How (k)needy of me...

The things I do for singing.

As though it wasn't bad enough that I have to go on a massive food and exercise thinger, I have to fix all my broken body bits too.

Bad posture + old injuries + new injuries + stiff body
=
Bad singing.

Solution: CLINICAL PILATES.

Now, I've been doing clinical pilates for a little over a year now. I started going after I completely axed my back (sneezing, whilst bent over to pick something up - never do this, it's retarded) and happened by chance to be booked into Lansdowne Physiotherapy for an Alexander Technique session anyway. I discovered the delightful Elke, who has shown me the error of my ways. I have happily been going to the physio studio most days for clinical pilates ever since.

However, recently, an old, OLD injury of mine flared up. The Knees. Have I discussed The Knees already? God, they're so retarded. Out of seven possible structural problems you can have with your knees, my orthopaedic surgeon told me, I have four of them. FOUR OF THEM. Basically, my knees used to dislocate all the time. And it was well sucky. It hurt a lot, and I ended up having two lateral-release arthroscopies, to encourage the outer tendon muscle things to stop yanking my patella out of its groove every time I turned sideways. (My legs just twisted in sympathy as I typed that. I have serious psychological issues about my knees now.) Anyway, anyway, anyway, my left knee (which has always been the weaker of the two) recently flared up as I was pushing myself to go harder at pilates.

So I booked a separate session with Elke, and we decided that I needed orthotics to correct my posture in order to do some strengthening exercises for my knees, as my current postural stance and the fact that my knees are knock-kneed wasn't helping things.

Six-hundred dollars later!

I have two pairs of orthotics. Regular ugly orthotics, and court-shoe ugly orthotics. I elected to get two pairs because there is no point in me correcting my daily posture if I'm not correcting the posture that I have in court shoes when I'm performing. That would be nonsensical and rather pointless.

Today, I had my first session with Elke and with orthotics. Holy shit. The orthotics are magical! All of a sudden, my left knee could bend further than it could before, all because I feel, from my hips to my toes, that everything was in proper alignment. Moves that previously left me gasping at the sharpness of the pain were suddenly accessible to me. I am gobsmacked. Even Elke was impressed at much the orthotics seemed to be helping me. They are amazing! They are Wonderful Objects! It is very exciting and rather empowering.

The only thing holding me back now is my own retarded psychological issues about my knees dislocating. I wander off into little daydreams at times, daydreams in which I imagine my knees dislocating, and I compulsively clutch my knees, as if to protect them and stop them twisting sideways. If anyone so much as TOUCHES my knee, I'm actually frightened that they're going to twist it sideways. If I'm feeling unsteady on shoes, on a bridge, or down a crowded walkway, I am frightened that somebody is going to knock into me and that my knees will dislocate. Obviously, this is not an issue that one goes to see a therapist about. Clearly, as I improve my knees, my little issue will disappear as well. But still, I'm just sayin'. None of this is easy for me!

The things I do for my singing career...

Speaking of my singing career, I've received a letter telling me that my application has deemed me eligible to compete for the first round of the Australian Singing Competition next month. Thank God, too. What a rigmarole that application was. Took me hours to complete and it still wasn't very good. I'm very excited. I am not so excited that I have already worked with two of the performers on the panel, however. They will be a lot harder to impress...