Polarized

In 1999, fresh out of college, I landed a job in the development department at the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Company.  I worked in the heart of the dance community with Baryshnikov, one of my childhood crushes/heroes, stopping by the studios regularly and Judith Jameson reigning supreme as Artistic Director at Ailey.  The company that brought the world Revelations - one of the best known and most powerful dance pieces of the 20th century - would now be my home 45 hours a week.  This sounds cool - in theory.  In practice, this looked like me sitting under fluorescent lights, folding thank you letters to generous (or semi-generous, let's be honest) donors, while some of the most beautiful dancers in the world rehearsed overhead.  I'm not exaggerating for the sake of story telling (or blithering, to continue on the honesty tip), the dance studios were directly overhead.  As I sat atrophying in my adjustable desk chair, I would hear the sounds of hard working feet making contact with the floor as muscles contracted, pores sweat, and someone's body got even more beautiful.  My tits, meanwhile, were drifting towards my naval.

During this stage in my life I began taking my pulse at regular intervals, playing with my ears as some regressive act of comfort, and asking my long-suffering co-worker, Joanne Ruggeri, if I looked pale or if my ears were getting bigger from all the tugging.  I was, in no uncertain terms, a hypochondriac.  To throw another log on my neurotic bonfire, when I got off work I would see double.  My eyes had grown so accustomed to the monitor being 18 inches from my face that anything outside of that radius was a challenge - proof, as you might imagine, of the enormous tumor that was paying rent behind my cerebellum (or so I believed, in my bored and obsessive brain).
In short:  I was a wreck.

Lately, I've been taking my heart rate regularly and am reminded of that miserable time.  Although now I use this insanely fancy wrist watch/heart rate monitor/calorie counter/mini-wrist computer/might save my life if I program it successfully/contraption made by Polar.  I got it at an employee sale at Equinox.  I wear it while I workout and also while I teach.  I'm working ye olde target heart rate as much as possible.

Today, during a cardio sculpt class I was instructing, I looked down at my wrist and flashed back to that cubicle on West 61st Street; I remember how I would gingerly place two fingers on my pulse and feel it racing as the best asses in the world grand jete'ed above and beyond the fluorescent lights.  My resting heart rate those days was about twenty beats a minute faster than the one I clocked today.  A nerdy fact, for sure, but one that brought me such relief today.  Polar didn't just dictate a number this morning, it reminded me that I'm no longer decaying at a desk, that I don't have to see double at the end of my workday,  and I can kid myself that - if I work hard enough - I might have half as good a gluteus maximus as one of those Gods that once danced over my head.

Oh, go on...a girl can dream, can't she?

final word:  If you want a heart rate monitor Polar will not let you down.  To learn more about why on earth a person would track her heart rate, what sort of monitor might rock your world, and/or where to find one near you, go to http://www.polarusa.com/us-en/.  Track it!