Dance Shoes

As I left for a dinner date after a dance lesson saying "Hang on a minute while I change into walking shoes", it occurred to me that "walking shoes" sounded like an unnecessary adjective. Aren't all shoes for walking? But no, they're not. Some are for running, some for appearance despite crippling discomfort, etc. So what makes a shoe a dance shoe? Well, that depends on the type of dance, but for partner dance, three things. Comfort, a leather sole, and a strap or laces to secure it to your foot. Heel height depends on how dressy the event, and your own comfort. The primary difference between a dance shoe and a walking shoe is the leather sole. For dancing you want to be able to pivot smoothly on a hardwood floor. For walking you want traction, which is why non dancers rarely have leather soled shoes in their closet. You can buy dance shoes, or you can put leather on the soles of any shoes you'd like to turn into dance shoes. If you don't like the selection of shoes available in dance stores or on line, any shoe from your favorite sneakers to dressy pumps can be turned into dance shoes as long as they stay on your feet when you stand on tip toe. A shoe repair can do it, or I can do it, or you can go to Tandy Leather in San Leandro and buy a scrap in their remnant bin and do it yourself. Barge cement, the dancers companion, will do the trick and will affect an emergency repair if it comes loose.

Dance Shoes

As I left for a dinner date after a dance lesson saying "Hang on a minute while I change into walking shoes", it occurred to me that "walking shoes" sounded like an unnecessary adjective. Aren't all shoes for walking? But no, they're not. Some are for running, some for appearance despite crippling discomfort, etc. So what makes a shoe a dance shoe? Well, that depends on the type of dance, but for partner dance, three things. Comfort, a leather sole, and a strap or laces to secure it to your foot. Heel height depends on how dressy the event, and your own comfort. The primary difference between a dance shoe and a walking shoe is the leather sole. For dancing you want to be able to pivot smoothly on a hardwood floor. For walking you want traction, which is why non dancers rarely have leather soled shoes in their closet. You can buy dance shoes, or you can put leather on the soles of any shoes you'd like to turn into dance shoes. If you don't like the selection of shoes available in dance stores or on line, any shoe from your favorite sneakers to dressy pumps can be turned into dance shoes as long as they stay on your feet when you stand on tip toe. A shoe repair can do it, or I can do it, or you can go to Tandy Leather in San Leandro and buy a scrap in their remnant bin and do it yourself. Barge cement, the dancers companion, will do the trick and will affect an emergency repair if it comes loose.

Life's Latest Miracle

I’m not really the kind of risk taker who chooses self employment over the safer route of learning a more lucrative trade than teaching dance. In one of those odd twists of fate, I did so because of a physical disability that caused too much pain and disruption to enable me to work a 9-5 job. The result, of course, is that I wound up with a career to which I’m perfectly suited and I was able to follow my heart. Now, after years of adapting my life style to my disability, I’ve stumbled across something that is helping me to live a virtually pain free life AND still get to do this wonderful thing for a living.

Three months ago I met Deb Linder at a women’s networking meeting. She told me that she used to have migraines every day and doesn’t have them anymore and now she sells the product that keeps her migraine free. I have idiopathic epilepsy, the worst symptom of which (in my case) is severe migraine headaches. I’ve had this condition for 53 years and have tried practically everything, so I’m a skeptic and a hard sell. Deb began telling me about the wide range of ills that these products have been successfully addressing in her clients and encouraged me to try it. USANA has a one month guarantee, Deb told me. “Yeah, yeah,” I said. I’ve tried things before that seemed to be working and after the free month I paid a lot of money only to find out that it just happened to be a good month, nothing to do with the product, and I felt really ripped off. My symptoms are so erratic that it’s hard to tell for sure and I’m pretty strapped financially right now.”

“Tell you what,” said Deb, undaunted. “I can’t do this for everyone, but I’ll give you 2 free months out of my own pocket and if it doesn’t work, it costs you nothing.”
“Well, that would probably be long enough,” I conceded, “but if I can’t afford it, I don’t even want to get started.”
“Tell you what,” she said. “If the products work for you, and you write me a testimonial, I know I can get enough new people from that testimonial to cover your expenses. If you become a distributor, you’ll never have to pay for them.”
Hard argument to pass up, so I gave it a try. I’d been having seizures in varying degrees of severity every day for about two months at the time, so it was a good time for a trial. After the first day, my health cleared up completely and I was in fabulous health for about two weeks. Then, after a particularly stressful experience, I had a bad seizure and was in pain for several days. I finally called Deb and she tweaked the formula. After taking the new dosage, my good health returned immediately and Deb (in an amazing output of generosity) said she would start the trial period from that time so we could really see if it was working. Two months later, I’ve had 2 bad days, which I controlled with my old drugs enough to function, causing another half day of drug hangover each time. To say that’s a significant improvement is a masterpiece of understatement. It’s more like a miracle that hasn’t quite registered yet. I still don’t really believe it, but I’m on board as a distributor.

Sales are not my thing, so I don’t want it to be my business, like it is for Deb, but I’m happy to pass it on to the people in my life who have noticed the change and are curious about it, so I’m putting this explanation in my blog for anyone who wants to know about it and to explain why there is about to be a web page about it on my site. Feel free to call or email me with questions and I’ll tell you as much as you’d like to know!

Muscle Memory
I’ve been thinking about muscle memory lately. That odd tendency to memorize walls when learning a new move. You can only do it facing the same wall for a wall. Change the direction and you feel as if you never learned the move. I just bought a track ball in an attempt to solve an ergonomic problem with my wrist and suddenly I can’t remember how to cut and paste! I have to go back to my mouse to remind myself how to do basic moves on the computer and then translate them to the track ball. Same phenomenon, only; I didn’t realize that particular skill was lodged in my muscle memory until I put the track ball to use. In dance, practice to get your muscle memory to take over so you can relax your brain, but sometimes you need both to work in tandem with each other so you can be aware of what you’re doing (when you need to) and at the same time execute it smoothly.