As many of you know, I was not able to attend Tribal Fest 09 because I tore my right ACL in April and was heading into surgery at that time. I do have to give props to my troupe - Tribal Moon - who did an amazing ATS performance on Saturday afternoon!

I wanted to check in with the Tribe family and find out if other's have stories to share about ACL tears, recovery, performing post-ACL recovery, resources or advice that you care to share

I live in Califonia, but after much research, I found an amazing ACL doctor located in Bend, OR. Her name is Cara Walther of Desert Orthopedics. She is the US Women's Olympic Ski knee doc, and has made it her life's passion to study knees of women and girls. Seems that our physical make-up makes us more prone to ACL injury.

I am banished to Bend, OR for 6 weeks, through end of June due to the type of ACL surgery I had. It's a great technique called Healing Response that allows for 1/2 time recovery, so I'll be dancing again in 4 months, v.s 6-9 months. It can only be done if the ACL tear is very close to the femer and the ligament still in good shape. They tap a few holes into the femer bone causing it to bleed. The stem cells cause a blood clot and the ACL binds to the clot, in the femer and all is well again.

The physical therapy requires a lot of dedication on the patient's part. PTs say the love working with dancers because we are so motivated to get our knees back to 100%.

Would love to get a thread going for others to learn and share.