Closer and Closer

Just a quick one tonight.

The comp is getting closer and the pieces are falling into place.

The dress arrived today as expected and it fits much better! There is one small bit of excess fabric I have to fix by hand, but pretty much it is good to go.

My shoe is at the cobbler’s and will be ready tomorrow. I will double check it when I pick it up to make sure it will work.

I have massage therapy at the end of the day tomorrow and that will help to make sure my body is ready to go. Even after the rounds yesterday, my hip feels good and aches are to a minimum.

I saw the program for the comp today and its not a bad field of competition overall. I am completely uncontested only in my 5 open silver standard dances, but have 1-3 competitors in my other single dances. All of my multidances have a good field, except for the 10-dance which is only 2 of us.

I can feel my excitement rising!

Slowly I am checking things off as I get ready. Boss told me today he is going to look at our heat times and plan out when we will wait in the ballroom, leave, eat, etc. We both agreed that we would eat breakfast after the first dance as we have a 90-120 minute break before the rest of the singles each day. That will give us a little more time to sleep before preparing to head to the comp.

Two more sleeps to go!

A Solid Run-through

Finally!

The last week and a half have been about working to get the routines to the point where we can go through them all without stopping and almost mistake free.

Today we had a rounds practice where we mainly focused on standard and it went extremely well. Not perfect of course, but solid enough to alleviate some of the anxiety around the open routines.

It also helps that we received our heat lists and the most number of dances we have in a row is 5. We don’t always have a big break between, sometimes only 5 or 10 minutes, but it is enough time to recollect ourselves and reset for the next round.

I will also compete in 4 events with semi-finals and 2 with quarter finals. The two with quarter finals are both open scholarships, so I don’t really expect to make it to the semi in those, but I am optimistic to make the finals from the 4 semis because they are closed silver events.

That said, in the end it is all about doing my best – that’s all I can really control. I expect there to be some tough competition in many of the events, and much more seasoned competitors than myself.

We start fairly early both days, 730 on Friday and 8 am on Saturday, both to dance one random single dance I needed to qualify for the scholarships. After each we have about a 2 hour wait for our next group of dances. It means pretty early days to have my hair and make-up all together. We also have a good gap of about 3 hours between our last silver events and our open ones.

With the rounds practice behind me, I am slowly starting to feel myself getting excited for the competition. I have been checking off my ‘to do’ list and am counting the days.

I do have two small ‘hiccups’ to finish working out.

First, a month ago at our first rounds practice I snapped the post on the buckle of one of my standard competition shoes. I took it to the cobbler’s and they fixed it. Last weekend they worked well, but today when I went to put them on, the post was too short to hold the strap. I am not quite sure what caused that, but I have to go back to the cobbler’s tomorrow to ask them to replace it again with a longer post.

Second, I ran into some issues with my new standard dress (but my latin one works great!), in that the body suit was too loose and long which led it to shift as we moved. In addition, the floats were too long, especially on the left to the point where there was risk of stepping on them. I had to go over to the mainland on Thursday to meet the dressmaker so she could make the adjustments while I waited.

First, the ferry was booked full for cars (odd for a Thursday afternoon), so I had to walk on the ferry with my dress to make the timing, which was the only time available to get the dress fixed. I then had to take a taxi from the terminal to the studio. She was able to see the dress on me to figure out where the adjustments needed to be make and started to sew, but her needle hit a stone and broke shortly after. Therefore, she wasn’t able to finish the dress while I was there.

She finished it that night and sent it by UPS Friday morning. I should receive it tomorrow before my dance lesson, which should give us a chance to run some of the routines in the dress.

Needless to say, the next 3 days are going to by busy and bit non-stop, followed by flying to the competition and competing. The week after the competition will be a crazy one at work and then I fly out for 2 weeks of training in Germany. I won’t really get a break until the last week of May.

I really can’t wait to get on the floor again and see how I do.

Hopefully the comp will be as solid as today’s run-through.

2.5 weeks

That’s it until we leave for Emerald Ball!

I honestly can’t believe it is coming so close. It still seems like there is so much work to do, and we haven’t really done any run-throughs due to my injury.

So far so good though. The hip is behaving with only a little bit of tweaking here and there – mainly in paso. Thankfully, that is the dance I do the least overall at the comp so hopefully that will bode well.

Today we reviewed a couple of places in foxtrot and waltz to look at some of the line figures and make some small adjustments. Following that, we looked at some spots in the Paso where I have a habit of over-compensating to shape and break my left side.

We ran through it a couple times and on the very last run-through at the very end I got the smallest tweak going into the twists that end the routine. It was fleeting, but enough to put me on edge.

We finished with jive, which honestly is the routine that is concerning me the most. For some reason, I can’t seem to keep the routine in my head and I have yet to get through it without forgetting one major part or another. The biggest issue is I get into my own head getting worried I will miss a part coming up and then end up skipping over the previous section.

I need to mainly get out of my head in jive.

I also keep missing the first turn and ending up facing the wrong way by confusing it with a later turn. There is just a bunch of little pieces in jive that aren’t quite coming together leading me to panic some and then forget what I am doing.

We did try it at full speed today and up until the very end it went well. It then became really obvious that we haven’t really done the end of the routine at full speed as all of a sudden everything both of us were doing got behind. We really just need to go through the entire routine about 10 times without stopping to nail it down.

I have one more lesson this week, and then this weekend Boss and I will run through the routines in the other hall on our own (as most of the others at the practice will be competing at the Canadian Closed Comp in Calgary).

Monday I pick up my new dresses. I haven’t seen them since the last fitting so I am really curious to see what the final result will be – especially since slowing down on activity I have lost almost 10 lbs without trying. I am hoping it won’t have too much of an impact on the fit overall.

Next weekend we should have a full rounds practice with the other competitors so that should set us up nicely for the comp!

A busy 2 weeks ahead!

A Glimmer…

Of hope. But so far only a glimmer.

I got the shot blindly on Friday and from there I spent the weekend sitting on my left side doing pretty much nothing. I noticed a little bit of an increase in range of motion, but not much else.

This morning there was a definite improvement. I could walk without pain on every step, I could do back breaks without pain and many of the things that were causing huge issues last week.

I still had some pain at the extremes of movements and it was up and down throughout the day. I am still icing alternating with heat regularly and taking ibuprofen.

I had the doctor’s blessing to try dancing again today, so I did, although nothing full out and fairly slow. I tried some of the steps that gave me definite grief last week (jive swivels being one for sure) and I wasn’t getting any pain.

We started the lesson going slowly through the jive and working on the styling. I would get a very minor ‘zing’ every now and then, but for the most part things were pretty steady. About halfway through my lesson I started to get some aching on my right side, but no pulling or zinging.

After the jive, we switched to quickstep to review the steps of the last line that we started reviewing last week. Switching seemed to be a good idea, although I was still getting some aching through my left side, especially on the heel turns.

We finished with the foxtrot to go over the final piece of the routine to clarify the loop back to the beginning.

I am sore and probably where I was the day this started 2 weeks ago. Needless to say, I didn’t stay to practice and as soon as I got home I put ice on it, followed by a hot epsom salt bath.

I will ice and alternate with heat more as the evening goes on. Hopefully the injection will keep working to counter some of the inflammation from my lesson. I have physio tomorrow and massage therapy again on Wednesday. The plan for tomorrow is a lot of rest. Hopefully physio can offer some stretches or exercises to help keep things getting better.

I still haven’t completely decided whether to compete or not. I want to give the injection longer to work and see how the effects last this week. The decision will be made after rounds practice on Sunday. If I can do it and things are ok, then I should be good.

But if I get to rounds practice and I can’t get through it, then it is time to cancel competing.

But at least for now there is a glimmer of hope.

Its Definitely the Hip

Bursitis is the likely culprit.

I saw physio yesterday and since I didn’t get much relief after my appointment last week he looked into my hip a bit more. After examining it and seeing how tender I am to touch he is leaning towards bursitis, with tendon issues being the back-up.

At least it isn’t my back, which is a relief since the back exercises I was doing weren’t having much effect.

The way forward is for me to get a cortizone injection tomorrow morning into my hip. From how I react to it, that will determine whether it is bursitis or bigger tendon issues. Basically, if the injection results in things getting better overall, it is bursitis. If the injection has minimal effect, its the tendons. If it is bursitis, the injection could potentially solve the issue or at least minimize it enough to settle it down.

Its hard to know what is causing the issue, but from what I have read once bursitis gets triggered (usually from an injury) it can be hard to settle down. This could be related to the strange pulling I experienced a few times doing standard and other movements back in February.

I am really trying to stay optimistic, but its difficult to do when I have had to really modify and baby my hip during my lesson. Last night we even ended early as working on the rumba I inadvertently leaned back too far into my hip and caused a huge twang that made it difficult for me to even walk after. Any time I rotate my hip causes pain and I am still experiencing a need to limp a bit today.

I am currently sitting with an ice pack on my hip (bursitis like cold, not heat) and really hoping that tomorrow brings some relief for me that allows me to get back to preparing for the competition. So many pieces are coming together so well in all the routines that we are even able to look back at some details again instead of focusing on full routines.

So my fingers are crossed (and toes too!) trying not to expect too much and being ready for bad news that the rest of my prep will be focused on resting and caring for the tendons as best I can.

Here goes nothing…

Over-thinking

I am getting in my own way.

I am at a point now where I am trying too hard to put everything together and capture all the little details in every thing I do. Beyond that, I am trying so hard that in some instances I am overdoing things – because my body is already what its been trained to do naturally.

Its slowing me down and making me heavy at times. I am thinking so much as I dance that my mind can’t keep up with the music. It is also making me tense through my upper body.

I just need to relax and trust that my body will do what it is trained to do.

It sounds easy, but truthfully, I am not very good at letting go. I can’t see what my body is doing and because I am so used to a lot of the movements I don’t necessarily feel my body doing them.

At my lesson tonight the problem first showed up in the open samba. Once Boss pointed out that I should just relax a little and focus on my feet instead of my body things seemed to get better. I also felt a bit faster and lighter overall. The trick was to shift my focus from my body to my legs.

Later in the lessons we reviewed the silver latin routines and the same issue seemed to be creeping up. Again, my focus was on my body and that was making me heavy, especially in my feet. Once I lightened up, it seemed to go smoother.

My body is also really starting to know the routines well – again if I would just trust it to move. I was running through all the silver routines on my own today and with the exception of Quickstep (which is still confounding me), they are really coming together on my own. I could really feel where I am getting in my own way. I ran through them all with the music except tango and foxtrot (I didn’t have any music for them with me), and once I stopped trying to think through every step they started running smoother.

What really surprised me was that once I let go of thinking too much, I suddenly found myself remembering small little details I didn’t have time to think of when I was trying to think of everything.

Funny how that works.

In general, my solo practice felt more like I was taking ownership of the routines tonight. They felt more solid and less like I was scrambling. I definitely felt more confident working through them (except the before mentioned quickstep). My next goal is to slowly start adding the open routines to my self-practice to get them also to the same level of confidence. I was there with them before and I can get there again.

If I just stay out of my own way.

Upping the Ante

Tonight’s lesson was about Paso.

When the coach was here, he made some small changes to the paso and we worked through the routine from top to bottom, but we didn’t have a chance to go over it with Boss.

Tonight we worked through the first half of the paso to incorporate the changes, the coaching and to work on it with the music.

There were some details to work out in the alignment and some places where I needed to rotate more to make it all work. Once we got the details worked out, we focused on running through the first part with the music at speed.

Tonight was the first time we tried any part of the paso at full speed. That said, other than having to adjust a lot to moving faster initially, by the end of the lesson it wasn’t going too bad. There are definitely some rough patches, but it was doable.

We recorded it at the end of the lesson, and the video doesn’t look as bad as I thought it might. I am clearly tired, but there are some good things happening. It looks promising. Next up is to do the same with the second part to put it all together.

My last few lessons have really upped the ante on our preparations. We are dancing more in lessons and running the routines where we can. In total, I am spending a lot more time in my lessons working hard and more intensely. Generally, I like it.

Of course, with any increase in activity there are some trickle down effects. My body is definitely feeling it. After Monday’s lesson, I was surprised to find my left knee a bit swollen and it was aching so bad when I was trying to sleep I had to get up to put some voltaren on it. The voltaren seems to be working and keeping the pain at bay.

I also stayed for the 90 minute group class today – 45 latin, 45 standard. It went well, but again I could feel the fatigue.

This week in itself is a bit of an adjustment week for me. Its the first week doing full strength training, dance, practice, ballet, the group class and an extra lesson which is going to be the ‘new normal’ until the competition, more or less. I expect my body will take a little while to adjust, but really hope it will adjust. I am doing my best to take care of it best I can making sure it is getting good rest, epsom salt soaks, voltaren and trying to listen to what my body is telling me.

And that is how we are upping the ante.

Off and Running

Well, not running, but dancing.

Yesterday I had an extra lesson with Boss in a bigger hall so we could concentrate on our open standard routines.

It was a great lesson and one I really needed.

We really didn’t stop during the lesson. We were able to run through the Waltz, Tango and Foxtrot routines, as well as the silver Foxtrot (which needed some adjustments for the bigger hall).

It was a lot of starting and stopping to begin with, but slowly we were able to work through all 3 routines and we did most of them twice through without stopping during the lesson.

By the end of the lesson, I really felt like jelly. We ended by going through the Waltz which we started with and while we got through it, it was a struggle almost from the beginning of that dance to keep things together.

The best thing about yesterday’s lesson is that I felt like for the first time in a long time that I was able to start incorporating all the details we have been working on during all my lessons into the full routines. It was only a beginning it was it was like an on-going session of things clicking into place.

Essentially, the intent from now until the competition is to do more of the same – regularly running through the routines where we can. Its going to be intense, but I am looking forward to it overall. Feeling things click together in my brain and coming out as we dance is a good feeling. Its not perfect, but at least there is something happening.

For myself, I found that focusing on one or two things per dance and seeing how much I could incorporate them really helped to keep me grounded throughout the lesson.

We didn’t have time to get to the Quickstep, so that will probably be first on the list for the next lesson. We have done Quickstep in that hall before so I am not as anxious about it as I have been. I still need to review it, but I know I can do it, so that is a good start.

On Friday night, we were able to sit down briefly and go over the plan until the competition and get on the same page. We weren’t far off, we just needed to clarify some lesson schedule and the intent with the lessons overall.

Boss also asked me to flag any pieces I want to review and go over, so I am giving some thought to that today.

One thing I will say is that I am definitely still adjusting to having school done. I am not used to having so much free time! I am using it to review my routines and get them into my brain and my legs, and enjoying the time to focus on dance. Its really been a long time since I have been able to do that.

I was also able to do the entire lesson yesterday in my competition shoes. Thankfully no blisters, although by the end of the lesson I could feel a little bit of rubbing happening due to the amount my feet were sweating. I actually haven’t worn them since competing in fall 2017. They felt really good though.

I did discover one shoe woe this week. At some point during my lesson with the coach on Wednesday I actually broke one of my practice shoes! I went to wear them at my lesson on Friday and kept feeling a bump under my heel. I took them off and discovered it was one of the screws and that the heel of the shoes was almost completely falling off. I guess its off to the cobblers for me as these are my newest practice shoes that are not yet even a year old. I hope they can fix them!

Competition preparations have started and we have an ambitious plan to get there. All the pieces are coming together slowly, and it will be interesting to see how far the preps can get before we get to the competition floor.

We are off and running.

Catching Up

I’m back!

I wasn’t really away that long, but I have been so busy I have been away from writing. For that I apologize.

I’ve been bogged down with work and finishing off my masters degree and I am happy to say that work is giving a bit of a break and my final assignment has been submitted!

Last week was a much needed vacation, although it was not without its own drama when airline delays meant we missed our cruise ship and had to be rerouted over two days to the first port! We joined the ship only 2 days late and had a great time from there, but it was hectic to say the least.

This week I had a great opportunity to work with one of our Canadian pro latin vice champions over 6 lessons and honestly it was a lot of what I needed. He is amazing to work with and I highly recommend if you have an opportunity.

I lost a lot of training momentum while I was deployed this fall and then with the Christmas break, first my hip then my back injuries, menopause issues affecting my concentration and focus, snow days and Boss getting the flu – well I just haven’t been able to really organize myself and get back into a regular groove of things. I also completely changed my strength training routines to better support weight loss and my goals, and finished my masters with a very high intensity course requiring a lot of my time to get through.

I am not completely comfortable with where I am personally when it comes to preparing for this competition. I don’t feel like I know even the sequence of my routines (which is very unusual for me) and when I do learn them, I seem to keep forgetting them. My own practice has been almost non-existent because I don’t feel structured or like I have a plan when I go to do it (also unusual for me).

But now with a lot of the outside pressures out of the way, I am looking forward to spending the next 50 days or so focused on preparing for Emerald Ball. Training itself is ramping up with extra lessons and starting to focus on rounds and run-throughs.

Despite my concerns and disappointment in myself, there are some silver linings. Among other things, I was able to work through 6 pretty intense lessons without my strength and stamina failing me too much. I was actually quite surprised and impressed with myself for that. I was able to take away a lot from my work with the coach and it helped to solidify some of the routines I was really unsure of – like paso. That has helped me feel better overall about where I am.

The main thing I really need to nail down for myself right now is some structure to organize myself until the competition. I know Boss has his own plans and they’ll get us there, but I do feel like I am not pulling my own weight and doing my part – at least as much as I am used to doing – and that is slowing us down. I know myself well enough though that once I figure out a structure, it should fall into place from there. Boss and I are going to try to get that established tonight so I can start fresh next week.

I have a lesson tonight and one again tomorrow (in a bigger hall so we can look at the alignments for our routines). I think the plan tonight is to go over the silver routines and try to dance them through, ideally getting through all of them in one lesson. That would be nice to achieve because we haven’t been able to do that yet, but I also expect that we might not get there. We’ll see how it goes.

From there, its about catching up.

Final Preps

I leave tomorrow for 10 weeks of sailing at sea for work.

It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. I am deploying on a Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel with a crew of about 40 ‘issued friends’ with whom I will be working for the duration of the deployment. We leave from the dock here tomorrow morning and will return around mid-December.

It will be a challenge with long days, busy days and not so busy days. It’s a small ship so there is limited space for physical activity. There are some weights on board and a treadmill, rowing machine and exercise bike, as well as a collection of therabands. The only wood-like floors are in the messes, which is where we eat – not exactly a place for working out.

That said, I do plan to try to keep up dance exercises and keep fit while I am away.

That has been the focus of my lessons this week at dance. That and reviewing the information from the coaching lessons last week. Knowing that space will be limited, Boss and I have worked together to figure out exercises that don’t need a lot of space or a slippery floor to do.

How exactly I will put them into practice on the ship I am not completely sure yet, but I know I will work out a routine once I settle into the regular rhythm of working on the ship.

I will also be writing an article about my work on the ship and I hope to do some video of me working. We will see what I can put together in the end.

Finally, I want to apologize in advanced as it is quite highly unlikely that I will be able to post while I am away. Internet bandwidth is extremely limited on the ship and in the end it is only slightly better than dial-up. I have a very small window of time each night to do all the emailing and uploading required for my work and that is it. It’s slightly better when we are in port, but that will only be about 3 times during the entire trip.

But I promise that after this short break I will be back and ready to write about my next chapter in dance.