We are just off to the Northern Soul All-Nighter at Keele University, having missed the one in January. I will be thinking of my best mate Keith. We spent many happy hours, in the 90's, every month at the Keele nighters, as well as at the Kings Hall in Stoke.
Back then, I was still famous for my backdrops - jumping backdrops, backdrops with double and triple hand claps, backdrops with side twists, sliding backdrops, backdrops into forward presses, and back again, in fact any possible variation of backdrop. But, in 1999, I tore my ACL, doing martial arts, which meant occasionally my knee gave way, and so decided to stop doing backdrops until it was repaired. I didn't get the operation until early 2004. I was still able to do lots of other stuff, in the intervening period, like side splits and box splits. In fact, on one occasion at the gym, I undertook a test to determine biological as opposed to chronological age, in which it came out as 27, more than 20 years less than my chronological age!
So, after the operation, I was shocked, when I came to do a backdrop, and couldn't. I could get into it, but couldn't get up from it. I was so shocked that I ended up thinking, well, perhaps in your fifties, its time to abandon it, whereas, what I should have done is redouble my efforts to get it back. All the components were still there. I still had the suppleness, the back and abdominal strength, the leg strength. I had always been able to do the floor sit to stand test with ease, which I still can.
I could still go from sitting on my feet to jumping straight into a standing position. I have always been able to do the suitcase position of lying prostrate on your back, with your legs bent beneath you. So, for a long time, although I made infrequent attempts to practice doing backdrops, I settled for just doing other aspects of Northern Soul dancing, spinning, splits and so on.
But, some months ago, I started watching the videos of the kneesovertoesguy, on Youtube.
It struck me how much of his stuff fitted with things I already did as part of my exercises, and how they could be used for me to get back to doing the backdrops. I'd come across him from happening across him on a Bryan Johnson video, the rich American guy who has invested a lot into reversing ageing. Again, that was something I'd been doing via calorie restriction for a long-time (I'd first heard about it in the early 90's, but only started doing it in earnest around 2012), and having also added intermittent fasting to the regime. I now eat just once a day, around 1400 calories, high in protein, which isn't easy as a vegetarian. But, having once suffered with hiatus hernia and acid reflux, that is all gone, as mostly has the asthma I suffered from, badly, from the age of 3. I now have a blood pressure reading of 110/67, and resting pulse of 58. A couple of months ago, I went to the doctor's for a test of heart rhythm, which showed that I had a perfect sine wave. Obviously, years of dancing to Richard Temple.
I have always been able to continue doing side splits and box splits, as well as the full lotus, and so on. Doing the ATG split squat, therefore, came fairly easily, which within a matter of weeks I could do even using weights, as I could doing the deep squats. In fact, I am more supple, today, and with greater strength over the full range of movement than ever. So, I was quickly able to go from the suitcase position to an upright seated position, and I was able to go into a knees over toes, back drop position, and even to be able to do some hand claps in it, before rising out of it, I even managed a backdrop to side splits, manoeuvre though it needs work. None of it is the kind of fluency of movement I had in 1999, but, hey, that's a quarter century ago. So, tonight, back out on the floor, at Keele, I'm, now, ready to again unleash the backdrop, after 25 years. It won't, yet, be the same, but, not bad for a septuagenarian. In the meantime, while I'm out dancing 100 mph, and backdropping, here's a video from almost back in the 1970's days of the golden age of Northern Soul, featuring a youthful Dave Evison and Keb Darge amongst others.
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