Happy post-Thanksgiving, dancers! Are your refrigerators as full of leftover turkey as mine?

Before I jump into today’s blog, I want to invite you to check out the sales happening at Practice Ballroom Dance! All book/journal bundles are discounted, so grab one for yourself and a friend to start the 2021 chapter of your dance journey off right. This year has straight up sucked, but we dancers know how to make our falls a part of our dance.

Now onto today’s story…

My Thanksgiving holiday was spent Zooming with my mom and brother in the morning and then cooking dinner with my dad. We sorta ignored the fact that it was just the two of us and ended up with a LOT of food. That’s ok though. Half the fun of Thanksgiving is eating too much and then living off leftovers for the next week, right?

There wasn’t much dancing this past week. Lesson was cancelled due to the holiday and showcase rehearsals were put on hold as the showcase was postponed until January (thank you, Covid). Still, we press on with our face masks and freshly washed hands.

When it comes to decorating for the holidays, laziness frequently wins out since I live alone. This year, I thought it worth the effort to bring a little festiveness to the apartment. So after a turkey-cranberry sandwich, I pulled out the box of Christmas decorations and got to work.

The rest of the weekend has been spent mostly watching cheesy holiday movies. I did do a bit of dancing with a friend over Zoom and added a new article to Medium. The article is about the “no pain, no gain” mantra and why I’ve decided it’s nonsense. Check it out here.

I know this has been said 1,001 times already but this pandemic has really given us the opportunity to slow down, and I think that’s helped me finally start to accept that I need to do the same in my fitness goals. “Pushing through the pain” only lands me back in physical therapy and I end up losing progress instead of gaining it because of the extra forced recovery time. So I’m committing to not pushing through the pain and declaring that no pain IS a gain.

We’ll see how long that lasts once I have an actual dance competition to work toward. At least starting now gives it a better chance to become a habit that won’t get tossed aside when the pressure’s on.

In the meantime, without competitions or showcases, I’m doing more ballet-based dance training. Teacher’s wife teaches a Zoom class on Monday evenings and my PT gave me the go-ahead to add a bit more exercise to my week. My grand pliés are accompanied by an amusing chorus of snap, crackle, and pop from my joints, but there was a time when I couldn’t do one without pain in my knees. So progress!

The rest of my life carries on. My company announced that we should continue to work from home until June (last announcement was until the end of this year). I’m actually busier than ever at the day job, which was one of the main things I was very grateful for during this season of giving thanks. I know I’m one of the lucky few to have fared pretty well during this pandemic, which is partly why I continue to stay home as much as possible. Case numbers are rising because too many people are tired of being vigilant and social distancing. Since I can stay home relatively easily, I’ll do it to keep from contributing to the problem.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and made the best of our unusual circumstances. Stay safe and happy dancing!