Joe: 00:14

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of Freedom Talks. This is your host, Joe Ogden. And this week, we got a really fun interview, little different type of podcast this week. We're gonna sit down with doctor Rachel who is out in our Brookfield location and is a physical therapist. We're gonna sit and talk about Irish dance.

Joe: 00:33

As we record this, it's gonna be in March, which Saint Patrick's Day, Irish dance, perfect little tie in. Rachel has a really big background in Irish dance, so she's gonna tell us a little bit about that and how to maximize your body's performance and make sure that dancers stay healthy and its connection to physical therapy. So it should be a really good interview. And without further ado, let's sit down with doctor Rachel. Yeah.

Joe: 00:57

Yeah.

Rachel: 00:59

Alright. Perfect.

Joe: 01:00

Tell us about Irish dance, Rachel.

Rachel: 01:02

Alright. So I started Irish dancing when I was about five years old. I decided that I it was something I wanted to do because my grandpa was super involved with Irish Fest, and he used to be their treasurer there. And so I grew up always going to Irish Fest in August, and one of my aunts said Irish dance. And I just remember telling my mom, hey, mom.

Rachel: 01:25

I wanna try that. So she founded a dance school in the area, and I started Irish dancing with Glencastle. They're now located out in New Berlin. They used to be in West Dallas, and they're in Franklin, but they're out in New Berlin now. And it was just a blast.

Rachel: 01:41

So I spent most of my life growing up, Irish dancing at Irish Fest, and then every Saint Patrick's Day, that was a huge holiday for me. That was probably my favorite holiday, because I never had to go to school, which was pretty cool. I just got to go and Irish dance at different schools or at, at, like, assisted living facilities or, rehab centers, things like that. And, as I got older, I started doing more dancing, like, out at bars downtown, some of the later shows. And it's just been such a big part of my life that it's something I I hope that I can get treating more Irish dancers.

Rachel: 02:20

But yeah. So that's kinda how I got started, with Irish dance for myself.

Joe: 02:26

Where is it in New Berlin?

Rachel: 02:29

So they just moved. They used to be in Franklin. They're now over by, like, the Moreland Reserve Health Center, kinda like Moreland and Beloit area. Oh. Oh, okay.

Rachel: 02:39

Panera's over there, I think. Yeah.

Joe: 02:41

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. In that, like, plaza right there in, like, the strip?

Rachel: 02:46

I don't know if I don't think they're in the strip. Let me look if Let's see what their new address is. Oops. They're 5000 Southtown Drive, New Berlin.

Joe: 03:07

I don't know if I know where that is.

Rachel: 03:09

I don't know either there. I thought on their Instagram, that's where they put it. Let's see. Okay. So it is just up the road from the freighter, more than reserve Center there.

Rachel: 03:23

So it's past the strip mall. But yeah. So it's like Beloit And Towne Drive. So Beloit And Moreland is the biggest cross section there.

Joe: 03:35

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's let's pretend I don't know anything about Irish dance, which I actually don't, so I think this is kinda fun.

Rachel: 03:45

Oh, perfect. If

Joe: 03:46

I feel like some people would be like, you know, dance is dance. Right? Once it's Irish dance from other forms of dance that people would do, like, what makes it Irish dance?

Rachel: 03:56

That's a really good question. I I think Irish dance has a little bit more control in the technique. Like, it's not like a hip hop where you can kind of move more freely, move with the music. Our stance is a bit more structured. It is starting, like, starting to move more into the, like, freely moving arm movements and stuff.

Rachel: 04:16

When I was growing up, though, it was your arms are, like, glued down to your sides. You're dancing relatively stiff from, like, waist up, and your legs are doing pretty much all the work unless you were doing something called ceilidh dancing, which was team dancing. In that case, you used a lot more arm movements, and then choreography dances are also more arm movement. But there's both soft shoe and hard shoes. So soft shoe is like a it's very similar to a ballet flat, except we don't have, like, the wooden tip in our ballet shoes.

Rachel: 04:47

So and they're called gillies. And then, our hard shoes are very similar to a tap shoe, where you've got that little metal piece in the front and the back. A lot of the times, the soft shoe is is a lot more elegant, graceful, and hard shoes a little bit more powerful of a dance. Most Kaylee dances tend to be more of that soft shoe, delicate, very free flowing with the music kinda dancing.

Joe: 05:17

Yep.

Rachel: 05:19

Yeah. I think that that's how I would define them as being a little bit different.

Joe: 05:23

Are you still doing it now?

Rachel: 05:25

Not formally. I probably haven't danced now in, like, two years. I was dancing at Marquette. They had a just like a rec team. And now the team is competing, but they're called Saoirse.

Rachel: 05:38

And Glencastle is having their twenty fifth anniversary. It just happened, like, last week. So I I'll break it out again in August at Irish Fest for a little bit, but, yeah, not formally.

Joe: 05:51

So, like, when you're doing this or, like, growing up, you know, you're doing these, like, for the schools and stuff, like, how big is the group that's doing the dance? Like, is it like a, you know, a high school dance competition where you've got all these girls, or is it just a couple people, one person? Like, how is it set up?

Rachel: 06:06

Yeah. So great question. So if it's like a competition setting and you're competing individually, there's different dances you can sign up for, and the different dances depend on, like, rhythm and speed of the music, patterning of the music, things like that. And then different dances are typically assigned, like, the hard or the soft shoe. So there was, like, treble jigs, horn pipes.

Rachel: 06:28

Those were very hard shoe dances. Traditional sets are hard shoe dances. And then there's reels and slip jigs, which tend to be more soft shoe dances. And same with just the the traditional Irish jig is a soft soft shoe dance. So when you're growing up, you can select which dances you're going to compete in initially.

Rachel: 06:46

Right? As you get older, it's pretty set which which dances you're doing. And those competitions, if they're just local, right, I mean, you could have 20 to 30 kids in your dance group

Joe: 07:00

Oh, wow. Okay.

Rachel: 07:01

That are all competing against each other. And then as as you get more advanced, those groups might get smaller. They might get a little bit bigger depending on how fast or how slow you're advancing in terms of your placements. And then, like, there's big regional they're called, like, the arachnises. So those the smaller competitions are, they're fesches.

Rachel: 07:23

An arachnthus is a type of fesche, and that is just the fancy term for a dance competition. And then so the arachniduses are regional. So there's, like, the Midwest. You know, arachnidus is typically in Chicago. Sometimes it's in Minnesota or Ohio.

Rachel: 07:39

And those can be, you you know, hundreds of dancers in your group that are all competing together. And then from there, you could qualify for nationals and worlds, and each time the group gets bigger. Right? And now if you're doing shows, like, the number of people that you could do in a choreography number I mean, you could do choreography number I mean, you could do a dance with fifty, eighty kids. Right?

Rachel: 08:00

It all just depends on the choreographer and what their vision is. I think the largest I was with was probably 30 to 40 at once on a stage. Okay. Yeah.

Joe: 08:10

Let's connect it a little bit to, obviously, what you do now. Right? Physical therapy, in my opinion, our definition is we're experts in movement. Right? Mhmm.

Joe: 08:21

Obviously, Irish dance, based on what you've told me and what I think it is in my limited research of it, is it obviously, extreme motor control in a bunch of of added movements. How is what you do now or what you can help with with people, how would that be connected to Irish dance? Or even if

Rachel: 08:41

Yeah.

Joe: 08:41

Also is this. Like, if I'm an Irish dancer and I need to see someone, why would I wanna go see a physical therapist?

Rachel: 08:49

Great questions. So I'd say what has benefited me the most as an Irish dancer, in my current, like, practice is probably my attention to balance. I love, love, love working with people of all ages on their balance issues. It's something that, you know, as you know, goes away really quickly if people aren't practicing it. And I think Irish dance is the reason I have such good balance now and don't really have to dedicate a ton of time to working on it.

Rachel: 09:20

So I love working with other athletes too that are dealing with, like, hip and knee pain. That's huge in the Irish dance population. Right? Big joints that are constantly being overloaded

Joe: 09:30

Yeah.

Rachel: 09:30

And working on the control patterns. And then in regards to, like, common injuries that an Irish dancer would likely get that would bring them to PT, Tons of shin splints, tons of foot pain, ankle injuries. If you're clumsy like me, I fell at a show and I broke my wrist. Right? So

Joe: 09:48

Oh, nice.

Rachel: 09:50

Yeah. Yeah. That was super exciting in Saint Patrick's Day. I just slipped just walking out on the stage, so that was a little embarrassing. But,

Joe: 09:57

Well, at least you didn't ruin the routine.

Rachel: 09:59

That is true. That is true. It was fine. But, like, part of part of, the challenge that I find with a lot of dancers is at least when I was starting, it has it has since changed. There wasn't a lot of emphasis on strength and conditioning.

Rachel: 10:16

Right, because everyone kinda saw dance that's like this is this cardio. And, you know, for you and I, we see it as motor control. And so I had a ton of classmates and myself that just had all these overused tendon injuries. So there's has since been programs that are targeting Irish dancers specifically on strength training programs. And we always did a lot of core stuff, but, I think, like, working on tendon, you know, heavy slow loading on top of the dance is really important.

Rachel: 10:48

And then, talking about shoe health as well because our shoes for dance are not exactly the greatest. So, knowing when do you have to replace your shoes, how often you should you, and then when you're outside of dance wearing, like, very supportive tennis shoes. I had really bad bunions from our stance that I actually had surgery on my left one, just because I was getting squeezed so tightly from the shoes that I even when I transitioned out into a tennis shoe, it was still super painful.

Joe: 11:16

Yeah. Looking back, especially with what you do now, is there anything or an age that you would have been like, you know, I should have trained for this better, or I should have even seen a physical therapist to be like, hey. These are some of the things that I'm noticing. These are something that I should work on. Like, if you were gonna go back and create the ideal, you know, setup for you, what would that look like?

Rachel: 11:40

Yeah. I mean, I think, like, when I was little and starting at five, I probably wouldn't have changed much. Right? We're all super coordinated trying to figure out what we like and what we don't like. But probably by the time I was, like, nine, 10 ish, I knew I loved Irish dance, and it wasn't the only sport I did.

Rachel: 11:56

So I'm thankful for that too. As we know here as physical therapist, if you specialize too early in any sport, it does lead to more injuries down the line. So I was concurrently playing soccer, volleyball, basketball, like, most of my life, which I think that really helped me. I think the challenge was when it started to become, like, showing competition season, which competition is fire stance are year round. I tended to compete more in the summer just because that's when me and my family had more time to go to the events.

Rachel: 12:24

Right? Then then I would start overloading myself a lot, that I think that would have been a great time to see a PT because I had a ton of knee pain, like, I had patellofemoral pain syndrome that my PCP had told me to go do some exercises. And, of course, I was young and stupid, so I didn't do any of them. And, you know, my parents didn't really know what physical therapy was pretty much until I went into it.

Joe: 12:48

Right.

Rachel: 12:49

That I think that would have been a great time was when I was around that, like, 10, 11 ish age range, would have been great for me to go see a PT and start understanding why strength training was important and why, I should start now so that way I don't have as much pain when I'm 18, 19, still trying to Irish dance in college. Right?

Joe: 13:11

How many what do you think the percentage of Irish dancers that have some sort of injury is?

Rachel: 13:16

I mean, I wanna say, like, a hundred percent. It's huge. Now is it all, like, trauma fractures and stuff that they need a boot or need stuff like that? Probably not. But I would say, like, at least seventy five percent have some sort of injury that makes them take time out of dance to recover from.

Rachel: 13:37

And I'd say most of them are lower extremity, stress fractures, shin splints, or knee pain.

Joe: 13:42

How do we fix that?

Rachel: 13:44

Yeah. Great question. I think a lot of it is trying to dive into that population and talk about preventative care. I think prevention is still something that all of our sports lags in. But, yeah, that's a really good question.

Rachel: 14:00

Like, how do we combat it? But I think dosage too. Right? Like, when you're competing with Irish dance, you're doing two to three, sometimes even more nights in your or in your, studio of, like, two hour sessions. And if you're doing a hard shoe routine that you're training for, I mean, that is just repetitive constant impact.

Rachel: 14:22

So I know, like, something my school did when we were younger is our first few weeks of training, you would be in tennis shoes before you'd add the hard shoe where you're actually getting all that impact back. So you got a little bit of cushion. Yeah. But I think just a lot of prevention is and preventative strength training is important.

Joe: 14:40

If you were gonna, you know, walk into a, a dance studio and you're gonna say, okay. I I wanna make sure that our dancers are healthy.

Rachel: 14:50

Mhmm.

Joe: 14:50

What what does a prehab, so to speak, or preventative program kinda look like?

Rachel: 14:57

I think I would bias a lot towards our hop testing that we would use, to track, like, post surgical outcomes. Right? Because dance is repetitive jumping and repetitive hopping. And I almost treated it very similar to a return to run program as my prehab assessment, right, and say, you know, how far can you jump and can you land softly? Right?

Rachel: 15:19

That was a huge thing in Irish dance too is especially with the soft shoe. Like, we don't wanna hear you land. So land softly so that way you protect your joints, absorb your forces. But then I think doing, like, a squatting assessment, like or in a quad hamstring ratio. Right?

Rachel: 15:33

A lot of dancers have really, really strong hamstrings because they're doing so much eccentric control trying to slow down kicks, jumps, things like that. But sometimes the quads actually lag a little bit behind in terms of the ratio that I think looking at that would be really important. You know, integrity of the Achilles tendon. Right? Just doing a simple palpation assessment.

Rachel: 15:56

Like, do you have thickening side to side? And then sending people up with individualized programs based on what they might have. And I would argue that if someone is only Irish dancing and not doing another sport or another physical activity, they're probably gonna be at greater risk for injury, but, just from not having the other muscle groups potentially kicking in to help support.

Joe: 16:19

I feel like it's a sport, and I would put probably every youth sport in the same category in today's era where you just have these extreme amounts of load with no thought process behind how much load that actually is.

Rachel: 16:39

Right. Yeah. It's kinda like, you know, in baseballs with pitchers, they finally started tracking in youth. Like, a a pitch count, but b, how many days are you throwing a week. Right?

Rachel: 16:50

No one really does that in dance or even gymnastics, I feel like, doesn't really have that. And so it's just constant overload and, you know, recovery days are important, and I don't think it's talked about.

Joe: 17:01

Yeah. I'd be curious what you think of the dance world, so to speak, in that category. But I feel like when you do start talking about load management, even though that's a trigger word now, I think, in today's world, but more so talk about, like, rest periods and why it's important. It's always in, like, this negative frame versus, like and I'm a very black and white logical person. I'm like, no.

Joe: 17:25

No. No. No. This is just scientific. This is realistic.

Joe: 17:28

You have to run. Right?

Rachel: 17:30

I don't

Joe: 17:31

know how it is for in the dance world or feel like, hey. I need I need a day off. Yeah. Oh, well, you know, are you really interested in doing this?

Rachel: 17:39

Yeah. I think sometimes phrasing it as, like, an active recovery day is really important because they like that those key terms of, oh, I'm still being active. Right? And then just a lot of education in terms that kids can understand, right, of, like, well, we need you to do something different than dance so that way you can keep dancing. Right?

Rachel: 17:58

Otherwise, you're gonna get hurt. Right?

Joe: 17:59

Yeah.

Rachel: 18:00

A lot of my I feel like like, really active individuals, I try to steer them towards something that is especially with dance, it's still gonna work on, you know, core control, motor control. So I tend to steer them till towards yoga because it's not a hugely impact based training, but they're still gonna feel like they're moving their body and they're getting a good stretch out of it, which I find a lot of dancers are either too flexible or they don't stretch at all. Right? So for my patients that don't stretch at all, like, they should really be doing yoga. And then those that are a little too stretchy, I still think they should do yoga, but maybe control that range better.

Rachel: 18:37

But, yeah, talking about that active recovery is really important.

Joe: 18:40

Is there more females doing it than males?

Rachel: 18:43

Yeah. Irish dance is definitely more females than males. I think it part of it is just because it's got the dance title right and less guys go into dancing. Yeah. It is female dominated.

Joe: 18:57

If you're gonna set up let's kinda just talk about a theoretical, dancer, so to speak.

Rachel: 19:04

Mhmm.

Joe: 19:04

From our standpoint, what are some orthopedic emphasis or differences that we see in the female body versus the male body?

Rachel: 19:17

Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is, like, hip and pelvis. Right? So, like, I'll and in myself too. Like, when I was dancing, I I think I have some FAI.

Rachel: 19:28

I've never been diagnosed with it. So femoral STM impingement for those of you that don't know what that is.

Joe: 19:34

Can you say that again, like, three times fast?

Rachel: 19:37

Actually, FAI FAI. I've slowed down. So FAI is femoral acetabular impingement for those of you that don't know. So it's just

Joe: 19:46

I don't think I've ever said that correctly.

Rachel: 19:48

Really?

Joe: 19:50

I would always just skip over it because, like, just FAI.

Rachel: 19:53

It's FAI. Yeah. So it's FAI. So sometimes with the female dancers, right, they're more prone to get those hip injuries because a lot of Irish dancing is very, like, straight line kicks. Right?

Rachel: 20:05

So if you have that FAI, you're gonna get more, like, labral tears, hip impingement, things like that that I found, you know, paying attention to that and then mobilizing hips would be something that would be great for us to look into to just checking hip ranges. I find maybe this is also because I've treated more female dancers than I have male dancers. Right? I find that females collapse a little bit more at their foot into pronation from the navicular dropping. And, again, maybe that's also just because of the angle of the hip that if they're pushed out, they're gonna fall in as they go down the chain.

Rachel: 20:46

And then I'd say lumbar lordosis would be a huge thing to look at, especially in the female dancers. They all hang out in in gymnasts. Right? They all hang out in lumbar extension. They all tend to have pretty poor core strength and control initially when they're younger.

Rachel: 21:01

And even into the teens, right, that's kind of what you're trained to do is, like, shoulders back, you know, and you're gonna arch your back in doing that, because that's kind of like your stage ready look. But then, you know, that brings on its own host of problems.

Joe: 21:17

Of course. So we've got the and I'm glad you said what you did. I was hoping you'd go this direction. So we've got this stereotypical kinda dancing posture and presentation, so to speak, which I've seen. We've got the extreme lumbar lordosis and, in general, very weak hips.

Rachel: 21:35

Yep.

Joe: 21:36

So now you I'm having pain somewhere in the lower extremity, and I think this can be anywhere or back pain, whatever. I'm coming to see you now, and you're familiar with, you know, Irish dance and the demands that it that it brings. What are some of the things that we're gonna focus on in our sessions to help improve my pain and just improve my function and safety?

Rachel: 21:56

A ton of core and hip stability work, very infrequently. Like I said, occasionally, I get those dancers that are really, really tied into their hamstrings. But infrequently, you know, do they need a lot of mobility work? It's typically a lot of core control, stability training, trying to make it fun. Like, we break out the bosu ball.

Rachel: 22:15

Right? They like those harder balance challenges because they're doing so much balance already. Yeah. They're just not knowing that it's uncontrolled. So when I put them on a uneven surface, it's a lot easier for them to see their lack of control with it.

Rachel: 22:31

And then we go from there. You know, we do some isometric training. Sometimes I I follow, like, the powers program if they're having knee pain. So a lot of isometric hip abductor stuff to start, and then you work into more dynamic abductor strengthening for the hips. And, you know, some of that is telling them, look.

Rachel: 22:49

I know your pain's in your foot or I know your pain's in your knee, but it's all coming from your core and your hips. And so that's where we need to work, and that's typically where I I would start.

Joe: 22:59

Do you think that's something that really anyone can benefit from?

Rachel: 23:03

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think most people tend to be really, really weak in their especially their glutes and then in their core. Yeah.

Joe: 23:09

I always think that one's so interesting. And maybe it's just because we talk about it so much from a health standpoint, but, again, this era of kids sports is crazy. Anyone that argues that this is healthy, the amount of volume kids are doing, I just I don't buy it.

Rachel: 23:27

Mhmm.

Joe: 23:28

But everyone's like, okay. Let's say you're my my my my daughter's Irish dance coach. I'm like, Rachel, I want her to get better at Irish dance. Mhmm. You're like, alright.

Joe: 23:37

We're gonna do this twelve months a year every single day of the week. I'm like, why aren't we just trying to address the body's limitations, whether it's a mobility issue, strength issue Mhmm. Because that will lead to better outcomes on the dance floor, so to speak.

Rachel: 23:53

Right. Yeah.

Joe: 23:55

And I'd that's one thing that just keeps going over my head, how we don't understand that.

Rachel: 23:59

Yes. And, you know, like, everyone always talks about, like, the crazy dance moms. And, like, yeah, obviously, that exists, but that exists in every Everywhere. Right? Everywhere.

Rachel: 24:07

You know what I mean? And Irish dance is an interesting one because you can't to my knowledge, there's not really, like, a ton of scholarship for it. You know? Right? Like, the Irish dance world, they will give scholarships if you apply for them.

Rachel: 24:22

Right? But it's not like this college is seeking you out to be on their Irish dance team.

Joe: 24:27

Right.

Rachel: 24:27

It's it's a, to that extent, it's a relatively individual sport, and it's not supported at a university level except for, like, for fun, and fun competitive teams that they're not really seeking people out. So I find it, you know, interesting when you are in the Irish dance world and there is all this external pressure put on a kid to make it to nationals and to make it to worlds, right, that sometimes it's just not reasonable, and you have to make sure the kid's still having fun because there isn't necessarily that end goal of you have to get that college scholarship. Right?

Joe: 24:58

Right. Looking back, especially with what you do now for a living

Rachel: 25:03

Mhmm.

Joe: 25:04

If you're seeing someone who's an Irish dancer or even the hypothetical Irish dancer, what would be some, like, tips or, emphasis points that you would give them right off the bat? Like, just kinda three tips and do this, this, and this, and it'll just lead to better success.

Rachel: 25:20

I would probably recommend not doing Irish dance specific training more than three days a week. And I'd say you can pick three days, and the rest of your week, you need to be doing something that is not Irish dance specific, and preferably two of those days are strength training. Right? And then the other day needs to be other day or two needs to be a rest day. And, again, for them, that could be going on a walk.

Rachel: 25:41

I don't care. Right? That's relatively low impact or swimming. Right? But something that is not adding low, that would probably be tip number one is pacing and delegating how much they're allowed to do.

Joe: 25:51

Yeah.

Rachel: 25:52

Tip number two would be just reminding them why do Irish dance. Is it because you just like the exercise? Is it because you wanna compete? What's your end goal in trying to help figure out with them? What do they really want to do so then you know where to take them?

Rachel: 26:06

And then my third would be going back to, like, core stability, hip hip control. We need to emphasize that. And like I said, in point one, we've already picked which days you can worry about doing that on, and then the rest of the days, you can do what you wanna do. Right? It's kinda like I I see it with a lot of my runners too.

Rachel: 26:23

Right? They just wanna run. They don't wanna do the strength train. Irish dancers are the same. I just wanna dance.

Rachel: 26:29

Well, that's great, but we're not gonna be able to keep you dancing for the next five years if all you do is dance this year. Right?

Joe: 26:37

Yep. So

Rachel: 26:37

I think those would be my three points.

Joe: 26:39

I love it. I love it. If someone who's listening or knows of an Irish dancer, tell us a little bit about where we can find you and, you know, just give us a little bit background too, just kinda on your treatment technique and what you like to do.

Rachel: 26:52

Yeah. So you guys can find me out in Brookfield. I work at Freedom Physical Therapy at our Brookfield location. I believe you could also I think a couple of our therapists in our Fox Point location have also treated a few Irish dancers. So you'd have to call there and and specifically ask who I don't know off the top of my head.

Rachel: 27:09

But any of us would be great, and we're pretty essential to where you know, I think we have over eight schools in the walk area. We're pretty close to all of them. So, you can find us there. Now if you're coming to see me in Brookfield, we're gonna start with a full body assessment, and then we're going to get into some dance specific things. So I'm going to see you guys do some kicks, some leap overs, maybe do a chorus, right, where you're pounding into the ground and see, like, what is causing your pain?

Rachel: 27:37

When is it happening? What specific phase of that movement is it happening? And then we're gonna talk about your typical performance, and, you know, are you looking to compete? Are you looking to just do shows? What are your goals?

Rachel: 27:52

And then how I can help you get there.

Joe: 27:55

I love it. I love it. Rachel, thank you for telling us a little bit more about Irish dance. If anyone listening knows of an Irish dancer or you are an Irish dancer yourself and you're having issue, don't wait. I think Rachel would agree on that.

Joe: 28:10

I don't wanna put words in her mouth, but don't wait.

Rachel: 28:11

Yeah. Don't wait.

Joe: 28:13

We can take care of you and make sure that, you know, you can dance pain free and make sure you don't miss your season at all. Mhmm. Rachel, anything else that we can add before

Rachel: 28:22

No. I think you summed that up great. Right? Like, Saint Patrick's Day season is getting into full swing here, and then I know, you know, we've got worlds coming up in in the summer and the or, excuse me, couple weeks, and then nationals in the summer. So it's it's big performance season for you guys.

Rachel: 28:39

So if you're feeling any sort of ache or pain, it's not to say we're gonna take you out of the sport. We wanna help keep you going. Right? You might have to work through some pain, but but let's do it together.

Joe: 28:49

Love it. I love it. Rachel, thank you. I'll get back to work and improve your productivity.

Rachel: 28:54

Sounds good. Thanks, Joe.

Joe: 28:56

Yeah. Thank you.

Rachel: 28:57

Bye.