The image of a gleaming Hollywood performer strapped into a harness like a horse shatters the fantasy of effortless brilliance. It shows the backstage mechanics of courage: not a mystical trait, but a skill learned the way a somersault is learned, with ropes, riggers, and the willingness to feel foolish and afraid. Donald OConnor, famous for the acrobatic exuberance of numbers like Make Em Laugh, came out of vaudeville and knew the grind behind the grin. The harness is both literal and symbolic. It keeps a body from breaking while the mind learns to trust the move; it also reins in ego, reminding an artist that daring begins with discipline.
Weirdness is the first truth he names. Going backward into space runs against instinct. The body is hardwired to resist, to stiffen, to protect. The harness interrupts that reflex long enough to build new reflexes. Under repetition, fear loses its novelty, and precision grows where panic had been. Courage, then, is not the absence of fear but the presence of technique. It rides on muscle memory, timing, and the quiet confidence that comes from doing a thing again and again until the unknown becomes ordinary.
There is a broader honesty at work. Film musicals often sell frictionless joy, yet their ecstasy is engineered from sweat, bruises, and calculated risk. OConnors line refuses the myth of the born daredevil. He credits process: coaching, apparatus, practice. That humility is its own kind of bravery, the acceptance of being led, corrected, even tethered, in service of transcendence later, when the harness is gone and the audience gasps. The lesson travels far beyond a back somersault. Progress often looks awkward and constrained before it looks graceful. What reads as courage onstage is the practiced familiarity with fear, earned in the strange, suspended space where the work gets done.
Weirdness is the first truth he names. Going backward into space runs against instinct. The body is hardwired to resist, to stiffen, to protect. The harness interrupts that reflex long enough to build new reflexes. Under repetition, fear loses its novelty, and precision grows where panic had been. Courage, then, is not the absence of fear but the presence of technique. It rides on muscle memory, timing, and the quiet confidence that comes from doing a thing again and again until the unknown becomes ordinary.
There is a broader honesty at work. Film musicals often sell frictionless joy, yet their ecstasy is engineered from sweat, bruises, and calculated risk. OConnors line refuses the myth of the born daredevil. He credits process: coaching, apparatus, practice. That humility is its own kind of bravery, the acceptance of being led, corrected, even tethered, in service of transcendence later, when the harness is gone and the audience gasps. The lesson travels far beyond a back somersault. Progress often looks awkward and constrained before it looks graceful. What reads as courage onstage is the practiced familiarity with fear, earned in the strange, suspended space where the work gets done.
Quote Details
| Topic | Training & Practice |
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