Therapeutic dancing

[rsc]

LCFD Dance Camp is always a wonderful interlude. I don't have much to add to what has already been posted by jwg, i_f_f, wrholt, and otterpop58 about the general experience, but something rather curious did happen to me.


Saturday afternoon after lunch, on the way back to the dorm, I missed my footing at the edge of the deck and twisted or jammed my left ankle -- not a good thing to do at Camp -- and felt a moment's pain, but then it seemed to be all right. Maybe twenty minutes later, though, as I was headed over for the Advanced English session, I noticed that putting weight on that foot was causing me some pain. I thought it would be most unfortunate if I couldn't dance, but I decided to give it a try and see what happened.

At the beginning of the first dance, the ankle bothered me quite a bit; I did my best to avoid putting too much weight on my left foot, hopefully without putting my partner and neighbors out, and it didn't seem to be getting any worse, so I just kept going, and the pain gradually subsided; by the third dance everything was fine.

But then, as I was changing out of my dance shoes, I felt another twinge. With advanced contra coming up in an hour and half, this was not a good sign; I mean, English, sure, but contra is a bit more strenuous.

So, like any sensible person, I pretended everything was fine, and went for a swim. As I was coming up the beach after drying off, I felt such a sharp pain that I cried out (which meant, of course, that I couldn't pretend everything was fine any more). So I hobbled up to the dorm, improvised an ice pack (I had a spare zip-lock bag in which I had brought my tube of sunscreen, and there was a tray of ice cubes in the freezer), took 400 mg of ibuprofen, and lay down for the half-hour or so before the advanced contra session.

Getting over to the dance hall while trying to convince myself that I was all right was something of an adventure, but I was not going to miss that session if I could help it. So I started dancing, once again favoring my left foot, and, just as during the Englsih session, the more I danced the better it felt. Afterwards I walked over to the dining hall without incident (or discomfort). I felt a brief twinge or two during the evening dance, so I took another 200 mg of ibuprofen at the break, and gave my ankle another precautionary icing before going to bed.

Sunday it gave me no trouble at all.

So, as it turned out, I never missed a dance, and today my ankle is fine.


It just goes to show: dancing is good for what ails you.

Comments

I'm a Believer

[i-f-f.livejournal.com]

Somewhere in the annals of LJ probably as ebearboston is a story of how going to a dance fixed my back which had been giving me pain.