Its 8am Sunday morning and I’m getting ready to go to what will be my last full practice leading into our mambo on Monday night.
We have been working incredibly hard. 6+ hours yesterday. A split practice of 3 hours in the am and 6pm to 9:30 at night the day before. We will go another 4 hours till 1pm, then head over to the studio where the show is filmed and do it in front of the cameras so they can block it out for the live broadcast. Then if we have time we will get together tonight for a shorter practice.
No question I’m tired. It was a short week to get everything together and the Mambo is not the easiest dance for me. Being 6′ 3″, i have to keep my knees bent pretty much the entire dance so that i don’t like I’m stiff or tower above Kym. That’s not a problem at the beginning of practice, but an hour in, my left leg in particular starts to get tired. (when they replaced my left hip, whatever they had to do left my left thigh about half the size of my right. Now its about 3/4 the size of my right. A lot stronger than it was, but far from full strength). I’m so stubborn, I won’t let Kym stop at all.
OK, that’s not entirely true. My wife brought our daughters to practice yesterday. We needed to cheer up Alexis. She got sick during our trip to LA for the 1st week’s taping and had a bad fever. We took her to the doctor who recommended that we cancel her birthday party since and keep her separated from her sister since she was probably contagious. It took until yesterday afternoon for her to get back to her usual perpetual energy self, so Tiff brought her to practice so she could dance with Kym and I. She loved it. She and her sister got to dance to our song and twirl and twirl and run around. She wanted to help daddy, so we let her hit the start button before a bunch of runthroughs. By the time we got home, I was her hero again and she was her beautiful self again.
All the hard work has rewards beyond getting my entire family involved . I’m under 200 pounds for the first time since college. At 49 years old, I would be lying if I said I knew I could get down to my college weight again. Losing 20 pounds is not something I thought was even remotely possible. Like any other dad my age, working out is enough of a challenge. Not having fun after dinner making “daddy treats” for my kids is impossible. (of course no treat goes unfinished by dad !). My kids definitely keep me young. I don’t ever want to let my age define the activities I undertake. At 49, I dint want to do an “age appropriate ” dance. I tell Kym all the time that if Joey or Emmitt could do it, I’m going to do it. Albert may be 27 years younger than me , but if he can do it, I can do it. The dance steps that is. I promise I wont take my shirt off. A lot of things have grown on my body in those 27 years and I’m not a “just wax it off type guy”.
Back to dancing….Our Mambo is fun. We have some great moves that hopefully the crowd will love. There are some tough timing moves that I have to get right , but no matter what, I promise that its going to be fun !!
And one last little thing in terms of blogging. For the past 8 years since I bought the Mavs, I have kept my private life 100pct private. In the sports world I expected everyone to characterize me as “the guys who yells at the refs
. I really didn’t care what they thought. It isn’t the real me. But it served its purpose. Every interview I ever did,. Every description of me. Every reference to me, Every picture of me always had me yelling in one way or another. My friends, my family, the people I work with, all know that its not me. That’s not to sayI dint get emotional at Mavs games. I do. That’s where I release. But even there, If i stand up and act like a fan, its a picture that lives and is used forever. Doing DWTS has allowed me to show the real me. Its actually fun.
So when you see someone describe me in that way, the only thing you know for certain is that they don’t know me.