Exercising the Neck Demon

Today was a recovery day for us, which meant pool recovery, and surprise…yoga! Our coach, Danielle Miller, led the yoga. I’m not a yoga guru (literally or metaphorically), but I enjoy it. And, I don’t necessarily swear by it, but I will testify that if done properly, it has some great benefits. One of those benefits is that it puts my lack of flexibility into perspective, and another is that it helps improve that lack of flexibility. It also promotes relaxation, which is so key when recovering.

And speaking of recovering, our coaches have been amazing at being sure we get the time to do that. Instead of field sessions on days after a match, we’ve been doing pool recovery and yoga. This camp is, after all, about performance, not development, and our coaches have been great at promoting our recovery so that we can perform. Actually, they’ve been great at promoting our performance as well. When we do get on the field, it’s focused and productive.

Back to recovery, one more time. Yesterday, in the half that I played wing, I, somehow, tweaked/pulled/summoned a demon in my neck, and it was stiiiiiiiff this morning. Ok, I know all of the forwards are saying to themselves, “Is dis skinny lil wing ho talkin’ ‘bout how she be sore?” in their best ghetto fabulous voices. Forwards, I promise you that I don’t claim to have done the grunt work that you do or to have been as sore as you all. I just had a stiffy…in my neck. Anyway, I thought I’d take advantage of our excellent medical staff, and so our trainer, Ashley, kindly exercised the demon. By that, I mean she beat the stiffness out of my neck via massage. It hurt, but ohhh such a good pain. And being such a masochist, I went back for more tonight, and again what a good way to hurt.

One more bit of exciting news: our missing teammate finally arrived. “Missing teammate?” you ask, “Where was she?” Well, Tonya has been fighting fires a few hours from here, and they have made a good deal of progress in containing the fires, and her crew was finally released. I think that’s not only pretty bad-ass, but admirable, so I just wanted to mention it here.

Also, the Masonic Band Camp left today. I don’t know whether or not there’s some sort of coincidence there—the fires die down, the Masons leave—and I’m sure if there was one, I wouldn’t want to touch it. All I can think is Mel Gibson in “Conspiracy Theory,” and really, I’d rather not think of old Crazy-Face or the Masons anyway, so I’ll just retire now. Happy rugby dreaming.