Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Category: Uncategorized

  • Dad’s Cancer Journey

    Cancer is a crappy disease.  Just saying.

    My latest TribLocal article is a story about meeting Pat Becker this summer.  Pat is the sister of Joann O’Connor, the gal that I barefooted with in Wisconsin this summer.  Pat and Joann are tough gals.  Joann can tear up the water on her bare feet and she has me in awe every time I watch her footin’. 

    Pat was diagnosed with cancer and given a few months to live.  Her family prepared for the day that they thought they were going to lose her.  That was sixteen years ago.  Pat endured 132 chemotherapy treatments and she managed to kick the cancer on its rear end.   Pat inspires my Dad to keep going every day.  Everyone needs a “Pat” on their cancer journey.   Thanks, Pat, for reaching out to my Dad.

    Read more:  Finding Support for Cancer

  • Losing Weight — A Work in Progress

    At the beginning of this year, I joined Loser Moms in an attempt to lose weight for barefoot water skiing.  I was heading down to the World Barefoot Center in March and I wanted to lose a few pounds before getting on the water.   Part of the requirement to join was to post a picture on a personal blog.  So with a heavy (yeah, pun intended!) heart, I went searching for a picture to post.   I had to close my eyes when I hit the “publish” button.

    The thing is, by the time that picture was snapped, I had already lost a few pounds.  I’m estimating at my heaviest, I was probably 215 pounds.   I wouldn’t know– I avoided the scale, the mirror and the camera every chance I could.    The only exercise that I got around to doing was playing a weekly volleyball game in a league.  A local bar sponsored our team, so we were obligated to head over there after the game and hang out.   I filled up on appetizers, sometimes late at night.

    I grew up waterskiing and barefooting and I really missed those activities.  My niece convinced me to try water skiing again on July 4 in 2008.  I got up on two skis and kicked off one.   I went back and forth across the wake a few times and called it a day.  I was out of breath and had no strength to continue.  It was one very short ride on the water.   I was in a size 16 jeans and wearing 2x tops.  No, it wasn’t pretty.   You would think after seeing this photo on my niece’s Facebook page– that I would be motivated to lose weight.  I wasn’t.

    Ever hear the saying by Buddha:   “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”   Well, that’s pretty much what happened.  The teacher turned out to be Keith St. Onge, from the World Barefoot Center.  Keith went through a metamorphosis of his own several years ago.   He was packing on too many pounds as a professional athlete and wasn’t feeling healthy.   He became serious about his health, made some changes in his lifestyle and eating habits and went on to win two World Championships.    At the end of May, Keith sent me some eating guidelines to improve my health.  I was ready, finally ready, to make some lifestyle changes.

    “You have to cut out pop,” he told me.

    I loved my Coke and Pepsi.  I lived each day for the moment I could sip the soda.   Every time we went out to eat, I ordered soda.  And now it was time to kiss it goodbye.  My friend Sue had kicked the pop habit and she was trying to get me to kick it a year ago.   But now, I was ready.

    I wanted a lifestyle change, not a diet.  Keith’s guidelines fit right into that.  I made healthier choices, but I enjoyed the food.  Instead of boneless chicken wings, I went for grilled chicken on a salad when eating out.  Salmon with asparagus.   I went for more fruits and vegetables and less of the processed stuff.  I found ways to cut out white flour– but I have a weakness for Panera Bread’s sourdough rolls, so eliminating that completely felt like death.   So I saved it as a very rare treat.   And I got hooked on quinoa.  “Keen-wa”– the whole grain with funny name.   I introduced my book club to it one day and they liked it.  I brought in almond and coconut milk and the kids went crazy for the almond milk.

    I also had two other barefooters who provided support and encouragement, Joann O’Connor and Judy Myers.  Both of them had wonderful weight loss stories of their own.  I joined Donna Cutting’s weight loss group on Facebook, and it helped tremendously to be surrounded by others walking the same journey.

    It’s a work in progress– as I still eat emotionally and I deal with that all the time.  It’s a work in progress, I remind myself again and again– as I still have a ways to go to get healthy and lean.  In a weak moment this fall, I texted Keith after I had scarfed down two rolls at a fundraiser.   “Always bring healthy snacks with you for moments like that,” he said.  Then he shot me a modified Dave Ramsey quote:   “If you want to live like no one else, make decisions like no one else!”

    I put my fork down when the dessert came.

    I had two incredible highlights this year:  the day that I learned to go backwards on the water… and the day that I slipped on size eight jeans.   Thanks, Keith, for both of those highlights.

  • The “Second” That Lasts a Lifetime

    I came across the tweet on Twitter:  “Thought Of The Day:  It only takes a second to make someone feel special, but that second may last a lifetime in their mind.  The tweet was produced by Steve Harper, a guy who specializes in teaching  The Ripple Effect: Maximizing the Power of Relationships for Life & Business (Second Edition).

    Funny, I couldn’t get that tweet out of mind.  I copied it and saved it, because I knew a blog post was brewing from it.   I thought back to one of my religion school teachers, Mrs. Marshall.    She taught a class that prepared a group of us for our confirmation at St. Mary’s Church in Dolton.   One Saturday morning, the class was being especially rowdy that day.   The boys were boisterous and creating havoc in the classroom and Mrs. Marshall was quickly losing control.   All of her attempts to settle down the class were falling on deaf ears.   She finally resorted to raising her voice and losing her patience.  Everyone eventually settled down to do some paperwork that she handed out.   Mrs. Marshall sat back in her chair and I saw tears in her eyes.

    My heart went out to her.  I got out a sheet of paper and quickly wrote her a note.  To this day, I don’t even remember what I wrote, but I wrote a couple of paragraphs about the situation in the classroom and that I thought she was a wonderful teacher.   I handed her the note after class had ended.

    At the start of the next class, Mrs. Marshall came up to me and thanked me for the note.   After my Confirmation in May, she sent me a thank you note for the flowers that I gave her.  In the note she shared:

    Congratulations on your Confirmation!  My wishes for you are these:

    When you are lonely, I wish you love.

    When you are down, I wish you joy.

    When you are troubled, I wish you peace.

    When things are complicated, I wish you simple beauty.

    When things are chaotic, I wish you inner peace.

    When things look empty, I wish you hope.

    And may the gifts of the Holy Spirit help you to have all of these throughout your whole life.  Thank you so much for the lovely flowers.  I wore them with so much pride.  And I was so proud of you.   Sincerely yours,  Mrs. Marshall.

    In July of that year, my father received a phone call.   “Mrs. Marshall died on Sunday,” he told me when I arrived home from a friend’s house.  “She had a severe asthma attack, followed by a stroke.  Her son called to tell you because she  had your letter in her hands when she passed away.  You were her favorite and that letter was special to her.”

    She was only 56 years old and left behind a husband,  three kids and a grandson.

    Which leads me back to that quote above.   “It only takes a second to make someone feel special, but that second may last a lifetime in their mind.”

    I never forgot Mrs. Marshall, but I had forgotten the note she wrote to me.  I found it a year ago, when it fell out from the back pages of my bible.   I passed the words on to a friend who was going through a difficult time in life.   There’s a powerful lesson here– taking  just a moment to tell someone that they are special can last a lifetime in their mind.   Thanks to Mrs. Marshall, that ripple goes on.

  • Getting Into a Wetsuit

    karen in wetsuit

    From:

    Your SENIOR Magazine:

    Overheard at the doctor’s office:  “I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my doctor’s permission to join a fitness club and start exercising.  I decided to take an aerobics class for seniors.  I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But, by the time I got my leotards on, the class was over.”

    This cracked me up!  Then I thought back to the second time that I went to the World Barefoot Center back in April.  I had to buy a wetsuit and I went into the pro shop to buy one.   Judy Myers took a women’s size 14 off the rack.  “Here, try this on,” she said.

    I looked at the wetsuit and shook my head. “I haven’t been in a size 14 since I had kids,” I told her.

    “Try it on,” she insisted.  “Wetsuits are always very tight when you try them on dry.  When you get in the water, they stretch out.”

    I tried on the wetsuit and couldn’t get it over my shoulders.  It went back on the rack.  “I’ll need a men’s size,” I said.

    Judy pulled off a men’s size medium.   I looked at it and shook my head again.  “That’s not going to fit.  I know my body and I can’t get in that one!”

    “You gotta try it on,” Judy said.  And hey, when Judy tells you to do something, you do it.  She’s a former gym teacher –and I was afraid she would make me drop down and give her ten pushups if I didn’t obey.  I dutifully stepped into the wetsuit and slipped one arm in.  I had to “bend, twist, gyrate and jump up and down” to get the other arm in.  Judy remained positive throughout the ordeal.  “We can zip this up!”   Keith St.Onge was standing in the corner, trying not to laugh.

    I looked at the half-donned wetsuit.  The zipper was a long way down and the two halves of the wetsuit were parked near my shoulders.  I didn’t see how it was possible to get the female parts of me into a too-small, men’s wetsuit.

    “This ain’t going to happen,” I told Judy.  “Let’s go up a size.”  She pulled a bigger size off the rack.

    “We can zip this up!  I promise you, once you get this in the water it will loosen up!”

    So there we were– Judy trying to zip up the wetsuit while I tried to minimize my upper chest.   The zipper only went up a few inches.  “Here, you zip it up while I pull the suit together,” Judy suggested.   We wrestled with the suit for a few more minutes, inching the zipper up a bit more.  Finally, out of desperation– or perhaps it was the eagerness to get on the water–Judy stuffed the puppies in while I managed to zip it up.

    “Um, I can’t breathe,” I said.

    When I look back at my year of getting back to barefooting again, I realize that the hardest part wasn’t learning to put my feet back on the water– the hardest part was getting into the wetsuit.

  • Lipreading Strangers at the Door

    The short woman at the door was of Asian descent. A teenager stood by her side, I assumed it was her son. “Oh you’re here for the dog cage!” I said. “Come on in!”

    The woman shook her head and said something. Said a few more things. None of which I could lipread. “I’m deaf,” I explain. “I read lips.”

    The woman said a few more sentences. Nothing made any sense, it wasn’t anything I could lipread. “I put a dog cage on Craigslist, are you here to pick it up?”

    The woman shook her head. More mumbo jumbo. Every once in a while, I encounter folks that are just physically impossible for me to lipread and this was proving to be one of those situations. “Oh! Are you here to pick up your daughter?” Lauren and her friend were standing nearby, and her friend happens to be Asian.

    “That’s not her parents,” Lauren told me.

    I was stumped. I couldn’t figure out why this woman was at my door. She tried again to help me to understand why she came knocking at my door but it was futile. I couldn’t lipread even a single word. Then the gal whipped out her iPhone and started a movie. As it turned out, she was from the Church of God and she wanted to tell me about God, our Mother. She brought a bible out of her purse and pointed to the scripture of Revelations that made reference to God, our Mother.

    “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I won’t be able to understand the movie, I’m deaf.”

    She pressed play. The movie was captioned.

    After she left, I just had to smile. Accessible movies– we’ve come a long way. Now all I need is the Accent/Lipreading Translator app and I’ll be good to go next time someone knocks at my door.

  • Decide That You Want It More Than You Fear It

    How many times have you held back because you feared something?

    I’ve been pondering “fears” lately.  Recently, I received a comment from a reader who is hard of hearing and struggling with anxiety– “Social groups are almost impossible at times,” she relates.   She has agreed to teach a weaving class in her community and is scared that she will have trouble getting through it with the communication challenges ahead of her.

    Boy, oh boy, can I relate.  Social situations, parties, group discussions– they used to strike fear inside of me and sometimes, they still do.   Communication in those situations becomes a rapid-fire ping-pong game– sometimes so fast that the ball is just a blur and you get nothing out of the game.

    I emailed the reader and this is what I shared with her:

    I can understand being scared about teaching the weaving class but let me tell you– you can do this!  At the beginning of the first class, be honest about your hearing loss and explain to the class what you need to make communication happen– that everyone has to face you when talking, to speak a bit slower and that if they need to get your attention– to raise their hand before they speak, etc.  It takes a tremendous amount of courage to do this but the rewards are great– students will adjust and you’ll have better access to communication and be able to share your skills with less anxiety about trying to follow everyone.  Communication is a two-way street but you have to teach others what you need to make that happen.

    In another email I shared:

    It’s ok to be nervous, just don’t let it prevent you from moving forward.  Face your fear head on.  My daughter sent me this picture at a time when I was dealing with some fears so I’m passing it on to you:

    Lauren sent me that photo during Women’s Barefoot Week at the World Barefoot Center.  She had no idea how timely that photo was.  I’ll have to back up a bit to explain.  In March, when I first went down to Lake Conine to learn how to barefoot again, one of the questions that I asked Keith St. Onge was, “Are there alligators in this lake?”

    Yup, that’s right.  I’m not too fond of alligators.  In fact, they downright scare the daylights out of me.  As long as they’re far away with a fence between me and their sharp teeth, I’m good.  When Lauren was in Girl Scouts, she came home with a picture of her holding a baby alligator.  I was very glad that I wasn’t there, or I would have had visions of the taped mouth coming undone and my little girl devored on the spot.   One year, Joe and I took the kids to an alligator attraction and I was happy when we finally left.

    Keith’s response to my question was simply, “Yes, but they don’t bother us.  The boat engine scares them away.”  I wanted to barefoot more than I was scared of the marine life, so off I went into the water.

    Then in the middle of Women’s week, I was sitting in the water after a barefoot run, waiting for the boat to come back and pick me up.   The boat was taking forever to idle back to me.  I turned around and stared into the open jaws of an alligator coming to attack me in the water…

    And then I woke up.

    That’s right, I had a nice little alligator nightmare.  I couldn’t fall back asleep for a long time after that.  The next morning, we did a photo shoot on the water.  I was sitting in the second boat, waiting for my turn on the water.  One of the gals pointed out an alligator swimming by.   The other boat began coming closer and the alligator disappeared.   I tried to put the image out of my mind, because I knew I had to get in the water.

    Come on, Karen, nothing’s going to happen.

    Well, what if I’m the first person to get attacked on this lake?

    Don’t be silly, the alligators are scared of boats, they’ll stay away.

    All too soon, it was my turn to get in the water and my legs were shaky.   I fell on my first attempt to get up and I tried to tumble around to get back up and finally let go.   David Small was driving and he asked me if I was nervous about the photo shoot.  I could only shrug– I wasn’t about to explain my silly alligator fears at that moment.

    Later that morning, I told Keith about the alligator nightmare and he grinned at me.  “Face your fears!” he told me.

    “I face my fears every time I get in the water,” I grumbled at him.  But he was right–when you face your fears, you move beyond them.

    But that night, I had another alligator nightmare.  This time, I was watching the alligator swimming closer to me and I tried to yell at everyone in the boat.  They were talking and laughing and too far away by the time the alligator chomped on me.   And then I woke up.

    Good grief.

    Lauren’s photo came that day.  “Decide That You Want It More Than You Fear It.”  I laughed when I saw the photo– laughed at how uncanny the universe is in delivering nuggets of wisdom into our lives.   She had no idea about the fears I was juggling that week– she simply saw the quote on someone’s Facebook status and decided to turn it into an inspirational picture.

    So the next time you face something that scares you or fears that hold you back from something you want to do, decide that you want it more than you fear it.   The next time I jump into Lake Conine, I’m not going to give alligators a second thought.

  • The Last IEP Meeting

    It hit me like a ton of bricks this week when the school counselor remarked, “This is the last IEP meeting for David.”   I looked at my son sitting next to me.  How did the time fly by so fast?  He was a little toddler when Joe and I sat in on his first IEP meeting.  David had just turned three and was diagnosed with a profound hearing loss just a short time before that.  I had attended many other IEP meetings as an advocate for other families, but it was a whole new ballgame to sit in the IEP meeting as a parent.

    One of the hardest things for me to do was to put him on the bus for a 45-minute ride to school.   It was hard to trust someone else to drive my child, hard to trust someone else to care for him and protect him.  I didn’t like the bus driver, a young man who seemed distracted.  My gut feeling kept telling me that something was wrong.  A few days later, I went to get David off the bus and spied a half-smoked cigarette on the floor.   That was the last time that bus driver picked up my kid and I requested an aide on the bus after that.

    David attended a school with a deaf program for three years.  In kindergarten, the supervisor came up to me and told me that they felt the best placement for David would be in his home school district.  I struggled with that view, because I grew up solo in the mainstream– I was the only kid with hearing loss all the way up until I met Shawn Haines in high school.  Then it was solo and a friend.  I didn’t want that for my kid.  I wanted to make sure he grew up with deaf and hard of hearing peers.  So at first, I balked at the suggestion.  Joe and I had days and days of discussion, wrestling with the decision.  Should we fight to keep him in the deaf program or should we try the mainstream option?

    Finally, we came to the conclusion that we would give the mainstream option a try, with the intention of putting him back in the deaf program if it didn’t work out.  From day one, I was determined to make sure he had a different experience than what I went through growing up.   Our subdivision had built a brand new elementary school right across the street from our house and it was just about to open up.  I went in and introduced myself to the principal, Randy Vanwaning.  That turned out to be one of the best moves, because Mrs. Vanwaning stayed on our side throughout the whole elementary school experience.

    There’s a saying that I learned at a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) conference years ago:  “Bloom where you are planted.”  Once we decided that we were going to mainstream the kids, we kept that philosophy with us.  We made the best out of it.  I volunteered at the school and in the school library so that I could get to know the staff and the teachers.  I went into class and read books to the students using sign and voice.  I became involved with local playgroups and neighbors.  The school hired an interpreter whose parents are deaf.  Mrs. Mac is still interpreting today for Steven.  Mrs. Mac started an ASL club at the school.  The music teacher embraced sign in every single concert that the school put on and Mrs. Mac volunteered her time to teach the students one song per concert.  Many of the students signed the school song at assemblies.

    There were many experiences along the way that were challenging and it wasn’t always easy. I teamed up with Janet Des Georges to write The Myth of the Perfect IEP as a result of those challenges.  I often reminded myself that it would have been the same in any environment– it’s the nature of the journey and of life.   There were times when we questioned our decisions and explored options and considered changes.  One of the most difficult IEP meetings we ever had was David’s transition to high school.  A staff member felt strongly that we should keep him in the home district.  We felt differently– we wanted David at Hinsdale South, where he would have deaf and hard of hearing peers as well as a mainstreamed education.  We couldn’t come to an agreement at that meeting.  That was a meeting where tears were shed– I’ve had a few of them over the years with the three kids for different reasons.   We worked out that agreement and it paved the way for a smooth transition for Lauren as well.

    At David’s last IEP meeting, I sat and thought about all of this as I watched him talk about his experience at the “Explore Your Future” camp to the VR counselor and the district representative.  I sat in awe as I watched him share his views of what he wanted for his future– this little boy of mine has turned into a young man– when did that happen?   I thought back to preschool, and how he cried during the Christmas show that the teachers put on.   The teachers tried to encourage him to say his lines, but all he did was sit in his chair and cry while the other kids took turns saying and signing their lines.  I look back at that time and laugh, because I have a son who can get up on stage and put on a show now.  Go figure.

    For a long time, I was the parent teaching the child–guiding David through life and sharing what I wanted him to know.  Lately, I’ve been aware of how much the roles have shifted, I’m learning things from my son.  When we head to the gym together, he teaches me things about muscle development and he becomes my coach as he runs me through drills.  “Come on Mom, you have to do one more set”– which sounds a lot like the stuff I tell him at home:  “Clean the bathroom and sweep the living room.”  Just yesterday, he made a stir-fry dinner while I was glued to the computer and I was surprised at how delicious it was.  There he was, sharing his newly-made recipe with me and teaching me how to make a better stir-fry.

    I mentor families who are just starting out on the journey of raising deaf and hard of hearing kids and the beginning of the journey always seems so overwhelming, so impossible, so challenging.  “Hang on to every bit of time that you have with your child,” I tell them.

    Because before you know it, in the blink of an eye, all of a sudden, the last IEP meeting arrives and you wonder how it went by so fast.

  • Barefooting with Karen Putz, by Judy Myers

    Judy Myers, my mentor and inspiration who got me back on the water, asked me if she could do a guest post for the blog. This post made me cry. Thank you, Judy. You’re awesome and you ROCK!
    Karen Putz first contacted me last spring when she saw a video of me barefoot waterskiing on MSNBC’s Fit To Boom series.She explained that she had barefoot waterskied years before and had taken a fall, which caused her to lose her hearing. This is not the usual result of a barefoot fall, but rather the result of a deaf gene that runs in her family and causes deafness from a hard hit.On her 44th birthday, she was feeling very down about the fact she had given up barefooting after becoming deaf and felt just maybe she could try it again.She told me that I was somewhat of an inspiration if I could barefoot at 67 then she certainly could try again.

    I convinced Karen to come down to the World Barefoot Center, in Winter Haven, Florida to ski with me and be instructed by Keith St. Onge, the current barefoot waterski World Champion at that time.She agreed and we arranged for her to come down in March.I must admit that Keith and I were a bit apprehensive about trying to teach a deaf woman how to barefoot.How would we communicate? What if she could not understand us?What if she fell and hurt herself what were we to do?

    Karen arrived, and what a positive, delightful person she was to work with.She made us feel completely at ease and “listened” well with her skill at lip reading.

    From this first moment, we developed a relationship that has turned into a great friendship. After skiing together with some other “older” barefooting gals, we decided to all head to the World Barefoot Center and hold a Women’s Week for “older” female barefooters.This past week we had fifteen women skiers—twelve of them were over the age of 40,and four of us over the age of 60.What fun we had!

    My purpose for asking Karen to let me write this for her blog was to tell you what Karen has taught me.

    She always holds me up as a mentor, but let me tell you, this fantastic woman is my mentor.She has taught me more about overcoming obstacles and facing life head on than anyone I know.Her ability to laugh at herself and make light of her deafness puts everyone around her at ease. She is straightforward and explains to us what we need to do to help her. She has taught me not only how to converse with others while looking at her so she can be included in the conversations (and trust me she does not miss much) but more than that, she has taught me that I was the “handicapped” one. In the begining I saw her as a person with a disability, rather than a person who can’t hear, but she can accomplish anything she puts her mind to. She is driven to succeed and she does.She has a great outlook on life and brings so much to those she comes in contact with.What an inspiration and role model she is.This is a lesson I can and have brought into my own life.

    What a remarkable woman, friend and barefooter!!

    Karen you are AWESOME and you ROCK.Thank you for all that you have given me!!

    Judy Myers, aka “Old Lady”
    67-year-old Barefooter

  • An Entire Week of Lipreading

    At the ZVRS booth on Saturday, the Z Team showcased a water ski video that had some clips of me barefoot water skiing in it.   One by one, customers began coming up to me and asking questions about barefooting and my trip to Florida for the Women’s Barefoot Week at the World Barefoot Center.  One of the questions that came up over and over was a question related to communication:  what was it like to be the only deaf person among fourteen gals for a whole week?  How did we communicate?

    Quite simply, I lipread my way through the week.  One hundred percent of my understanding of speech comes from lipreading.  I can’t understand anything that is spoken to me without some kind of visual input– whether via sign, written English or lipreading.  I can handle most one-one-conversations with relative ease, that is, most of the time.  There are some folks that I have a tough time lipreading and it requires an adjustment on their part for a conversation to take place.   There are probably times when I think I’ve lipread correctly, but later discover that my information processing was totally off.

    Group conversations are a literal nightmare at times.  As soon as I finish lipreading the first person and then ping-pong my eyes to the next person, by then a third person has already chimed in.   Lipreading becomes useless at that point.  The only way to handle group conversations is for folks to take turns talking and making eye contact with me before speaking or to have someone summarize a conversation.  Fortunately for me, the group did both by the second day.   Judy Myers and Joann O’Connor became my interpreters for the week.  We got to the point where I’d just have to look at them and they’d summarize what was going on or the conversations that I missed. I still missed out on huge chunks of conversations, but that’s the nature of being deaf among a group.   By the end of each day, I knew when my exhausted mind had enough– the lips would move but nothing was making sense.  It was time to call it a night at that point.

    Getting instruction from Keith St. Onge was a piece of cake, as I could lipread him easily.  In some cases, I had an advantage, as I could lipread him on the water over the roar of the boat.  He definitely didn’t have to shout to communicate while I was barefooting.   When it came time to instruct me on the basics of backward barefooting, Keith called me up to the hull of the boat and had me lie down on my stomach.  Judy sat in front of me and repeated everything Keith said as he positioned my feet through the steps.  This instruction method worked well, as I was barefooting backwards by the third day.

    What really touched my heart was watching everyone in the boat signing “awesome” and exploding in deaf applause after my first backward run– that’s a sight that will forever be etched in my mind.

  • Women’s Barefoot Week, Day 5 and 6

    Women’s Barefoot Week at the World Barefoot Center flew by way too fast.  Day Five dawned cloudy and a bit on the cool side in the morning.  We drew names out of a cup and this time, I joined David Small’s boat.  “It’ll be good for you to work with Dave, he’ll teach you in a different way,” Keith St. Onge said.   It was a blast with Dave– I managed to lipread him well despite his British accent.   He started me off with some one foots and then I wanted to try the back deep start without shoes.  No luck getting up, unless you count the two seconds my chest lifted off the water and I keeled over backward:

    “Turn your toes down at that point,” David explained.  I tried it a couple more times and then switched to shoes. I managed to get up on shoes and have a nice long backward ride and David cleaned up my form.

    By noon, it started to rain so we headed into the garage for a foot painting project.  The original plan was to stamp our feet on a square piece of canvas, but one of the gals is an artist and she cut out a foot.  It turned out amazing!  Even the dogs had their paws stamped too!

    We headed back out for an afternoon set where I worked on one foots again and the back deep without shoes.  Joann O’Connor and I ended the afternoon with some doubles on the boom, which brought back memories of our three days in Wisconsin this summer.

    By the end of the last set, I was p.o.o.p.e.d.   We headed back to the house and sat in the hot tub to nurse our aching muscles.  We kicked back with a glass of wine, courtesy of Barefoot Wines. Even when I was a teen, I don’t think I ever did so much barefooting!  Between the wine and the Motrin that Judy Myers passed out (no, we didn’t combine those!), we felt pretty good!

    We cleaned up and headed out to dinner at Longhorn where we all dug into the food with relish!  Vibram Five Fingers sponsored a pair of barefoot shoes for the “Most Improved Barefooter”, which was given to Joann for all of her hard work that week.   I received a cool World Barefoot Center t-shirt signed by everyone for accomplishing some new skills that week.

    Friday was the final morning for some of us and we woke up to some very cold weather.  A photographer and writer from Waterski magazine came out to do a photo shoot and story.  The photo shoot was an interesting challenge: not only was it cold and windy, but the water was rough.  The plan was to run two boats side by side with all of us barefooting off two booms.   During the first take, we all managed to get out on the booms, but one by one, we began dropping like flies as our feet skipped over the rough water.  The photographer wasn’t able to get a good shot.  On the second take, we nailed it.  David and Keith skillfully steered the boat close enough so that it looked like we had one long boom and the gals barefooting in a row.  Stay tuned to the March issue of Waterski magazine to see what it looks like.

    All too soon, it was time to head to say goodbye and head to the airport.  The first annual Women’s Barefoot Week flew by way too fast.  I could have stayed another week.  At least there’s next year to look forward to!

    To see photos of all the gals from Women’s Week, head to my Facebook page:  Karen Putz’s Facebook Page