I was in Boston at the beginning of the week for a funeral. It was a hard few days for many reasons and when we got home Tuesday night, after 15 hours logged in the car from Sunday to Tuesday, I was exhausted.

I showed up to PT on Wednesday with a stiff, painful knee and not a whole lot of motivation. PT Greg told me he expected me to feel this way after being the car that long and we took it easy. I was aggravated though. Progress was all I was interested in and taking it easy didn’t equal progress.

By Thursday though, I was feeling much better but also anxious about my appointment with Dr. SM on Friday.

Cleared for Take Off

Friday morning I saw Dr. SM for my seven week post-op check. It went exceedingly well. He was super pleased with my extension and told me I was probably out of the woods in terms of set backs. He told me I was cleared to get back to my regular activities.

I asked the obvious, “Even BodyJam? I can start teaching again? And cycle class?”

“Yes. You can start teaching again and go back to cycle class, BUT, know that every time you jump, you are taking time of the life of your knee. So be smart, keep a regular routine of strength training for your quads and stretching. You have 4-6 more weeks of PT before you will have gained everything you can from it so remember you aren’t 100%.”

Holy shit. I’m back.

That night, we had rehearsal for the BodyJam 72 launch (MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY NIGHT – SEE YOU THERE!!!) and I got to share the good news with my team. They were full of questions not the least was whether or not I’d be launching with them the following week. The answer was still no.

About three weeks ago I made the decision to not participate in launches this quarter for a few reasons. The first being that three weeks ago, I wasn’t even close to being able to execute many of the moves and it seemed unlikely I’d be able to do enough to be able to really practice. The second was that I purposefully didn’t learn the choreography so I wouldn’t push it by joining in at rehearsals before I was really ready.

So, no launching for me. It was a bitter sweet moment. On the one hand, I set a goal  be ready to launch BodyJam 72 in eight weeks. I was cleared in seven, but not soon enough to be on the launch team. Tough realization, but still couldn’t be more pleased to get back at it.

I couldn’t launch, but there was one more class before the unveiling of new choreography. I had one chance to don the microphone and teach a few tracks so I asked Stephanie if she would mind and she graciously agreed to let me teach  the last three tracks of her class. The last few tracks of any class are the best tracks so I was VERY thankful that she let me do this.

She had been teaching Body Jam 58, AKA The Future Funk of Paris, a fan favorite. I jumped up front to shadow the end of Turbulence and then Steph handed me the mic. I taught Paris and Only You and it was an endorphin rush like nothing else. The class was awesome- total accepting of me taking over to finish up class and they just killed it on the dance floor. Oooooh soooo fun!

What’s Next?

So I’m back, but only kind of and I need to take it easy for sure. There are no guarantees how long my knee will hold up and I’m still unable to squat or lunge (much less jump) without pain. I’ll be easing back into teaching over the next month or so and then we’ll see about taking on a full time class.

Next week, I’ll wrap up this series with a few thoughts on my experiences over the past 10 weeks. I’m excited, as always, to put my thoughts down on paper…er…whatever 🙂  See you in Jam soon!