It took me a long time to admit that I had arthritis, and that it was not going to ever get better. But strangely enough, when I got on stage, I had no pain, because the moment when I was out there was so important and the “now” of the situation was the only thing that mattered, that my body rallied somehow. We have these powers within us, you know, endorphins. The body can do amazing things in a situation when it is really called upon. And so I remained dancing and performing so that I didn’t have the pain. Even though the same movements in the classroom would be painful, somehow in a performance situation it was not. I went several years in that situation, and I was happy, because by then I was told that I would have to have an operation. You can’t dance with an artificial hip. It was important to me to stay dancing as long as possible, because I knew that once I had the operation I would not be able to dance again. So I was happy. I had to curtail and alter my repertoire. I couldn’t do everything that I used to. But I was dancing and I was happy. There were emotional times. I tell my students, “You have to learn to dance even when you don’t feel like it. Because most of the time you might not feel like it.” But the amazing thing is that, when you start to dance, everything seems wonderful, and puts it in perspective.