Saturday 11:15am the Workout class begins. This class is well loved throughout the studio...and is very well attended. It's one heck of a workout too... I was very excited when I completed the entire thing last week after having been out for so long.
The pattern is that we warm up with some Rumba basic, then move into Cha Cha, Swing/Jive, then Salsa, Samba, and stretch for a minute at the end. It's fast paced, fun, and the only thing I can't quite do is the Jive, so there is a less stressful way of doing it so I do that. It's also all done from the follow's perspective, starting on the right foot...so it's actually quite a work out for the right side.
This week, I was going ok... we were working on Swing, and I felt the first twinge... my right knee... but it wasn't much so I kept on... then my right quad muscle started pulling...but still minor... I changed the way I was doing the step slightly and it stopped. I was good for a bit, but I could feel the fear rising...the fear that makes me instinctively alter the way I do anything on that side... well that backfired... I felt a twinge in my ankle! I was instantly enraged and broke from the class and kind of stomped thinking No! No! No! This does not get to happen today! No!
The Swing portion ended and I was thankful because next up was Cha Cha, which keps my feet on the floor, is still fast, and can keep the heart rate up... I was good with the Cha Cha... didn't feel much of anything in my right leg, my left leg was solid... Then we got to the syncopation steps, I'm just starting to get a handle on these. We're working and I'm noticing that I'm having a hard time keeping up...so I stop for a second and re-group... I started again...and then it happened. My hip muscle pulled, my quad felt like it was on fire, my knee popped out and back in AND hyperextended a little. All the muscles in the front of my ankle felt like they were going on strike.
I instantly stopped... oh I was angry! I punched the air on my way to the back room (I was closer to the back, than I was to the door) I did a quick snap with my leg to make sure my knee cap was ok, then paced like a caged tiger for a second trying to assess the damage in my leg and keep from putting a hole in the wall somewhere... I was absolutely seeing red! Then, as the reality of what could be happening struck...that I may have just done something terribly wrong, that I may have to sit out from dancing again... as all that came over me in a wave... I just collapsed on the floor and sobbed...
Well I'm not the type of girl to let myself fall that far and stay down that low for long... within a few minutes. I started to think of what to do next, there were about 20 people I'd have to cross on the dance floor before I could make it to the exit... so I stayed put, in the back, out of view... I ran a systems check on everything... the pain had subsided to aches, but my whole leg has never screamed out like that before... it was more than just my ankle... it was the whole damn thing!
Once class was over I reappeared and rather than go over the whole sequence of events I just told those that asked that it was my knee, and that I wasn't sure what was going on. I then made it to my car...slowly...and started to drive home... the driving was very uncomfortable... it was almost a pain to switch from gas to break... which totally freaked me out...so I made a stop for bags of ice on my way home. As soon as I entered my place the bags of ice went into the bathtub followed by the coldest water the tap could provide. I had no other way of icing my entire leg... once full, I sunk in.... if my cats hadn't been so funny about seeing the ice in the tub I probably wouldn't have made it the full 20 minutes, their antics gave me something besides the ice to focus on.
Long story short... I feel better, but not completely, and I don't know what this week's dancing will bring... but I'm on another round of strong anti-inflamitories and the cycles of icing before and after dance will continue. I know everything that happened is not my tendons, but rather muscle strain... My ankle because I was a fool and wore a small heeled shoe a few days prior for a long period of time. The quad lock up is likely due to vitamin deficiancy, which has been corrected. The knee, well that's just my knee...it will be fine, and my hip was strained because I was over compensating. The whole leg gave out becuase I have been overtired for two weeks and tried to do too much instead of sleeping... (says the girl at 1am when she has to be at work in the morning)
Off to bed with me!
And YES... I will see you on the dance floor!
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