I have a policy about honesty and ass-kicking:  if you ask for it, then I have to let you have it. ~Taylor Mali, Teacher and Slam Poet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw1MFobWD_o

I took a water aerobics class this morning. I haven’t taken water aerobics before and I’ve been curious about it. It wasn’t the greatest workout in the world but I did sweat. More importantly it was a good hand-up for my ego. My first step class in three years last week left me disappointed with my conditioning. Why I would expect to be able to do what I used to when I took three classes a day now after almost four months of have to rest and rehab the injury boggles the mind but I still felt bad about it.

Today, in my first ever water aerobics class, about 15-20 minutes in the person teaching the class asked me if I was a water aerobics instructor. I said no and asked why and she said "You’re form is perfect and if you haven’t noticed you’re able to do everything almost twice as fast as the other people in the class". I hadn’t noticed but as I looked around I realized that I was going in time with the music and everyone else was going about half time. Yay Body! Between the rehab and the issues with my dance teacher I’ve been feeling really badly about my movement ability.

Sometimes I forget how strong and comfortable I am with my body and how well it adapts to new movement patterns. I think that once a month or so I’m going to try some new form of movement just to remember how amazingly cool my body is.

Woo Hoo.

I went to my first step class in several years today. It was a humbling but positive experience. I used to teach step and was the undisputed queen of step choreography – the other step teachers regularly took my class to steal materials. Today the class was taught but a guy who used to be one of those teachers. There I was, in the back of the room, doing the most basic moves – no flair, no high kicks, no power or intensity moves – and I was sweating my ass off! It was fun and he has great choreography that I’ll really be able to work with once I’m back at 100%. The good news is that I didn’t have any pain in my ankle so I feel really good about that. Now it’s just a matter of getting back into fighting/dancing shape! Speaking of fighting shape, I think that I want to take up Krav Maga again starting in September – I miss it and so does RealtorFriend so we’re going to look into it.

The ankle that I injured so badly at Nationals is finally healed. Had I believed the doctor when he said "The only thing that will fix this is surgery" I would just be able to start walking now, as opposed to the painfree existence that I’ve been leading and the full-time dancing I’ve been doing now since April. Yay "alternative" healing arts. Now that the crisis is averted I am working on fixing all of the imbalances I created from favoring the right ankle. According to the chiro. my shoulders twist two inches to the left and my hips twist two inches to the right. It would seem that the pesky back pain that I’ve been feeling is the direct result of my back serving as if it is the middle of a washcloth that is being wrung out. Lovely. The fixing began today and already I have more freedom of movement.

Now begins the road back to dancing form. Part of my rehab was staying off the ankle as much as possible – that meant no weight bearing cardio. I tried swimming but the flexion required of the ankles caused me to be in pain so that was out as well. I find myself woefully out of shape and a bit desperate to get back into dancing shape. My coach is frustrated with my level of conditioning and I can’t blame him but unfortunately disappointment does not capillaries build. I keep hearing the old adage "We may not be the best [insert sport} team, but we will be the best conditioned".

I’ve started doing HIIT at the gym which I’ve found to be the fastest way to build cardio but it is difficult.

Cast me gently
into morning.
For the night has been
unkind.

Tonight was my studio’s summer showcase. I danced a medley with my dance coach. The medley itself was really cute:

Stage 1: He realizes he wants to break up
Stage 2: The Pain of the Break-up
Stage 3: The calm, happy realization that it is better to have loved and lost, then to live the rest of your life with a psycho.

We did not have a good lesson yesterday and we did not have a good rehearsal this evening but the performance went very well. The crowd thought it was really funny and entertaining and I got some nice compliments which is cool. I had several friends there – my qGirlfriend of course with ButchLawyer, a really amazing couple who I know from networking and a former client of mine who I never expected to be there.

My stamina is stil not there but as I’m cleared for more activity I’m about to start really working on getting back in shape.

I got some great compliments tonight. Several people said that they saw my swing routine at the holiday showcase and that they were really impressed with both performances. One said "I didn’t think that you could improve on that but you did. There was such mastery in your dancing". I’m not sure if I’m to mastery yet but she is the mother of a professional dancer so I’ll take her word for it.

Lots of people told me that I was better than most of the pros and that they were surprised that I danced in the first act.

One of the hotel’s waitstaff grabbed me in a bear hug and told me that I was "absolutely fantastic".

My favorite compliment though, was from a woman who said that she had seen me in the winter showcase and that I was her inspiration to take up dancing. She told me that she’s been having a hard time and that she was thinking of quitting but that watching me tonight inspired her to keep going and maybe even compete. Being someone’s inspiration is cool!

I’ll be interested to watch the video. I had a serious footwork problem at the beginning of the cha cha but I’m not sure how the rest of it looked. Often when I think that something went well it is actually an unmitigated disaster. Basically I put two brand-new routines on the floor (both professional-level routines) and I put the old cha cha on the floor with the very new technique. All in all, I’m happy with how it went and that we pulled it off. I’m ready to go back to work to kick some ass in the Austin comp.

I had a dance lesson on Saturday at 3:00. I rushed out of my house and as the door closed behind me I realized that I had locked the keys inside. I called NotHusband but he was VERY far away. I remembered that  Kel (my best friend)<!–[if gte vml 1]>

<![endif]–> had broken in once when we accidentally locked the screen door. So, I went around to my back bedroom window. I removed the screen and opened the window. As I did I heard that crash that was the huge three panel wrought iron candle holding screen that I have in front of my window. Unable to see inside due to the height of the window I climbed onto the air conditioner. It wasn’t as close or as high as I thought so I had to put one foot up on the window sill and jump with the other foot to be straddling the window sill with one leg in and one leg out. The windows in my house are long and skinny and I am not. This was one part of a larger problem. First, my landing space on the floor was now covered with the fallen wrought iron screen and glass. The screen was resting with the top part of my bed and the bottom part of the floor so jumping on it would cause it to pop up and hit me in the face. Not good. Also, small thin bars of wrought iron do not make for a comfy landing, especially not from 5 feet off the ground. Because of the height and the angle of the window if I just pulled the other leg in I would have fallen off the window because there was nothing to grab. Not Good. I tried to go to the left and lean on the wall but the wall was farther than I anticipated and I almost fell headlong off the window sill. Not good again. I finally realized that I could lay on the windowsill (to my right) snake the leg that was in the house down the wall to the left (and away from the screen). The only problem with this was that in order to get my other leg through the window I would have to almost do the splits. It was at this point that I realized the sheer stupidity of risking breaking something on my body in order to get to a dance lesson but it was too late. Because the air conditioner was so far away there was no way to get back. So I made an itsy bitsy request to the universe for help and went to it. I watched in stunned amazement as the leg on the outside straightened and stretched until it pulled through the window and I was safe on the ground. At that point the adrenaline hit me and I instantly felt like a superhero or at least cool spy chick in a movie who stealthily breaks into the house. Still, despite all the coolness, I can definitely say that I don’t want that to happen again.

There is a move in pilates where you lay on your back with your feet in straps (I know what you’re thinking girls, and it’s not nearly that BAD). You pull your legs up and over your head (behind you) so that you are resting on your shoulders and looking up and back at your feet. (Essentially, you have to get your ass over your head. (I know what you’re thinking guys, it’s not nearly that GOOD.) I have been working on this since the first day I started Pilates.

Every day that I work on pilates at home I lay on the floor to practice this. I put out what feels like a tremendous amount of effort for an almost imperceptible move in my body. I imagine that I look like a goldfish out of water and on his last breath.I just have a whole lotta ass to get over my head and I had a bit of fear that if I got it up there it would all collapse on me like a flan in a cupboard. We tried this move on Tuesday and I couldn’t do it. Yesterday, it was easy. I just floated up like I was doing it all my life. So cool!

So we moved on to a more difficult version (where you elongate the straps) more difficult and shaky form, but I did it too!. This is mostly due to the fact that I have the best pilates instructor in the world.

On Monday DancingQueen expressed some doubt about our ability to do the professional Night Club. Stupid man… Today we danced through it without a hitch and I received the rare DancingQueen high five.

I’m also starting to assimilate the new cha cha technique. He is learning the other pro routines with his pro student so I should be able to start learning those. My goal is all 8 pro routines by Nationals in November. Definitely do-able for me. I told DancingQueen today that I was frustrated that he never gave me any time to learn anything (in reference to his concern about the professional night club), but that he seems to have infinite patience with his other student. I mentioned that I was watching the lesson before me and he was telling the woman something I had heard them spend an entire hour on a few months ago. His response “It’s you, I don’t expect you to need time.” The truth is, that’s really cool. I like being treated like a professional and I can (and want to) live up to those expectations.

As of today I move into level three of my ankle rehab

Level 1 was strengthening without any weight bearing. Level one was supposed to go from Mid-January to April 1. I couldn’t dance during level 1 so I cut it short by a month so that I could qualify in the Fort Worth Competition. Level 1 sucked.

Level 2 was strengthening and functionality. A return to dancing but it would appear that I and cardio machines may never again be fast friends. I got to do strange cardio such as bouncing on a physioball. Woo Hoo. I kicked ass at level 2 and got in done in less than a month instead of the standard three. (Special thanks go out to my Pilates Instructor, chiropractor and massage therapist on this one).

Level 3 is a return to cardio and more difficult weight-bearing work (like going up onto my toes and back down repeatedly whilst standing on a box). It is also marked by a water rehab workout which I started today. It includes breast stroke swimming, flutter kicking with a kickboard, jogging in place, doing kicks (holding onto the pool edge) and running up and down the pool. My gym has a small pool (three lanes). I was there at around 7:30 this morning. Everyone else was just swimming regular laps so I felt a bit dorky doing the rehab thing. To top it al loff, apparently I have the kind of face that says “shares well with other” because when all three lanes were occupied every. single. person. who came in (I remember 7) while I was there asked me if they could share my lane. It is difficult to share a lane when rehabbing becuase you can’t just trade laps like you normally would. I developed a patented speech of “You’re welcome to share but I’m rehabbing an injury so I’m not very consistent and it might be a pain to constantly try to swim around me. If you don’t mind, I don’t – but I just want you to know” I ended up sharing with several people (once three at a time!) but at least they were forewarned.

Today was my first day with the new choreography. We are working on Nightclub which is a slow romantic dance requiring lots of body-control and strength as well as endurance. I have to say that having played a number of sports (volleyball, soccer, and baseball to name a few) dancing is the most demanding physical thing I’ve ever done. I think it’s the combination of controlling your body (for example holding all of your weight on the ball of one foot), balancing, then creating a beautiful line and always moving through the music. Even things that look like poses acutally require you to move the weight through your foot. It’s kind of crazy when you think about it. In soccer and volleyball I worked my ass of but no one cared how I looked. In dance there’s just as much effort but the object is that people don’t see the effort at all – just the lines. The reality of how much work I’m going to be doing to make this possible has hit me and I’ll still just as excited so I that’s a good sign.

The winning moment of today however had to be when we were learning a new move. I do one and a half REALLY fast spins and end up going up on my left toe – he lunges back and catches my back and pulls me to him as I pull my right leg up and wrap it around his side. I have to push my body below the ribs toward him but tilt my body above the ribs away from him taking my arms out to the side and down and dropping my head. (That all has to happen in two beats) then I have to transfer the weight back over my own left foot and then move out of it. I just wasn’t getting the entrance to the move – how I was supposed to get my weight up against him for the lunge. His explanation:

"You just have to throw your vagina at me." No, seriously.

Se we start to go into the move and as we’re hitting the line before the spins and I suddenly realize the danger and ask "Are you tucked properly for this?" He leads me into the spins and says "I totally didn’t think about it". Suffice to say that I now know his religion. Yikes!