Dumb question: When you look up at the row of hanging ham legs and ask your friend who is a waiter (at a different place) if he has ever cut ham before. Especially when he has served you ham and tomato sandwiches numerous times. I think "duh" means the same thing here. They have the Simpsons.
I am told that pain is just part of dancing. This still isn't something I should be dancing on. But I was told that this kind of problem may be what I have to deal with, and that it is very common. Antonio Canales, she said, his feet would echar sangre sometimes. And La Chunga... she dances barefoot. (I am not sure if I was mistaken about this but I think she said La Chunga has come there for help). She has very bad feet, said the fisioterapeuta. I do not have metatarsalphalangeal instabilidad, which it really seemed like I had, from the descriptions. I have been assigned treatments of electric currents in my toe joints every day for 10 days.
By the way, Antonio Canales is really famous and appeared in the movie Vengo (where La Paquera sings as well). English has no equivalent for echar and I've started to use it sometime in my head when I'm thinking in English. Give off, spew out, throw out, put, dish out ... kind of a catch-all.
I practiced the abanico (fan) and castanuelas mostly today and only did a bit of bulerias in my cute new "running" shoes - those sporty kind that are not for running, that everybody has and I could never fit until I found an Italian brand.
The wearing of plantillas (shoes things, inside your shoe) that are shaped to your foot is complicated. The shoes you put them in get stretched, and then if you feel like maybe using plantillas is not helping, your nice new shoes are sloppy. One foot is developing a bunion which is caused by tightness, and that kind of deformation can cause complications of the joint. Creating the exact problem they're supposed to be solving. So you're told to go find some shoes that are deeper. AAAAARRRRGGGHHHH! I just finished finding the two pairs of shoes in this city that fit. I have no ganas to order a second made to measure pair of shoes right now.
My feet are extremely concave - very high arches and little area supporting my weight. So I stopped off at the shoemaker's and his son at the front counter greeted me while he yelled out gruffly from behind, "they're still in fabrication!" I started telling the son what I needed (arch support) and why, and the father came up front. The son did another impatient reprimanding of his father. Wow, seems like time for father and son to go their separate ways! Tradition... is not always good.
It is good to be living with people who are also spending their time perfecting physical movements that create art. I believe this is my thing. I was never cut out for expressing myself academically with complicated arguments about esoteric stuff, neither was I a physics person.
I've tried several things to help Alicia: analgesic oil that I use on my feet, and a heating pad. Her arm was so stiff from playing all day yesterday that it was almost numb by the time she got home in the evening. She showed me an x-ray of her back, which looks like a snake. Her skeletal deformation makes it hard to have relaxed neck, shoulder and arm muscles. I have to admire her courage to become a pro with a limitation like that. A while back, they both told me what they suffer with. Marta's neck hurts, as do many violin or viola players', and her fingertips have callouses with black, hard parts in them.
I am attempting to find heating pads (a chemical kind that are little pouches). I believe that along with Arnica and analgesic oil or salve, they could take the place of muscle relaxant drugs. Keiko gave me several, courtesy of someone who brought them over from Japan, to survive the winter here. They have a peel-off paper with glue underneath, so they can stick to clothing. I stuck it to my neck and tied it on with a scarf and went out with Kathy that evening to the bar. It was amazing.
No comments:
Post a Comment