Sunday, November 05, 2006

A New York kind of weekend

Thanks to the magic of satellite television, we here in the Middle of Nowhere will be able to watch the New York City Marathon this morning. Yes, that's what happens when NBC4 happens to be your local NBC affiliate.

Big whoop, you might be saying. Well, while we have no illusions of actually seeing Mr. Shrinking Knitter's son in the throng of runners swooping through the five boroughs, we told him we'd look for him. Did you hear that? My son-in-law is running the New York City Marathon!

Jealous? Me? Not a bit. I stopped running, remember? Now I'm a not-so-tiny dancer.
Heh.

Yesterday, I did an hour-long workout – the exercise part – with four New York City Ballet dancers. There were no hard combinations or unfamiliar moves and, for the most part, each routine was first demonstrated, then done slowly, then done more quickly. The DVD also offers a short cardio workout, which I didn't do because it involves real dancing, while I'm still trying to remember what a tendu is.

Each of the five ballet positions involves the feet and the arms, and that's where I fall short in performance. At one point the ballet master suggests that if we aren't able to add the arm movements, just concentrate on the legs. What a nice guy. I found my arm, back and shoulder muscles really complaining later in the day; the same thing happened when I took the class at my daughter's last week. Something worked … my butt and abs are barking at me, as well, and I found myself walking taller, straighter and with my feet pointed out like a duck all day.

I'm just kidding about the duck walk.

The great thing is that this kind of workout not only doesn't further injure my heel, it seems to be just the kind of stretching recommended to help it mend. And, thankfully, my head seems to be in the right place to accept that I won't be running marathons anytime soon.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ballet is HARD work! Good for you!

http://frumpyfitness.blogspot.com/