TLDR: If you're someone who values performance, both on a critical timeline and for the long term,…read moreVita Yee is the first person to turn to for a sports injury. If possible, reach out to her as soon as you can after an injury, because with the early days, she apparently works miracles!
Longer version:
I am a performing artist, and on opening night, I heard a snap in my leg: I tore the calf. The pain was intense, and worse, I had no idea what was going on, only that I couldn't get any power from that leg. It was by sheer luck that I got in touch with Vita later that night, and by the next day she was working on me.
I was completely blown away by the absolute generosity with which she shares her skill. With so much kindness and care, she brought athlete-performance specificity to the physical therapy--and an understanding of dance and its concurrent demands of strength, flexibility, speed, and placement.
Her knowledge of sports physiology is impressively comprehensive, and acupuncture is but one of her talents.
On the first day, recognizing that this is my livelihood and that sitting around resting was not really an option, she did hands-on work to smooth the muscles, then applied kinesiology tape in a way I couldn't have figured out on my own (and neither could the internet)--the relief was instantaneous. She started me on rehabilitation exercises almost right away, taking into account exactly how the body would compensate (and how I might try to cheat the true path to recovery).
For in between sessions, she taught me how to tape the leg, massage out the muscles, use compression socks, when to ice and heat, which exercises to do and how. She maintained the appropriate pace with really specific guidance, for example:
Day 0: "No jumping or running, period"
Day 2: "No performing that part until you can do 3 sets of 25 relevés"
Day 12: "Small double leg jumps are okay, no single leg jumps yet"
Just as important as the physical recovery, she helped take away the fear, which was very real. This sense of trust in both her and myself made the acupuncture as easy as going to a spa: 15 minutes of lying cozily under a heat lamp with three tiny needles, reminding the muscles how to work, and afterward feeling as satisfied as if I had been working out.
Forever grateful to Vita for enabling me to be back on the stage.