Cyborg Dance Projekt: Un/lucky 13

Photo description: extreme close-up of pale skin with a tattoo of a green shamrock and the number 13 underneath. The skin is shiny from new tattoo ointment.

Although I'm not particularly superstitious, thirteen is my lucky number.  I love Friday the 13th as some really wonderful things have happened to me on that day.  So week 13 is getting its own CDP post.

Ever since the workshop with Issam Houshan, I've been practicing my doumbek almost daily, even if I can only spare 10-15 minutes to do it (enough time to keep the muscle memory of where my hands need to be for doum, tek, and ka....not really enough to get significantly better at it, but my time is limited with work, class, physical therapy, etc).  It's also been a chance to really learn various rhythms and their names so I know the difference between a baladi, malfouf, saiidi, ayub, and others.

Dance-wise, it's been rough.  I'm doing a round of aquatic physical therapy at the suggestion of my pain management doctor (see my post on FFF entitled "Doctors don't say that...unless you're fat" for more information on why I consented).  My dance schedule was Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings with PT on Monday and Wednesday mornings.  It's also mashed up with a higher dose of nortriptyline (a medication that helps with nerve pain) and getting back on my growth hormone replacement...in all honesty, it could be a horrific mashup of everything at once causing a rough week.  In short, my pain level has been pretty hellacious, combined with leg weakness, balance problems, and proprioception issues.

I've been making it to a class every other Sunday (either intermediate cab or ATS level 3), every Tuesday ATS level 2, and either intermediate drills/layering or intermediate tribaret, but I use every spare spoon I have in my arsenal to get through just one class.  I sometimes dance with my TENS unit on...which isn't ideal because sweat + electrodes = bad zappy. I'm not sure where my ability to do 2-3 classes back-to-back went (from the beginning of the Projekt), but I feel like I found my dance shot clock.  I feel like my body is trying to tell me that dancing is not something I will be able to keep up with long term....but I don't know what "long term" really means.

With this in mind, I'm going to dance my heart out in a blaze of glory.  I'm going to try to perform as often as I can, to take classes with as many instructors as I can, and live it up.  I'm going to try to pinch pennies and fund raise to go to the Fat Chance Belly Dance American Tribal Style General Skills workshop in St. Louis, Missouri in August 2014. If you want to help me get there, I have a Paypal donation button at the bottom of this post and am considering a GoFundMe project to make it happen.

I'm going to keep up with all my pain management modalities (ice, TENS, medication, physical therapy) and try to keep my hopes up.