Eli Gruska On His Injury Recovery
At the beginning of this year, I sprained my ankle and fractured my 5th metatarsal. In order to heal, I had to wear a boot for 6 weeks, as well as figure out how to keep the rest of my body in shape with it on. Right before the Covid 19 lockdown, I finally got my boot off and had my first PT session with Andrea Zujko. Luckily, I managed to do a few in-person sessions with her before the clinic had to temporarily close its doors.
Given the frantic state that the world was in at that point, it was sometimes difficult to focus on rehabilitating my injury, but as the clinic started regrouping under new circumstances, I resumed my PT sessions with Andrea remotely through Telehealth. Although not quite the same, having Andrea's virtual guidance really helped me on my journey back to dancing again. I passed major rehab milestones, like my first pirouette and my first jump, while in quarantine. It was an unexpected silver lining to not feel the pressure of rehearsals, gigs, or auditions rushing me back to dancing fully. I really took my time and was careful, especially because my PT process was largely unsupervised. However, in my Telehealth sessions, Andrea carefully monitored my alignment, prescribed specific exercises, and instructed me on how to release tight areas manually.
The clinic reopened in June and I lined up to be one of her first in-person patients. We worked together once a week for about a month until I started rehearsing for my first gig, a virtual performance of Grand Pas Classique, in July. It was then that I did my first big jumps and complicated turning sequences, and, because of all the meticulous work I had done with Andrea, I felt both strong and confident. I am now completely back to full strength and am eagerly waiting for the world, and the especially for the dance world, to return so I can leap across a stage for an audience again. It has not been an easy, nor straightforward journey since the day I injured myself in January, but I am grateful to Andrea for the creative way she helped me through it, and in the end, I am stronger because of it.
See Eli performing the Grand Pas Classique after his PT journey with Andrea.