Operation Upside Down: Months 7 and 8

I haven't posted an update in awhile.  If you want to read my last upside down update, you can find it HERE.  Where do I start?  I guess here, with the excuses and whining.  I spent most of January sick and February with a knee injury.  Also, I am just exhausted, and it's freezing cold (well, California cold, which is cold to a Californian), so making a 25 mile drive for an 8 PM class requires a special kind of motivation that I just don't have right now.  I'm tired and frustrated, so I missed many classes in the last two months.

I enjoy Janet's Bottoms Up class because I like and trust her.  I know I won't completely squish her when she tips me backwards.  But the 8 PM start time means I don't get home until after 10 PM on a work night.  I enjoy Jen's lyra class, but the 6:30 PM start time means I need to leave straight from work and pray that the traffic gods are on my side.  It stresses me out.  Plus lyra hurts 100 times more than pole.  And I feel like since I've turned 40, I ache a lot more than I used to.  My hands hurt for two days after lyra.  Currently, I'm rocking a bruise across my hips from a forward fold.  I barely did a forward fold.  I'm not trying to be a circus performer.  So what I've determined is that I really go to lyra to see my friends and laugh.

This knee injury has been plaguing me for a month now.  I believe what happened is that I hyper-extended it while doing the flexibility DVDs (you can read the first post on that HERE), then went to Twirly Girls to dance for an hour, and teach a two-and-a-half hour party.  By the end of that night, I knew I wasn't okay.  I've been limping along by icing and heating, taking cinnamon, using arnica and being extremely careful in yoga (I have to do some kind of movement).  I haven't done the flexibility DVD in a month.  I feel like the worst of the pain and swelling passed within a week or so.  But one little wrong step or tweak puts me back in it.  I am 95% better, but that 5% keeps me down.  I can't climb the pole because it hits my knee in just the right (or wrong) spot.  I can't hang from my knees in the lyra.  I can't sit on my knees for any reason.  I tried to just simply squat down on Monday and that actually put my recovery back at least another week.  In fact, as I write this, I should be in class, but I am aching so much (let's blame the rain), that I don't want to chance hurting myself any further.  I am supposed to teach a workshop in ten days so I am just trying to keep myself at this level until I get through that.  Then I can fall apart.  In fact, it is probably time to get myself to the doctor, but I know they're going to tell me to stop doing what I'm doing and I don't want to be told that.

All this being said, I don't feel like I've lost any strength.  On the nights I have been able to get to class, I do get upside down.  I haven't improved, but I haven't moved backwards.  I can kind of get my knees driven upward, but Janet still has to tip me backwards.  I also wonder if part of my problem is that I need a new goal.  If the goal was simply to get myself upside down, I've done that.  My goal never said: get upside down alone or gracefully or whatever.  I also wonder what's the point?  Just to say I do it?  I don't see myself getting comfortable enough with it to suddenly start throwing it into routines.  So, if I just simply wanted to be strong enough to throw my ass upside down, I did that.  I am in the process of figuring out what I want out of pole.  Is it to be strong?  I haven't been taking any flow or dance classes, so I feel like I've lost a lot of that fluidity.  I think I have a lot to figure out in the next month or so.  I only have this one body and I don't want to be lazy but I also don't want to push myself into injuries that could be avoided if I just listened to my body.  I mean, I can't even squat down to 90 degrees.  I don't want to lose mobility, and I feel like that's happening at an alarming rate.

So the whining is done.  Here are some videos from the last two months.





Performing for Robert and Twirl for a Cause:





The day of the knee injury:



Bonus:

This is where I am pretty sure I hyper-extended my knee.  I was doing the flexibility DVD and trying to take photos to show progress over the previous month.  Someone on Facebook talked about yoga being the portal to hell and then a friend photoshopped this.  So, it's kinda true.  But the photo makes me laugh so I am sharing it here with you.

Made it back to class last week, although I was pretty limited on what I could do.



So, there you go.  I really don't know what the future holds for my "pole career."  I am trying to be kinder and gentler with myself in 2018.  Judge myself less.  Love myself more.  And I don't know that pushing myself through injuries is honoring that.  I guess I have a lot to decide, with no real deadline forcing me to make a decision.  I will certainly let you all know what is coming next!