More on Rest and Balance

Last night, we did basically all the smooth dances, most of the auxiliary and got in a last run of both routines. It was my last lesson before Showcase but I’ve learned that one can over prepare so I’m fine with being off until Sunday morning. There is a mental part of this where you just have to trust that you know the stuff since that’s why we spend so much time in practice going over them. Still working on that part but its getting better.

Since I’ve been able to track my sleep patterns for awhile, I know Wednesday nights are not great for me. Probably need more down time after the lesson and before bed so it is one of the drawbacks of doing a double lesson relatively late into the evening. Late for me. Probably still early for some. Plus, we’ve had a string of warmer than normal days and parts of the house (like our bedroom) tend to be hotter than other parts (like the room with the thermostat).

The fitbit gives me a “readiness” score based on things like activity level the previous day and sleep patterns. Sometimes, I pay attention to it, sometimes I don’t. Today, it was as low as it could be and the recommendation was light activity. Since I’ve been regularly working out, I do feel some guilt over missing a day but I decided to take the advice given that Sunday will be a very busy day.

I’ll probably need to figure out how to adjust workouts for Thursdays and Tuesdays going forward. With Tuesday, my lesson is early in the day and I don’t want to wear myself out before the lesson. Thursday is likely to be a low readiness day just because of the activity the day before and the fact that I don’t get as much sleep. There are plenty of things that I can do but I think some modifications are in order.

I’m going to try to do more of the mindfulness things that are on the Fitbit as well. I do have trouble just sitting but the cat may be helping that because I’ve been sitting outside for a bit each day because the cat just like being around people. He makes a fuss when I first go out but then if I sit down, he’ll usually settle down and just lie next to me.

I did briefly bring him in this morning but confined him to my office so my wife couldn’t object too much. Think he was overstimulated because he just wanted to explore all corners of the room – including trying to get behind my computer desk. I kept having to shoo him out of there because there are too many cords and things he could get tangled in and/or accidentally unplug. When I get back from Showcase, I may have to ramp up efforts to get him inside (at least overnight).

I’m probably going to go to the party tonight but I don’t plan on doing a lot of dancing. Got to save that energy for Showcase.