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1777-A Capitola Road, Santa Cruz 95062 www.seniornetworkservices.org A Nonprofit Community Agency Santa Cruz County's Official Information & Assistance Provider call: 831-462-1433 email: info@seniornetworkservices.org Unbiased, No Cost Medicare Counseling Santa Cruz call: 831-462-5510 San Benito call: 831-637-0630 email: hicap@seniornetworkservices.org Shared Housing I Housing Navigation I Home Help call: 831-462-6788 email: housing@seniornetworkservices.org Respite Registry I Respite Grants call: 831-462-0880 email: respite@seniornetworkservices.org Peggy Pollard, Teacher www.PeggyDance.weebly.com Santa Cruz Waltz & Swing In-Person & Online Dances & Lessons Waltz Tribe membership Grow your mind, body & soul Dance to music you love Sign up Now for upcoming Classes! How Olympic Skiers Teach Us to Dance By Peggy Pollard, Santa Cruz Waltz & Swing www.PeggyDance .weebly.com Wasn't our glorious 2022 Winter Olympics awe- some? Watching those snow- boarders tumble across the sky, ski jumpers fly, Cross-country skiers sail. . . and then the figure skaters: Nathan Chen, Papadadakis & Cizeron, Chock & Bates soaring so spectacularly across the ice is breathtaking ehhh? Now, let's channel our fresh inspiration. Let's consider what we can learn from those world champion athletes that we can apply to our own humble journeys in learn- ing to social dance. Here we will take a closer look in particular at the way several kinds of Olympic champions use special footwork tech- niques to achieve success moving across snow and ice in their respective sports. You see, your feet are the mechanical foundation of movement for your whole body. Once you change the way your feet move, you change the way your whole body moves. Though your feet are only a small body part, just a few square inches that bear your weight into the floor, they are a big lever for steering your 50-to- 300-ish pounds of body weight into any direction. Amazing! Thus, even tiny changes in your footwork will trigger a cascade of move- ments above. Your feet are the fulcrum for even a little effort to shift your stack of body parts, right up to the top of your head. A slight shift of your weight over your feet will make a big shift in the balancing, counterbal- ancing and leveraging of each block of your body weight. That's why sports coach- es worldwide make sure to include footwork in their trainings Do your footwork cor- rectly, with proper muscle and joint alignment, your body properly aligns with hips over feet, shoulders over hips, to become a perfectly proportioned work of art, a living sculpture. You will then be able to delightfully connect with symmetrical counterbal- ance to your equally fine- tuned dance partner. So yes, wonderful results await you when you do your footwork right. But first, let's get back to the beginning. Let's start with putting our feet on a path towards excellence -- Olympic level excellence! So we'll head back to the Olympics to see what we can learn. We start with my favorite winter sport: Ski Jump- ing! It's all about a perfectly balanced launch, right? Let's try it ourselves: First, stand upright and still, feet under you, shoulder width apart. Your imaginary Ski Jumping Skis pointed straight for- ward under you. Swing your arms back as you bend your knees, keeping your head up, then as you swing arms forward rise up onto the front ball of your foot and slowly swing your arms forward and up. See how long you can balance up high before swinging arms down again and lowering onto flat foot, bending your knees. Try it again a few times, pushing your feet into the ground, squeezing the muscles of your legs together to stabilize them. Still wobbly? Now try to squeeze the muscles of your knees, back, shoulders all to the center of your body and lifted up. You did? Great! Are you ready to go out on the ski jump now and try it there? Me neither, so let's just pretend, right here on our safe kitchen floors. Now, let's try Cross-country skiing. Here we learn to line up our feet like they have big giant skis. In the Skiathlon the first half was the old-fashioned style of cross-country ski- ing which is toes pointed straight ahead sliding your feet straight forward and back. This is what we do in Waltz aiming feet straight forward, efficiently getting the most distance with each step Try it right now: line up your toes to point straight- forward. As you step your feet are rolling through each foot lifting the heel up from behind you so you get maximum smooth distance (see www.peggydance. weebly.com/santa-cruz- waltz-blog for more Olympic and martial arts footwork advice) Now let's adapt this to Waltz. Feel it adding more power to your waltzing? Like an Olympian waltzer! Speaking of which … how about those awesome ice dancer couples! With just a couple more of our SCW&S lessons, per- haps you'll be ready for that incredible Olympic sport… he he – ha ha - uh ohhhh … I can hear the vigorous rattles of your head shak- ing from here. OK realistically you prob- ably won't actually DO what those champion ice dancers are doing . . . but you can FEEL like you are. Yes, that glorious feeling IS achievable. Even in just a few lessons you can feel the difference in your walking, in your posture and grace. And that is how YOU can start transforming your body into an Olympi- an dancer's body —from the feet up. Bigstock Photo Enhancing your relationships with love Dr. Jeff D. Lester, DO During the month of Val- entine's celebrations, we need to focus on how to give and receive love with greater abundance and grace. Many people have never experienced uncon- ditional love. Conditional love is how love is given based on achievement and performance, on how well you have done. The first unconditional love should be given by the parents. A child should be loved for their entry into the family as a unique spirit on Earth as "perfectly imperfect." A child needs love, encour- agement, structure, sense of belonging and gentle yet firm instruction. A parent's job is critical for the healthy growth of a child. Two critical things are often missing that help parents be successful: ed- ucation on good parenting techniques and clearing any negative memories from the future parent's inner brain. If these two things are done as a routine prior to having children, then child rear- ing will commonly be more successful. When a child is raised with unconditional love, they will more likely grow to develop healthy loving relationships in their future. Difficulties with sexual- ity are diminished when healthy love is robust in a relationship. Sexual intimacy is the intense expression of the giving and receiving of love. When love is missing, then sexuality is merely an act that can create a feeling of lack of fulfill- ment and often a craving for more frequent acts that never satisfy. Many long-term relationships fail when sexual intima- cy lacks the expression of deep committed love. This can occur when the limbic system has been damaged with unhealthy memories or has the feeling of being starved in the past. This can lead to sexual dysfunction, impotency and in some cases, infertility. When the limbic system is properly cleared, then these problems greatly reduce. Constitutional Homeopathic medicine is the answer to the clearing of the limbic system. When cleared, feelings of unconditional love increase along with feelings of generosity, desire to sacrifice, loy- alty, caring and helpful- ness. When a person's brain is healthy then one readily thinks about oth- ers before oneself. These tendencies will increase the depth and duration of a healthy loving rela- tionship, even more than receiving flowers and a box of chocolates alone. At Trilogy Medical we have been using Consti- tutional Homeopathic medicine as a mainstay of treating people for over 35 years with many conditions. Families of- ten become more loving and happier. Raising teenagers commonly be- comes easier and couples will often stay together for many years with less struggle. When couples stay together in a happy and healthy way then children thrive and more commonly reproduce the same in their future rela- tionships. If there is the misfortune of childhood trauma, then long-term Constitutional Homeo- pathic care can begin to heal the past memories and clear the slate for the future. Using the unique like-to-like process the sting of the old memories can be reduced and often completely cleared. Self- harm, such as "cutting," can often stop fairly rapidly and will be re- placed with self-love and self-forgiveness. This is the best gift someone can receive during the month of unconditional love. If you are interested in how to deepen the love in your relationships or even how to increase the tendency for self-love, then visit our website at trilogymedical.net to watch videos by Dr. Jeff Lester, DO and Amber Weiss, PA-C, LAc on the process of clearing the limbic system and instill- ing positive memory in the brain. Call 600-8117 for a free consultation to see how we can help im- prove the quality of your relationships. Bigstock Photo