On the Floor Again

This week is a little more casual at the studio. With the holiday, they are not having any group classes this week so we did our lessons back to back. You can always tell when the studio is in casual mode because OwnerGuy doesn’t wear a tie. I know things can get a little crazy at the Famous Franchise.

So we just went back through as many dances as we could and got through Waltz, Tango, Fox Trot, Viennese Waltz, Rumba and Cha-Cha. With Mambo, we just walked through the new steps but didn’t do it to timing. With the others, we did them to music and made sure we looped each one to see how the transition from the end to the beginning went.

The good news is that the knee held up. I’ve got it on ice now because it was starting to complain when I got home. In addition to the supplements I use, I have found a topical cream that is pretty good. Normally, I don’t like recommending things because this stuff can be personal – what works for me may not work for you and so on. The stuff I use is called Penetrex (not a sponsor) if you are interested.

With all of the dances, we just had a few small spots that needed a bit of work. Things I’ve been told before but haven’t yet found a way to stick in my memory. Still, since this was my first lesson in two weeks, I was pretty happy with how things went.

Thursday is the 4th and we’ve got plans to go watch fireworks so I won’t have another lesson until next week.

I did get the stitches out of my nose so things feel better there. I wish I could report that all my problems are diminished but the shoulder is not responding to the stretching and other things the physical therapist is trying. For the most part, it doesn’t interfere with my dancing. The only thing that bugs it a bit is when I have to try and extend the left arm to do some kind of styling. But there are other movements outside of dancing that are more painful so I need to get this taken care of.

My range of motion isn’t really improving and the therapist seems baffled. I don’t present with typical symptoms for the common problems so he’s not entirely sure what’s going on. There is a lot of tightness in what he called a capsule so he’s got these weird stretches he’s trying to do to loosen it up. I’ve got a few more sessions scheduled and he says if we don’t see improvement, then I’d probably need a referral to an orthopedic specialist. Ugh.

And to close with a random note that made me happy – the fox returned today. I think it was about a month ago that a fox showed up in our backyard. The raccoons weren’t happy but they both foraged for the bird seed that dropped from the feeder. OK, we also toss some generic cereal down and they seem to like that. I know we are probably making them lazy but we have baby raccoons and they are cute and it makes me happy to watch them.

But I hadn’t seen the fox until today. I had some dried cherries that were kind of old and I didn’t really trust them so I tossed them down. The raccoons didn’t seem to fancy them but then the fox showed up and went to town. I always thought they were strictly carnivores but it turns out they’re more omnivores and fruit is on their diet. Who knew? Anyway, it just made me happy. So I’ll close there.