Back to Dancin’ – and Writin’ – Once Again

After a long hiatus, I’m back…and so is my son – to dancing that is.  I admit I got waylaid from writing this blog (I write another blog at www.purespiritcreations.com), and then my son got sick. Yes, first injured, then sick. He went off to camp, something he loves as much as dance, and six days later came down with a fever. Well, to make a really long story shorter, the fever kept coming back along with red eyes, and he had pain, first, in his hip and later behind his knees. The hip pain put us in the hospital over night and almost caused him to have hip surgery for what they thought was an infection in the joint, which could have been eating away at the joint. (OMG! Were we scared or what?!) The pain behind his knees and recurrent fever, which lasted for a month, along with the still-red eyes and peeling hands and feet put him back in the hospital for a weekend stay and tons of tests. They thought briefly that he had Kawasaki Disease, and treated him for that with an IVIG, and said he might not dance for a while (if ever) because of heart issues (not to mention the inflammation in his body and the pain behind his knees that made it impossible for him to stand for even a minute at a time. He could walk….)

But about three weeks later – after the pain behind his knees was gone and the fever had dissipated – one lone test result came back positive that seemed to indicate that he was bitten by a mouse tick. No, not a deer tick. (No Lyme Disease.) A mouse tick that cause him to get something called Relapsing Fever. The only problem was that we couldn’t retest him, because he had been given the IVIG, so we have no way to be certain that’s what he had. That’s what we think he had.  We go to the cardiologist this week, however, for one last set of tests – blood work, echo cardiogram, spleen ultrasound – and hopefully he will then be given a clean bill of health. The rhumatologist already cleared him. The cardiologist has to check his heart to make sure there is no sign of Kawasaki Disease having caused any problems, which is the only real way we know that he had that particular illness. (He does have lines on his fingernails that could indicate Kawasaki, but it could just be from the prolonged fever as well.) Hopefully his heart will be fine, and we can stick with the Relapsing Fever diagnosis and move on.

And, in the meantime, move on Julian has. Actually, we had a long summer of waiting this illness out. We finally went to a Chinese doctor who helped tremendously with teas and acupuncture. The latter was the best medicine, not surprisingly. We saw that even at the Olympics this year acupuncture was being offered to the athletes. I’m not sure if the antibiotics Julian took worked or the illness just ran its course and he got better; I’m positive, however, that the acupuncture made it possible for him to take a week-long intensive at and audition for Teen Dance Company just two weeks after his fever broke. (And I think the treatments brought the fever to an end.) So, he is now dancing up a storm at TDC, which is where Katee Shean, the final female contestant on So You Think You Can Dance got much of her dance training. And he’s also rehearsing for the San Jose Dance Theater’s production of The Nutcracker, in which he will be Fritz and perform the Russian dance with a former TDC member.

Oh, I might mention that one of the ways we got Julian back on track to dance after his illness was with huge doses of herbs. I took him to our herbalist (not the Chinese doctor, who is a herbalist – but we were afraid that his herbs were causing Julian to have allergic reactions) who tested him for a variety of things and then put him on specific herbs to boost his immune system and his adrenal glands primarily. She also was concerned with helping his lymphatic system and his liver cleans themselves. Anyway, he’s still taking herbs (large numbers of pills), and that really helped get him through and continues to keep his system boosted nicely. (We use herbs by Nature’s Sunshine, by the way.)

In addition, I put him back on his vitamins and supplements, a great brand called Usana that are now being taken by numerous Olympic athletes and were independently tested and shown to have the highest absorption level over any other supplements on the market. Julian used to get sick with some sort of infection – sinus, upper respiratory, pneumonia, etc. – at least six times a year and end up on an antibiotic. Since putting him on the Usana supplements, he gets sick maybe once a year – if that. They are amazing! (If anyone is interested in purchasing or selling Usana vitamins, please contact me directly at Namir@purespiritcreations.com. I would love to tell you more or help you or your dancing son get started taking these awesome supplements. My whole family takes them and stays so healthy! Actually, if you are interested, I’ll put you in contact with a former Olympic athlete and medical doctor who is involved in Usana as well and who can answer any of your questions and tell you how awesome these supplements are for athletes in general. By the way, I bought Julian a Usana business center; he plans on one day making some extra money with it himself by selling these products that keep him so healthy to other dancers!)

In the meantime, I’ve written several articles on dance. You can find an article about Jason Samuels Smith’s “Charlie’s Angels” in the September issue of Dance Spirit, an article on how to keep a dancer’s feet healthy in the September issue of Dance Teacher (Sorry…they don’t make their available on line), and a profile on how Denise Wall (mother of Travis Wall and Danny Tidwell of SYTYCD fame) turns out such fabulous dancers in the current (October) issue of Dance Teacher. I’m still working on the dance book, but I’ve had to slow down a bit – obviously. I’ll get back to it soon.

I’ll try to share some of what I learned from Denise Wall here. There was way too much to include in the article, and I’ll share a few tid bits from my interviews with other male dancers as well.

In the meantime, now that I’ve caught you up to date, suffice it to say, we are on a hectice dance and rehearsal schedule – back to dancing pretty much 6-7 days a week. We’re not sure we are in the right studio, but it will do for now. It’s turning out great dancers – two boys went to Juliard two years ago, and they only take 12 boys from across the nation per year. But it’s not perfect. Is any studio perfect? Maybe that’s what I’ll mull over next time.

Until then, keep those dancin’ boys dancin!

My Foot Hurts…Again and Other Pains of Being a Young Male Dancer

I’ve got a son who dances. 13-year-old Julian dances six or seven days a week. He spends most of his time doing ballet, because he knows it will make him a great dancer in terms of technique. He has a scholarship at Ballet San Jose. He also does jazz and hip hop at a Studio 10 in the San Jose area, where he is taught by Keith Banks, who also taught So You Think You Can Dance first-season-winner Nick Lazarinni for a while. And he takes tap lessons with former ballet dancer and now world-renown hoofer Sam Weber. When he can, he does some break dancing with ReMinD, but he’s moved away, so that doesn’t happen often anymore. Julian, who started dancing when he was three years old, wants to be an all-around dancer and possibly to hit Broadway, since he also loves acting.

At the moment, however, he isn’t doing any dancing at all. For the second time this year, he’s laid up. This time, he’s actually got his left foot in a “boot” to keep the ankle immobilized. He has hurt the growth plate on the side of his foot where a tendon that runs down the ankle attaches. (I could get into the biology of it, but I’ll keep it simple.) That tendon is used for turning and jumping, all the things a dancer does, especially a young male dancer. In fact, he hurt it having turning competitions with a female dancer. Too many turns and the next morning he was having trouble walking. A trip to the podiatrist for x-rays, and we were told it was tendinitis at the point where the tendon joins to the bone. A trip to the sports specialist with x-rays in hand, and we were told it was actually an injury to the growth plate itself. Into the boot. No dancing for 2 weeks. Yesterday, the sports specialist said the boot has to stay on for another two weeks. Not great news when you’ve got a recital in June and a ballet school ballet and showcase in mid May.

Earlier this year, Julian was taking a jazz class at another studio in south San Jose, NorCal Performing Arts, and dislocated a toe. He was wearing those little pads on his feet that are popular with lyrical dancers. He’d used them for a lyrical number he’d performed in competition the year before. He rolled his foot a little too far over and caught the pinkie toe… Since he’s a regular at the chiropractor’s office, he actually adjusted the toe back into place himself. (Ouch!)He ended up with a hairline fracture and couldn’t dance for two weeks and couldn’t jump or turn for about four weeks or more.

I’m beginning to wonder what can be done to help our sons’ feet stay healthy and strong. If anyone out there has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them. In the meantime, Julian is stretching, picking up pencils with his toes, and waiting to be told he can start physical therapy with a former dancer who works with other dancers using Pilate’s. She’ll show Julian what he can do to strengthen his feet and legs, and hopefully he can go home or to the dance studio and do this with bands and such on his own.

The problem, of course, is trying to get a 13-year-old who spend so many hours in the dance studio — when he isn’t laid up — to do any type of stretching or exercising once he gets home. By then, he doesn’t want to do anything at all. Which isn’t to say that he doesn’t dance around the kitchen or tap his way to the television set!

And he’s frustrated by going to class at this point to stretch, do a little strengthening and simply watch. He cried, (Yes, cried…) the other night when he told me, “Mom, I hate just watching. I don’t want to just sit there and watch.” Yet, his ballet teachers want him there watching, and he needs to watch his jazz class and his ballet rehearsals so he can mark his dances.

Ah, the times dancers are hurt are, I believe the hardest on them. I know, when I interviewed Benji Schwimmer, he told me that, indeed, this is true. Next blog, maybe I’ll offer his suggestions on how to cope with being laid up.

Back to why I wanted to start this blog: I am a journalist and an author, and I’m working on a book about mentoring boys who want to be professional dancers. So, I’m hoping to make this blog not only about the escapades of my son and his dancing feet but about how to help young boys make it in the world of dance. They may get all the accolades once they are on stage — and sometimes in class, too — but it’s a tough road to hoe when you’re the only boy in a class full of girls and you’re teased at school by the other boys (and sometimes the girls, too) and you always feel different for choosing dance over sports. There are more issues, such as those that realte to sexuality, finding good role models, having friends who can relate to you, learning to dance like a guy, being stereotyped, and locating dance clothes suitable for boys, but suffice it to say, from about the age of 8 until they are 15 or 16, boys need a lot of support if they are going to not give in to peer pressure and their own personal issues and give up on their dreams of being professional dancers. So, helping them succeed in the world of dance is important, and I’d like to help not only my son but other boys as well. That’s what this blog is about — helping boys who want to become professional dancers achieve their goal and helping the parents of boys who want to become professional dancers help their sons realize their dreams.

In the process of researching my book, I’ve already interviewed such notable male professional dancers, choreographers and artistic directors as Jason Samuels Smith, Sam Weber, Dennis Nahat, and Benji Schwimmer. Next on my list is Rasta Thomas. There will be at least five or 10 more great dancers included in the book before I’m done. (If you know any great agents or publishers who might want to help me get this book out, drop me a note! If you have suggestions for really superb, young professional male dancers I should consider interviewing, send those along as well.) While I can’t share all the information I glean from the interviews here, I’ll be dropping little pearls of wisdom they share with me and telling you a bit about the experience of interviewing these dance greats. I’ll also try to share good web sites and other helpful resources. There aren’t many places on the Internet to go for information on boys in dance, so hopefully this will be it. And soon Julian and I will be creating a web site to go with this blog, so look for that (hopefully before year end).

Until next posting, keep those boys dancing! (And don’t step on their feet. They’ve got enough problems with their tootsies without anyone making it any worse.)