One-woman Disaster

That is how I feel today.

But let me elaborate.  It really has not been my day or night.

It started this afternoon at work.  During lunch, my computer randomly crashed twice and told me that the video card was failing.  It made work difficult when each restart took more than 20 minutes to boot up.

Then, I was almost hit by a car on my way to dance. Thankfully almost. I was coming out of my driveway on my scooter and there is a large white panel van that parks on the side of the road just next to our driveway.  The issue is that the way the road is built, and because it has no windows, the van completely blocks the view to the right.  To compensate, you have to look down past all the cars that are parked (about 500 m) to the bottom of the hill and then keep track of the cars you see coming until there is a break.

The issue is that there is an intersection and other driveways you can’t see.  So even though it might look clear all the way down the hill, cars could turn on to the road without you seeing them. That’s what happened tonight.  I was slowly peeking out around the van and discovered a car coming right for me.  So I ended up braking hard, losing my balance and falling over, landing mostly on my scooter.  Missed the car (which stopped and asked if I was all right), and thankfully didn’t hit anything hard.  Cracked the windshield of my scooter in two though when it hit the pavement.  I was able to get it upright and started again, and assessed that I had bruised my shins and had a small scrape on one leg. Mostly I was shaken up.

Following that, I got to dance.  I had received some unexpected news about what to expect for my recovery from surgery yesterday and that has possible repercussions for dance–particularly competing in the fall.  Long story short, it could be 12 weeks after my surgery before I will be able to dance, particularly for any length of time without pain and pulling.  It’s quite different from the 6 weeks I was initially told to expect.  That required a bit of a conversation with Boss, but pretty much at this point I haven’t really gotten to a place where I can completely process this and start to adjust my goals. Again.

The conversation itself wasn’t bad, it was just a disappointing one to have to have.  That said, I still have my silver test this weekend and work to prepare, so it was another lesson dedicated to rounds and running through the routines.  We started with latin tonight, which didn’t go too bad, although jive is still a bit questionable for endurance.  Following that, we moved to standard.  That was going pretty well…

Until I caught my heel on the cuff of my pants during the quickstep and fell over backwards hitting my left hand and hip pretty far.  Also ripped the hem of my pants.  That actually hurt more than falling on my scooter. Go figure.

In general, I was ok, just bruised.  Had to work out my left ankle a little bit, but after rolling up my pants we were able to continue with the lesson and get through the Quickstep.  We followed that with Viennese Waltz.  We did a full minute of that, but I was really dying after 45 seconds.  We ended with a section of foxtrot I was blanking on a bit to review it, but by the second run through of that I could tell I was pretty done.

One comment Boss made tonight and my last lesson is that he is finding my endurance is improving, and the most significant thing is that when I get tired I am better able to compensate instead of just completely sinking and collapsing. It’s good to hear because compared to where I was before I got sick and had treatments I would say I am about half where I was–especially in VW, QS, and Jive.  Cha Cha can also be questionable sometimes.

What’s a little disheartening about that is after up to 12 weeks off to recover from surgery, I am going to have to start over on a lot of things–rebuilding endurance being one of them.  I have been there before though and my focus right now is to try and build as good a base as I can so hopefully there will still be some when I am ready to come back.

I really hope the falls tonight won’t result in me waking up broken tomorrow.  I also wrenched my shoulder trying to open a door (seriously–how does that happen??), burned my hand on coffee and spilled it in my scooter case.  All signs I should have just call it a night.  I didn’t though, I stayed for practice and was able to run through all my routines on my own except paso.  I had a long epsom salt bath after so hopefully that will head off some of the bruising coming my way.

As far as the test, I still feel pretty good about it aside from the endurance issues.  I have most of the routines down and that is helping my confidence. Fingers crossed my body holds out till then.

I discussed with Boss tonight the idea of filming the routines during the test.  It will be up to the adjudicator, but I am hoping we will be able to.  It’s been almost 6 months since we recorded anything, and at least according to Boss there has been a lot of changes.  I toyed with the idea of filming them before the test, but I don’t want things I may see in the videos to distract from the test, or to kill my confidence.  While probably things will look better than I expect, I don’t want to risk that they might possibly look worse.  Better to keep going the direction I am going at this point, and evaluate later.

After the test, I have 4 weeks until surgery.  Mainly, I want to get all the gold routines laid out and if possible filmed so I have them to refer to while I recover.  One of the things I want to have a look at (and should be able to) is to figure out the styling for latin and put together some ideas where needed.

In all honesty, I think that is the main part missing from the silver latin routines, but I am trying not to let myself worry about that.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.

9 Routines down…

Well at least written out with timing.

The latin routines are going well and getting into my brain.  I was able to review them some on the weekend and was glad to see things had fit.

We went through the paso routine today, which was the one missing routine, after reviewing the timing in the standard routines and a couple steps which I couldn’t figure out on my own.

I spent my practice working through the standard routines on my own, and got through the waltz, tango and most of the Quickstep.  Foxtrot will be for Wednesday, as it’s a supervised practice, and there are a couple steps I am not sure about and need to take the opportunity to go through them.

I feel good about where the routines are, considering the time left until the test.  It’s actually been pretty interesting for me to go through all the steps on my own because some of the steps, while I have done them and followed them, I have either not really known their names or they are new to me. It’s been a new area to explore.

It’s actually been quite a while since I have worked through memorizing and putting under my feet a sequence of routines.  Especially in standard, going through the timing has been a good exercise for me as I haven’t work through standard routines with timing since before or shortly after I got sick.

I haven’t put them together with the music yet on my own, but that will be some of the goals for the end of this week and early next week, although I am not quite sure how it will go.  I think rumba, samba, paso and jive will be ok.  Cha cha could be iffy.  Waltz and Tango should be ok in standard, Quickstep questionable and foxtrot will be interesting in general.

There may not be enough time to get the routines down on my own as much as I would like to, but the foundation will be there for my test and that is the main thing.  There are some technique things I wish were coming a little stronger (as I previously mentioned about cha cha in particular) and there have been some pleasant surprises.

The way I have been able to focus in and memorize the sequences of the silver routines gives me some good optimism for learning the gold routines.  I am hopeful that once the test is done, we can focus in on finishing the rest of the sequences (currently I have Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Rumba, Samba), and be able to go through them on my own (so far only the rumba is in my feet).  I hope to have all 9 gold sequences before my surgery, and with some luck to have them videotaped as well so I can refer to them as I am recovering.  Haven’t had a chance to discuss that with Boss yet, but I hope he will be on board.  It’s a conversation for after the test.

Health-wise, I have had a bit of a turn around in the past week.  My energy levels are truly up, and while I have fuzzy-headed moments, they seem less frequent.  The full body aches have dissipated, although I seem to keep ‘tweaking’ my neck. Still not sure why.  I hope this will be the status quo until my surgery, but we will see how it goes.  I am still working some part days during the week, and today was the first time I was able to return to strength training in more than 3 weeks.  As I rebuild my stamina and add more of my usual activities back in, I hope things get better and not worse.

But for now, I have 9 routines to focus on for the next two weeks.

Cha Cha Conundrum

It appears I am focusing on latin lately.

It makes sense as now I have 4 of the 5 latin routines for my test and more so than standard I need to try to get them memorized.  For whatever reason, if I blank in standard I can just resort to following (which sometimes may be better!) but I have a harder time doing this in latin.

Working on the latin routines has been, well, strange.

Of all of them, cha cha is definitely the strangest.

It took me most of practice last night just to work out the timing for the routine with Boss’s help.  There seemed to be a lot of steps I really had no clue how to do on my own, and that is a little concerning.  I went in early tonight to practice some before the latin class because I honestly wasn’t sure if I would be able to stay late enough for the class (I did in the end, but I was pretty much a zombie the whole time).  I managed to get through the rumba, minus one step at the beginning, then I focused on cha cha.

One of the most odd things about latin in general, whether rumba, samba, cha cha or Jive is that anything we do in hold seems completely alien to me–like I have never done anything in hold for Latin before.  It’s to the point where I find myself questioning where I am supposed to put my left hand (shoulder, back, bicep?), and I keep stretching my right arm out like for standard (and then constantly reminding myself to drop my elbow–at least I remind myself!). I feel like I am either too close or too far, about to trip Boss or fall over forward.  It’s really bizarre.

And then there is cha cha specifically.  For whatever reason, as I am working on it I can’t seem to incorporate ANY technique I have worked on.  Of course then I remind myself that I can’t really remember the last time I worked on cha cha technique that wasn’t forward lock steps, cuban breaks or time steps–but I can’t seem to put even those into context.  Most of my latin focus lately has been rumba (for the last couple years) or samba (more lately).  Rumba technique has a lot of crossover, but that just isn’t coming into cha cha.

Granted, I really am focusing on working out the sequence of steps right now, but I guess I expected that I should be able to at least do a basic step with some semblance of technique (which isn’t happening right now).  When I try, the best I can describe is that it feels ‘odd’ and like I am trying too hard and off balance.  And that is just the basic step, and other steps feel like there is no hip movement going on and I can’t keep my legs straight.  In short, nothing about cha cha seems to be muscle memory or automatic, but I do vaguely remember a time it was.

I am really confused about this.  I know I can do time steps, whether fast or slow, with no issue on my own, and even with Boss they are not too bad.  But the minute I do a step that is pretty much not lateral side to side (and has forward and back steps), it just gets weird.

I can’t figure out if this the work I am and have done in rumba trying to adapt to cha cha (but not really succeeding with the speed), or if I have really forgotten my cha cha technique. Even New Yorks feel weird and off balance.

It doesn’t bode well for my test, although I probably have higher expectations of myself than Boss does.  At this point though, I feel like the cha cha I do now is actually weaker than the cha cha I was able to do for my bronze test, and it is really uncomfortable to feel.

Samba still has that in/out feeling for technique I have described before, the out being mainly the voltas and some rocks (which are more a I hate how rocks look issue).  I haven’t had a chance to work on it on my own yet, but I am not concerned about it as samba routines seem to come together fairly easily for me.  It will be a project for tomorrow’s practice.

Jive was actually a bit of  a pleasant surprise.  It’s a bit like samba in that the technique comes in and out, but it is more ‘in’ than ‘out’ than I expected.  Practicing it on my own is a bit tricky as in the end the ladies part is a lot of just turning (while the man’s part has hand changes) and without a partner for reference it is hard to know what direction I am supposed to be facing. I still have to work out the timing for it, but that will be the main focus for tomorrow’s practice.  The main thing I need to figure out is where the knee lifts are and making sure I do the rock step on bent knees (which is easier for me than straight as it’s an ingrained habit from my rhythm days that seems to have stuck).  Once I remember that, it came together better.  Endurance still sucks though.

So I am not really sure what to do about my cha cha conundrum.  Really at this point, I don’t think there is much I can do as the test is only two weeks away.  Better to focus on the things I can control, improve, or at least stabilize, rumba, samba and jive, and be prepared for cha cha to be a mini disaster.

Haven’t done the silver Paso yet, but I am hopeful it will be pretty much my old closed silver routine which should come back fairly easy.  I can’t think of any silver steps in Paso that would give me issue, and because it is mostly in hold it is easier to follow than the other latin dances.

I haven’t started working on the standard routines yet, although I have them as I feel latin is where I need to focus–it is more independent than standard.  I have also done a lot of work in standard lately so the steps and techniques are more familiar (and they transfer more through each dance).

I have surprised myself lately with the amount of energy I have had for my own practice–far exceeding what I expected to be able to do.  The side effects from my injection are starting to abate and I even slept through the night last night–first time I can remember in recent history.

So it appears cha cha somewhere went sideways in the last 6 months–literally–side steps seems to be the extent of what I can do.

Endurance Issues

This is the thing that concerns me most about my dancing right now.

Unfortunately, doing anything about it right now doesn’t make a lot of sense as I will be off a minimum of 6 weeks after surgery.

Its been an issue since chemo, and it really hasn’t recovered (not sure it has really had time).  One of the most frustrating things about it is that I tend to go from 85% to 5% over one step. And once it is gone, there is no recovering I like a pile of jelly and no strength of will pulls it back together.

We were doing some rounds during my lesson on Friday to prepare for my test on June 11th.  Basically, its pretty obvious that VW and QS will not be very good, foxtrot will be iffy, and jive will be pretty questionable.  I am pretty much resigned to the fact that my endurance is just going to be the biggest issue.

Compounding the endurance issue, I had my injection Friday and it seems to have caused some strong unwanted side effects (at least I think its the injection…).  As is my usual habit on Saturday, I went to the gym to do strength training.  Unfortunately, 10 mins into my cardio routine my legs turned to jelly and I could barely make them move.  I had to stop and head home, where I barely made it up the stairs my legs felt so weak.

Muscle weakness is not an uncommon side effect but that seemed just extreme and very disappointing.  I am hoping it is mainly just a bit of shock by my body from the injection itself and it will adjust.  I am tired today, but so far not feeling ‘weak’.

The trickiest thing about this side effect is that it is really hard to gauge and not very consistent. Its limiting on my life in general and there seems to be nothing to do about it.

I am getting hit with this just as Boss announced he is adding a standard technique class which I would like to participate in, but I feel my health is going to make it impossible.  Its on Monday nights, so I would have (in theory) strength training during the day, then practice, a lesson, and a class all in a row.  I’ve done it before, but not recently. It doesn’t start for a couple weeks, so really I will just have to see how I feel closer to it.

7 weeks until my surgery.  Once again I feel like I am going to have to more or less completely reset and start over on recovering from everything when I finally get clearance to get back on the floor.

Not for the first time, I find myself wondering if I will ever fully recover and be able to work full time and do a minimum of dancing to allow me to progress and compete.  It does seem a bit like an impossible task right now, but I am trying to remain optimistic that this next surgery will truly be the start of a return to ‘normal’ for me.

Speaking of my surgery, I had an idea for a dance project to do while I am laid up and recovering.  There is a showcase piece to a waltz I did as my first showcase.  At the time, the steps were very basic and simple, but I would like to redo it now I can dance better.  So I proposed to Boss that I work on coming up with choreography for that showcase.  Not sure how it will work, but at least it will give me something dance related to work on.

7 weeks seems a long time right now.

Mixed Messages

“You can ask me any question about technique that you want.”

Except I can’t.

Boss said this last night at my lesson.  Two months ago he told me that I wasn’t allowed to ask any questions and that I should just do what he tells me, because he is the instructor and I am only the student.

(On a side note, he told me this at the same time he told me he is my instructor and not the Boss of my dancing.  I don’t think he realizes I am not his only student to refer to him this way and neither was I the first–its a habit I picked up from another of is students)

I don’t know how to ask questions without making him feel like I am undermining him as an instructor, though lord knows I have tried.

While its an interesting olive branch, history has shown me that whenever I ask questions it inevitably leads to conflict between us because one of 3 things happen (or sometimes all 3):

1. He dismisses my question and says it either doesn’t matter or is something I ‘don’t need to worry about’.
2. He assumes I am asking because I am trying to rush progress.
3. He assumes that by asking I am really saying ‘Forget everything you think I should focus on and focus on only this instead because I want to’.

Very rarely is it numbers 2 or 3, and number 1 just leads me to frustration.  Whether a topic matters to him or not, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important to me and frequently on my mind (and sometimes interfering with other things I am working on).

More often than not, the question comes because I have observed something and am curious about it. Sometimes its related to a small personal project I am working on and I just need a bit of direction to know where to start to begin to work it out for myself.  Sometimes it is related to something else I am working on that my mind has latched on to and won’t let go.

An example–right now one of my exercises is rumba basic and focusing on making sure I step, then settle.  The biggest issue with this is when I step back with my right foot–I have a tendency to step there already settled with no way else to move my hip.  Its taken a lot of experimentation, but slowly I have found a way to step back on a straight leg without having my hip settled. This has led me to consider other steps where I step backwards, and to wonder about how to actually do rumba steps backwards, something I don’t recall working on in international rumba (I did it a lot in rhythm, but very different technique).  Its drawn my attention to the issue to the point that when I do figures with multiple back steps (like aida or reverse top) I find myself distracted by noticing I am not stepping right and trying to figure out how to fix it.  I have tried just walking backwards, but for whatever reason I can’t figure it out–there seems to be a big piece I am missing. In fact, it feels as though what I am doing might lead to injury of my hip as some of the movements I am trying to do are sometimes painful.

But if I ask Boss about that, he will likely think I am asking him to change my exercises or what he wants me to focus on (currently it seems to be forward steps), or he will tell me its something I don’t need to worry about right now.

But on the other hand, he has mentioned several times that my back steps in latin are not good, and while watching videos he has pointed out how others move backwards.

So I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place and mostly I just sort of wait and hope he will notice what is frustrating me and decide to address it.  Because I am not allowed to know his plan, I also have no way to know if my questions will just get naturally addressed when we get to that topic (if we get to that topic).

The rumba back steps are just one of the things I find myself wondering about and wanting to work on by myself.  I have time now since changing my practice schedule but I do feel like I don’t know where to start to work on them.  I am unsure enough that I am concerned I will teach myself wrong and develop bad habits or worse injure myself with bad technique.

But despite what Boss said at my lesson yesterday, I have been ‘bitten’ enough by questions being misinterpreted that I don’t feel I can ‘ask anything’ about technique–or anything really. I just don’t want to risk opening a giant can of worms.

So I wait and hope things will resolve themselves, and try not to let myself get too impatient or frustrated.

I can either ask questions or I can’t.

I don’t see how it can be both ways.

Latin Let-down

I am not sure why I feel so frustrated with my latin technique tonight.

I do have a theory that perhaps it is just the late hour of the class (8 pm is late for me these days), coupled with an extremely busy week at work (it’s not over yet!). The end result being that I feel like I couldn’t do anything right tonight during the class–even though I know that is not the case.  Its almost like a mini ‘crash’ after the class.

Usually I feel pretty good about my latin technique.  While there are some things I struggle with a lot, there are others that come more naturally and no matter what I do, my hips definitely move. The adjustment I have been making to my posture is becoming more ‘mainstream’ but I have to stay on top of it.  I am at the point where I ask myself if I am forward and discover that yes, I am.

Tonight in general I think I was just having endurance issues.  It’s hard to explain but I felt like everything just lacked in strength compared to how it usually feels, and my body just wasn’t as responsive as usual.  It wasn’t a lack of trying, but it just seemed to be ‘off’.

I think because of that, the things that usually frustrated me just ran a bit rampant.  By the end of the class my frustration level just seemed exceptionally high.

One thing that is just a constant source of frustration for me is jive.  I have mentioned before it is like my latin achilles heel dance, as it is the one dance where on the one hand things work out well naturally, but on the other I really have no idea how I do any of it.  And there there are some things which I have no idea how to do and quite honestly it looks ridiculous when I try.  I think I am getting in my own way by trying so hard I am actually preventing my body from moving in the way it needs to.  That’s said, it feels like everything I am doing in jive is really ‘loosey goosey’, when it should be more tight and compact (because of the speed).

Some time jive just feels like the dance I never work on.  The little bit of technique I have done in jive has been a little ‘here’ and ‘there’ and very spread out.  I have never concentrated on it–even at a basic level.

To be perfectly honest, my frustration and feeling of lacking in jive really makes me reluctant to do it right now.  I feel that compared with the amount of time and work I have spent on the other 4 dances my jive is woefully behind.

I am hoping this is just the result of a long week and fatigue and that it will pass in time.

The other thing that keeps popping in my mind is that I might not have the endurance for my medal test.  I am feeling a little overwhelmed with the idea of doing 10 dances in a row because its been so long since I have actually done that.  I guess I am not feeling really confident in my strength right now.

I get my injection tomorrow, and I hopeful that with it some of these frustrations will pass.  I am also a bit stressed that I will have some mood swings following the injection as my body gets used to it again.

It’s hard to know what is real and what is just side effects right now.

Working Lesson

Unfortunately, not a lesson full of hard work, but one where work obligations interfered.

Sometimes, but thankfully not often, my job requires me to put in extra time unexpectedly.  Tonight was one of those nights.  An issue came up almost at the end of the day and I ended up staying longer after work to begin to address it.  I made it to my lesson on time, but had to spend part of the beginning responding to the issue more and waiting for a response.  I had to spend time during my lesson to respond further.  After my lesson, I actually had to drive into work for 10 minutes before grabbing supper and returning back to the studio hoping to practice.  Unfortunately, I still had a little more work to do before I could eat my supper and in the end I got only 15 minutes of practice time.

At least it doesn’t happen too often.

Despite the distractions, my lesson went really well.  It was all standard and almost completely lead/follow.  We were going through routines to begin preparing for my test, so reviewing silver steps in WTFQ.

I was actually a bit surprised at how well I was able to follow.  A few small hiccups (like I completely forgot that there are lock steps in Quickstep–Doh!!), but for the most part not too bad.  Waltz was the best, and Quickstep the weakest, but I was really impressed that I was able to follow almost all heel turns in foxtrot–something I don’t think I would have been able to do about a year ago.

In the end, we seem to have some fairly good sequences for all 4 dances with just a few parts to iron out.  Boss is going to send me the sequences so that when I have time (obviously wasn’t going to happen tonight!), I can work through them on my own to get them in my head before the test.

I am fighting a bit of a cold and hadn’t eaten well today due to running out of time, so I tired out a bit quickly in my lesson.  It was good to do Quickstep though because I haven’t done it in a while.  I feel like I haven’t done any of the faster dances lately (although I have done samba which is a little in the middle), and last week I found myself craving them a little, especially cha cha.

I hope this cold will clear out tomorrow (it seems to be on its way), and that work will settle down some so I have enough energy to get to the latin technique class.  I missed last week as I was just too exhausted to go without feeling like I would be compromising my health.  This week seems to be better in general, despite the cold. Fingers crossed.

I am excited for Blackpool to start next week, but this year I don’t know how much I will be able to watch! I had originally planned to take time off from work, but some really high profile events came up making that impracticable.  I just hope to get a little bit of time at work, or that I will be able to get replays of each day.

BTW, school is progressing.  I am halfway through my current course and ahead of the game despite recent challenges. A few more weeks to go and another course in the can.  My next course will be challenging as I will my surgery shortly after it starts and I don’t know how that will effect it.  On the one hand, I will be at home recovering and it will give me something to do.  On the other, I am supposed to be at home recovering.  Time will tell on that one.

Considering I essentially worked all through my lesson, I am really happy with how much we still got done.  We got through each routine at least twice, and even my position wasn’t too bad.  I may finally be starting to gain some confidence in my standard position.

Hopefully next lesson will be more focused on ‘working’ instead of on work!

Routine Reviews

Sorry I have been quiet lately–It wasn’t by design!

My week last week got crazy.

Unfortunately, my work hours got reduced so that I am working half days MWF, and full days TTh.  The reason for this appears to be sleep deprivation.  The medication I was taking for insomnia seemed to be not working so I wasn’t staying in stage 3 and 4 sleep, therefore not getting refreshed in the morning.  My medication was changed and since Thursday things have been gradually getting better.  I have started dreaming again–a good sign!

My next injection is this Friday and as I get closer to it, the more it seems my hormones are fluctuating (which is likely as the previous injection wears off).  I am managing pretty well (sleep helps!), but I really hope things will settle this weekend.

But enough about health.  The challenges will continue, but it appears I am starting to stabilize.  I am also being referred to a sleep clinic which should be interesting.

Back to dance, last week we started working on our next showcase routine–a mambo!  Actually it is THE mambo we have been meaning to return to for quite some times, so it is great to get some creative juices flowing and work done on it.  It’s not much so far, just mainly a concept, but it is starting to take shape in sections.  I look forward to working on it more over the next few weeks.  No idea when we will perform it, but it may be on the docket for the fall. Its also nice to be working on a dance I don’t normally do.

Other than the mambo last week, we also did some video reviews looking at recent comps in my level and we reviewed four of the 5 routines I have so far (rumba, samba, waltz, tango, foxtrot). I find it interesting that for some reason the rumba and samba seem to be getting cemented into my head, but the standard routines just don’t want to come together.  I can remember the specific pieces we have broken down and worked on, but the sequences themselves remain elusive.

I think part of it is that I am not completely comfortable practicing the standard routines on my own.  Certainly not as comfortable as I am with the latin routines.  I think this is mainly because the standard routines travel around the ballroom, and when I am moving backwards I can’t see if someone is behind me. I would really like to get at least the sequences of steps in my feet, so I am going to have to think on a way to get past this anxiety.

My practice exercises themselves seem to be going well, and most of them are starting to stabilize and become more consistent.  One small variation I made on myself is to practice holding my promenade position as it occurred to me I have almost never done this, so it makes sense it is weaker and less consistent.

There was an interesting remark from Boss last week and I have to wonder if it might be connected to my medication change.  He remarked at the end of last week that he was finding me to be more stable in standard.  It may be a coincidence, but one advantage of my new medication is that it doesn’t stay in my system as long as the other medication did and so I am feeling less shaky and fatigued in general. Boss seems to think its a result of the work I am doing on my footwork, and perhaps it is a combination. I guess I will have to see how it goes.  It is possible I may have to switch back to the other medication due to health coverage issues, but that is still being reviewed.  It will be interesting if I do have to switch to see if it affects my stability.

One final piece of news–I am going to finally be doing my silver test in June! It’s been in the plan for a while now, but the logistics just never seemed to come together.  It’s all set now and I hope I do well.  I am a little anxious as it has been a while since I have done closed silver and as far as I know the test will be completely lead/follow.

So that is a quick catch up on what is going on with me.  Slowly and steadily working on reviewing things–not only in dance, but also with my health.  I am almost at the apparently magic 3-month mark where some of these side effects are supposed to go away, a couple weeks to go.  I don’t expect it to be instant, but hopeful for some relief.

Till then, just working to keep dancing, one day at a time.

Samba and Shoes

Sort of a strange combination, but yet related.

The end of last week was pretty much dedicated to samba.  Boss went through the sequence for the gold routine with me, and we worked on getting the sequence down, then looked at some of the technique in samba.

Samba is a weird beast for me.  It’s a little disjointed in some ways.  I have steps, such as whisks, stationary, bota fogos, and plait where I feel like the technique is pretty put together and I am able to get some bounce action.

And then there are other steps, like voltas, cruzado walks, and corta jaca where I feel like I have no technique happening at all, or I am trying to do some technique and bounce action and my body is just refusing to cooperate.  I am working on the cruzado walks and corta jaca I think I just need to think on a little (haven’t focused on it in a while), but voltas are like an achilles heel for me.  I just can’t seem to get all the actions working together.

That said, I really like the samba routines that Boss puts together.  They are some of my funnest routines, and the gold one is no exception.  I look forward to working on it more.

Secondly, shoes.  As I mentioned, I had been wanting to try working during the latin technique group class in my higher 2.5″ heels with the adjustments I am working on in my posture.  Last week was my second week working in them and I noticed something interesting.

Working on the hunch, in my next lesson I had Boss have a look at my position and latin technique in both shoe heights to see which is better. As suspected, everything was better in the 2″ heels.

What I noticed is that once I went up to the 2.5″ heels, I was unable to move my posture forward because of the height I was at and I was very restricted in how I could use my feet, which translated into much less movement through out my body.

Essentially, the added height limited the range of motion in my feet because it was pushing me up on my toes.  I couldn’t raise myself from my toes further than I was.

This is exactly why I use shorter heels for standard. I just haven’t really noticed it in latin before.

I have pretty short feet (size 6.5 US, or 23 cm), but on top of that, the ball of my foot is very wide.  I have a long arch, but it doesn’t leave a lot of space for the ball of my foot.  Basically, if I was wearing 3″ heels I would be completely forward on my toes only.

This actually makes things easier for me because now I don’t have to try and alternate my practice shoes, I can just work in my 2 inch heels all the time, and continue to strengthen my balance and feet and ankles consistently regardless of the style I am doing.

Of course, now I have to buy some high-quality latin shoes with 2 inch heels verses 2.5, but I have an idea of where I can get them (basically the same shoes I had in 2.5 with a lower heel).

There is no rush on doing this as my surgery will be July 11th, so most of my summer will be spent recovering.

On a slightly different note, my work hours were reduced today.  I just don’t have the energy to maintain a full schedule, so 3 days a week I will work only half days until we can find a solution to get my energy up.  The other two days will be full days.  I am really disappointed with this, but I know it is for the best.  I am not sleeping well and it is leaving me exhausted and like I never feel refreshed in the morning.  It is something that will need to be addressed over the next few weeks, and I hope my work hours won’t get reduced further.  I am tired of having to choose the parts of my life I will participate in, and which ones I can’t because I am too tired.

I am hopeful as I reach the 3-month mark for taking the hormone therapy this magical cessation of side effects that I have been promised will appear.  The end of this month will be that 3-month mark.  Beyond that, I hope that the surgery and not having hormone fluctuations or needing the injections will also improve things.  I just have to get there and I am not sure if I will have the energy.

But at least I get to buy new shoes 🙂

My new favourite muscles

Well, more like a love/hate relationship.

It’s taken a long time and a lot of work, but over the last couples months I have finally discovered and figure out (mostly) how to isolate my upper back muscles around my shoulders.  I have been working on them for a long time, but it’s only recently I have been able to actually feel them move.

On the other hand, now that I know where they are and how to use them, I can’t ignore them anymore, and I can tell when they are not moving right.

This somehow makes things simpler and harder at the same time.

Depending on whether I am doing latin or standard, its necessary to figure out how to move them differently.  I have also been working on strengthening them during my strength training, which is also difficult as they are hard muscles to target.  As I have noticed more awareness, I have noticed though that it is becoming easier to do these exercises right.  Doing this has highlighted the strength difference between my right and left side as I work each side separately, but slowly it is starting to even out.

The progress is encouraging, but I still get frustrated sometimes when I can’t quite figure out what I am trying to do with them.  Sometimes though I move them without realizing it, and that is always a surprise.  It’s interesting how many movements in dance involve them.

On a slightly related note, I keep encountering something frustrating with the muscles/tendons on the right side of my neck.  I am not sure if it is related to my treatment, specifically the radiation (because of scar tissue), but I have noticed that after every lesson, and practice where I am stretching my neck for standard I wake up the following morning with a stiff neck that is just a little too far on side of pain for comfort. I spend the entire next day aching through my neck and unable to fully turn my head to the left.

The odd, frustrating and difficult thing is that when I am working on standard and stretching, I don’t feel anything that tells me I am overextending to the point of minor injury. It doesn’t seem to be getting worse, but it isn’t getting better either.  The thankful thing is that it rarely lasts more than the day after.  I am really not sure how to manage this, but hope that it doesn’t get worse and progress to a worse injury.  I have previously had an issue where the entire muscle seized up for a week and it is something I have no wish to repeat.

Muscles are strange things sometimes.

On a different note, I have figure out why I wasn’t feeling very well over the last couple days, and why I suddenly had a burst of energy last night.  I accidentally missed one and perhaps two of my hormone therapy medication.  I usually sort out all my medications for the week in advance, but last week I didn’t have enough of my hormone therapy because I had to pick up a refill at the pharmacy.  Once I picked up the refill, I forgot to add the missing doses to my medications for the end of the week, and didn’t notice it was missing until this morning.  What I was feeling was likely withdrawal from missing the doses, followed by the side effects lifting.

It was a brief ray of light, but also it’s a little disheartening that today I am back to feeling achy and lacking energy again as my body readjusts to the medication.  It certainly tells me that what I am feeling are indeed side effects.

But at least in the meantime I have new muscles and sensations to explore.