The adjustment period

The worst part of tackling some new physical challenge is waiting for my body to adjust to it. When I started taking Jolie's classes last year, my body rebelled. "What?" said my muscles, "We have to do push-ups and stuff? I thought we gave all that up when we quit CrossFit!" After a bit I got used to it, and then I got better at it, and then I turned into the annoying person who wants to do the hard push-ups because she wants sexier arms.

So now I've got this new practice regimen. I'm doing it 6 days a week regardless of what classes or practices I already have, and it's going to be a good 30-60 minutes per day (including the time I spend on choreos and solos and such). Maybe I should not have started it on a Monday. Maybe I should have waited until Thursday, when I don't have any classes.

Today started out fine. I did my practice, I felt pretty good about it because even though doing basics is booooring, I'm staying focused and correcting my errors as they happen. For instance, for a while I've been getting some pain in my feet and ankles when standing in one position to drill. I realized that it's because even if I start out with my weight evenly distributed, I start to pitch forward into my toes and that puts an unnatural strain on my ankle. So now when I catch myself doing that, I can reset into a more even stance and drill comfortably.

Then I went to class and my body was not happy with me. All those hours of dance yesterday, and a bunch of dance during the day, and I expected it to do more dance and exercise tonight? There were moments where I felt so exhausted that I almost cried, but I powered through and waited for the endorphins to kick in.

Soon enough this will all be part of the past, but it's going to be annoying until I get through it.