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straps update

Part of my thumb has been numb for about 24 hours.  For some reason, when I mention this to my friends, they become very concerned.  Actually, of all the circus-related injuries I've had, this is one of the most innocuous.

The area in question is a small patch of skin on the pad of my thumb; it's about the size of a dime.  It feels like I have super glue dried on it--not painful, just odd.

Perhaps this has happened because I was the only person in straps class yesterday--which made for a quick class, but without breaks.  Maybe it's because we used the new straps, which have not been broken in and make the usual straps feel like tissue paper. 

Or maybe this is just a standard reaction to wrapping your hands in pieces of stiff fabric and then hanging upside down from them.  Morgaine wasn't concerned; she replied that one of my fellow straps students had lost the feeling in both thumbs for about a week.  No one suffers any long-term damage.  Probably.  I mean, was I really using that part of my thumb, anyway?

So, part of my thumb has been numb for 24 hours, but that's quite normal.  And people ask me why I didn't go to grad school instead of this.

new kinds of soreness

My straps teacher has good news and bad news.

Good news: I have strong rotator cuffs.

Bad news: Straps is all about shoulder strength. 

Read: I am going to need every ounce of rotator cuff strength that I possess.

"Everything in straps is done with straight arms," Morgaine told us on the first day of class.  Which is funny, because I have been told many times that your arms are strongest with your elbows bent and your hands drawn into your chest--the way you would hold onto a vine above a pit full of ravenous crocodiles.  For example. 

Straight arms, however, do not give you much leverage; you don't get to use those handy biceps very much.  Instead you use your abs and your shoulders and in my case my neck, because apparently my neck thinks it's helping when it tenses up for the whole class and then aches for three days afterward.

Morgaine is a preternaturally patient woman.  This is good, both because I have no idea what I'm doing, and also because straps itself requires abundant patience at the beginner level.  At least until you have any inkling of what you're doing, straps is about doing the same few skills over and over and over again.  Those skills?  I'm so glad you asked:

1) meat hook

Meat hook, with fancy legs

2) front planche

Front planche, courtesy of 1964

3) back planche

back planche

4) flag, shown here at 0:06 and 0:10

flag, plus some rolling around

(That's not how we're learning to get into it.  I suspect that's the advanced version.)

5) roll-ups, which may actually be called something else because Google is not being helpful.

We haven't gotten to #5, anyway.  Strictly speaking, I haven't gotten to numbers 2-4, either: I've done preparations for them and/or made sorry attempts that I flop out of.

Despite the fact that we've been working on five skills for three weeks, no two classes have been quite the same.  Morgaine keeps coming up with new and terrible ways to do these things.  I can nominally do meat hooks on trapeze (sort of, on one side), but I certainly can't do them on straps, where lately we've been starting hanging by one arm in a pike and then somehow (magically, I assume) vaulting our legs into the right position with our free hand gracefully overhead.  I say "we" because I have yet to do this, myself, without Morgaine lifting me into place.

And then there are flags.  If you took a meat hook and turned it inside out, you would have a flag.  Just as meat hooks were kind of painful at first--oh, who am I kidding with this "were": just as meat hooks are kind of painful, flag is slightly excruciating.  Does it look awesome?  Yes.  Does it use every ounce of that alleged rotator cuff strength?  Absolutely.  Does it make my entire back sore the next day?  Of course.  This is circus.  New kinds of soreness mean that you're learning.

summer of strength

I think I've written here before about how hanging around a place like Circus Center skews your perspective on certain matters.  I spend a large part of my time surrounded by people who think nothing of hoisting themselves over high metal objects and hanging upside down from the tops of their feet.  It's a ho-hum sort of existence.

And it means that when I say something like, "I want to be strong," I get one of two reactions.  Non-Circus Center people say, "But you are strong," and go on to point out that I also spend large portions of my time hoisting myself over metal objects.  Circus Center people, on the other hand, nod sagely and say, "Yes, me too." 

It's not just a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses thing, though of course being surrounded by ridiculously buff--and ridiculously flexible, and ridiculously talented--people inspires a certain level of envy/competitiveness.  Besides that, though, there's something inherently satisfying to me about being strong.  Maybe it's because it's always slightly unexpected: I'm a 5' 0" girl.  I'm about as physically intimidating as a sack of flour.

But then comes the moment when, for example, someone asks me to do some push ups, and we arrive at a moment like the one last week, when an extremely buff kickboxing instructor turns around and says, "Whoa, you can do real push ups?  Half the guys in my regular class have to do the wimpy ones!"

It's satisfying, is what I'm trying to say.

It was, of course, my quest to be stronger that lead me to the kickboxing teacher in the first place.  As a matter of fact, I've decided that strength is this summer's theme in my life.  I've been intrigued by boxing and martial arts of various sorts for a long time, and last week I decided to mix up my routine a little.  I booked an hour private lesson, and before I knew it I was wearing gloves and learning how to do roundhouse kicks.  (I promise to use my powers only for good.)  And before I knew anything else, I was completely drenched in sweat.  I certainly hope I'm building strength, for the amount of sweating I did.

As for circus classes, I've finally decided to make a foray into one of the last undiscovered countries of aerial apparatus: straps.  For those of you unfamiliar with straps, I have been describing it as the circus equivalent of rings in gymnastics.  For this:

rings...

Substitute this:

back planche

And in action it's a bit like this:

Perfrmance from Corteo Cirque du Soleil

Seriously.

It's worth noting that of all the course descriptions on Circus Center's website, straps is the only one that specifies "intermediate/advanced" status before you gve it a go.  If you use the prerequisites on the course descriptions as a marker of how difficult the skill/class is, I am screwed.  (However, single-point trapeze only requires "some prior aerial experience," when I would vote for "some prior aerial experience and the inborn ability not to puke while spinning."  I think that's a fair assessment of the skill level.) 

But I am less screwed that I would have been at any other point in my life.  I've never been as strong as I am now, and I've never had as much body awareness.  Which is fabulous, without a doubt.  But I want more.

And there's an added karmic bonus: I admit that in classes, lately, I've been the person internally sighing at people who can't climb a rope or how to get their butts over the bar.  Well, the tables are turning.  Allow me to apologize in advance to my future classmates, who will have to watch me fail spectacularly to get my butt in the air this semester.  Sorry, guys.  It's not going to be pretty.  But I can at least promise you that I will get stronger.

in the field

double trapeze

Lately I've been singing the Blogger's Lament, the verse that goes "life changes and suddenly I have no time to write things on the internet."

It's been a wacky couple of months, Gentle Readers.  I got promoted and met a nice boy in the span of a couple of days back in March.  Both boys and new jobs take up unexpected amounts of time, and as a result I have unedited video clips on my video camera and piles of library books sitting reproachfully on my desk and blog posts woefully unwritten.  Am I sorry?  No, not really.  I am stunned by my own good fortune. But allow me to try to make amends:

It so happens that said boyfriend is an amazing photographer.  Amazing.  Look at this thing on the left: that's the double trapeze; it has never looked so glamorous in its life, nor shall it ever again.  Enjoy your moment in the spotlight, little trapeze.

A few nights back, he swung by Circus Center with his camera while I was tranining and worked his photographic magic.  I would like to preface the photos with several observations:

1) The light in the gym is terrible.  I don't know anything about photography and even I knew this.
2) Alexander was way, way across the gym.  I realize that they have "lenses" to deal with this sort of problem, but I was still terribly impressed that managed to get anything from over in the bleachers.

And now, here is what I (and my fabulous new trapeze hat) look like when I'm training:

serenity

pullover

Jen twist

stag split

And finally--because I was trying awfully hard to impress the boy--the most fantastic toe hang of my life:

hot damn I can finally do these things

Many many thanks to Alexander for coming out and enduring the uncomfortable bleachers at Circus Center!  Now, at last, I have some pictures that I can show people when my explanations ("it's like a big spinning triangle!") fail miserably.  In hindsight, I do wish I had, you know, dressed up a little for the occasion, but the pictures accurately capture the disheveledness and "yes, everything I wear is black"-ness of a trapeze artist in the field.

use your imagination (Update: now with music!)

I haven't been planning on doing the Showcase this year, though not for any particular reason.  I kind of feel like, having done it last year, I should give someone else a chance, though I would be surprised (but pleasantly surprised!) if there were any other single-point trapeze artists secretly preparing a piece for the show.  That's probably not the case, though, and Marina observed during our last lesson that I have put together a good chunk of choreography, and ought to audition again.

In previous years, the Showcase takes place in June, and the auditions go on during mid-March--like, last week--but this year the Showcase is being moved back to August.  This is probably a major relief for the Circus Center staff (who otherwise have two large productions running back-to-back in June) and it gives everybody some extra time to prepare.  Personally I still need to figure out music, costuming, and choreography--basically everything but the sequence of skills.

And that I have.  For your viewing pleasure, I have hacked together a rough, rough draft of what this act might eventually look like.  The major complication is that I'll have someone pulling the trapeze up and down.  This is seriously cool, but it kind of cramps your style when you don't have someone to do the hoisting, as was the case when I was filming.  (Where are my minions when I need them?)

So, with profuse apologies to the sensibilities of anyone who knows anything about video editing (hi, Alexander!), here is the very rough first draft of my act:

New Act--March 2010
Uploaded by cjuliafly. - Explore more family videos.

now with sound!

You have to use your imagination a bit, but that's what the bones of it look like.

For the music, this is actually a little long: I'd like for it to fit within the first two and a half minutes (from that first little intro to the place where it's repeated).  I think shorter will be fine--Showcase pieces are supposed to be pretty short--but I will have to consolidate some of my choreography.  It will be worth it, though, because as soon as I started thinking about doing a piece to this music I had A Vision.  Behold:

it's hat!

I've seen trapeze acts with hats, and some of them are friggin amazing: what I have not seen much of is an act where the hat is used as a kind of prop, punctuation to the choreography.  There might be a reason for this--i.e., hats fall off when you're spinning upside down (it's not unthinkable)--but I'm going to run the idea by Marina next week and see what she thinks.  It would certainly be a challenge, anyway.  I hope the Showcase is ready for this.

a busy hour

I had my first lesson with Marina last week; by our joint calculations, it was the first time we had worked together since August of last year.  That was not even this decade.  Yikes.

Obviously, there was much to discuss.  Here are some of the things we did:

-She convinced me that I do not need to be able to do an obscene number of hip circles: more than two, she pointed out, and people will start to get bored.  This is all very good, because I can actually DO two hip circles, while previous goals (six, twelve) have drifted back out of sight and cause terrible bruising.
-She showed me a nifty spin you can do with one foot on the bar.  
-I almost did a pinwheel.  (Modeled by the amazing Cameron at 2:29 in this video.  The entire video is smashing, actually.)
-I tried to do back hip circles again (which are the same as hip circles, only backwards and with your hands on the bar) and discovered that I still fall off before I even get started.  So I am not faster than gravity.  YET. 
-We talked about how it might be cool to pull me up off the ground while I'm spinning (mostly so that I can do both low-to-the-ground skills and ones that need slightly more clearance), an idea which I find deeply seductive, because there is nothing quite so Queen of the Circus as being lifted effortlessly (for me) off the ground. 
-She showed me another cool spin you can do with your foot on the bar. 
-I didn't even come close to doing a neck hang
-Ditto heel-hang. 
-Marina reminded me that you can do horse rolls on the trapeze, even though I had convinced myself that this was only a hoop skill.
-We  made up a thing:

new thing
Uploaded by cjuliafly. - Family events, birthdays and parenting videos.

the latest thing

I say "made up" in the sense of "we found it accidentally while trying to do something completely different."  I would be staggered if it hasn't already been made up by lots of other people already, because it's kind of nifty.  I feel like skills up in the ropes are a place where my trapeze education runs a little thin, so I'm glad to add this to my repertoire, but I haven't quite figured out the getting-out part.  I cut the video right before it got way awkward; I'm sure there's a way to get out of that final stomach-to-the-bar position without scraping the skin off your arm (or, as I like to call it, "exfoliating") but I am yet to find it.  Also, I don't know how the amazing Marsha does all of these skills with your leg all wrapped around the rope, because that exfoliates the heck out of your feet.

And I suspect that was not even half of what we did, because I have already forgotten everything that I didn't write down.  (Thankfully, Marina also makes notes.)

It was a busy hour.  And I get to do it again next week!

tied up in knots

One of the things about aerial silk that gives me trouble is all of the wrapping.  On trapeze, you can only get so tangled.  But to get into any skill on silk, it seems to me, you have to tie a bunch of knots--all of which are similar but actually completely different--around yourself.  Many times, someone has shown me something on silk which is super awesome but had, like, a ten-step process to get into it.  This is no problem for people who know what they're doing: for one thing, they make these transitions look natural and graceful (or unnoticeable); they also seem to be able to keep all the wraps straight in their heads, something I am finding impossible.  If I were to get into a ten-step skill of any time, I would need a manual.  I'm keeping notes from class, but the fact is that three quarters of my brain is occupied by Things That I Will Never Use Again, such as 11th grade calculus and the complete libretto of every Disney animated flick made before 1997.  (My rendition of The Little Mermaid, executed with My Little Ponies, was staggering.)

But I digress.

In case that wasn't confusing enough, silks is plagued by conflicting terminology, just like trapeze.  My silk class just swapped teachers, meaning that we get to work with the lovely Marina again--very exciting.  But no two aerialists have the same vocabulary, so we inevitably had a few moments of translation and puzzlement as Marina demonstrated something that we thought we had learned--I mean, we described it to her...badly--but which was actually something similar-but-completely-different.  There's no way to get around the fact that everyone uses different names for everything, and that most of the names are ridiculously non-descriptive.  Case in point: last week we learned the "flippy."  Flippy?  Seriously, you guys, they're all flippy.

But we have solutions!  I said I needed a manual, right?  Such a manual exists.  Clearly I am not the only person who sees the need for step-by-step instructions for even the less-complicated wraps and drops.  And he has pictures!  Not only does this mean I can tell you guys what I'm doing in class, but I won't have to draw confusing stick figures!  The world is a wonderful place.

So, may I present: the one and a half dive, also known as the "flippy."  Go look at the pictures and then come back.  I'll wait.

Doo do doot doo do-do-do...

You're back?  Great.  It's a cool little drop!  The version that we learned is slightly different at the end: we were told to grab the pole (i.e., the part of the fabric with tension on it) instead of the tail (the slack end of the fabric--see?  terminology all over the place).  This adds an element of excitement, since once you let go, you have to reach for the pole almost immediately: it will be in your face in no time.

 What the pictures don't tell you is that there is something mildly unsettling about hanging out in that starting position.  When one has an opportunity to look at the ground--which seems waaaaay far away--one's brain might break off from humming "A Whole New World" to begin asking if this is a good idea.  Because, like, the ground is all the way down there.

However, I should add that we were doing this as close to the ground as we could without hitting the mat, and that if you fail to grab the pole, the silk cinches around your knee and prevents you from plummeting to your doom.  (Or, as the case may be, to the mat...which is three inches away.)  When I say "unsettling" I mean "unsettling to a person whose trapeze is never more than five and a half feet off the ground."  My mind is being expanded in all kinds of ways.

Here's something else that's good: Marina being back means that I have a trapeze teacher again.

HOORAY!

[confetti and balloons drop from the ceiling]

We've scheduled our first private of the New Year on Thursday.  Actually, it's my first private--my first trapeze instruction of any kind--since September or October, I think.  I feel as though I should try to account for myself and put together a little sequence for Marina--all the stuff that I've figured out/made up over the past five-ish months.  If I do, I will post a video here.  After all, you too might be wondering what I've been doing on trapeze for five months; I certainly am.

and now for something completely different

Oh, hello.  And happy New Year!  I've been in Texas for the past few weeks, where, among other things, I ate a lot of good food, saw all of my family this side of the Atlantic, went hiking, and played/battled with my mom's Wii Fit.  Turns out that I am really terrible at fake skiing.

I made a couple of trips up to Austin (though not as many as I'd like), and got to hang out at the studio of Blue Lapis Light, Austin's own aerial dance company.  Nicole was kind enough to dig out a trapeze and hang it up: I've never before played on a trapeze that has a bar which goes past the ropes (like so) (that, by the way, is one of the first images I've seen of a duo on single-point.  I would be very interested to see that act).  I didn't have enough time to figure out exactly what the ends of the bar would be used for in terms of skills (extra-wide toe hang?) but I did have to remind myself that they were there when I was moving around.  Those things hurt when they stick you in the back.

silks at its finest

Mostly, though, Blue Lapis Light's studio is rigged for silks--also known as fabric or tissu.  Shown at left is not me but is, I would argue, one of the most famous silks acts and perhaps one of the most famous circus acts, aerial contortion in silk from Cirque du Soleil's Quidam.  If you haven't seen it, you really ought to.  Incidentally, this is the act (and the show) (...and the performance company) which sparked my interest in circus in the first place.

My friend (and fantastic aerialist) Jason talked me into a couple of skills on silks.  My fingers cramped up like whoa, but it was, on the whole, about 100% less horrifying and painful (for me and, I'm sure, for Jason) than the last time I was on fabric about a year ago.

So, when I got back to San Francisco and discovered that my hoop class had been canceled, and the static class that worked with my schedule was full, I found myself signing up for aerial silk.  I did so with a little enthusiasm--playing at Blue Lapis Light was fun!--but also with some trepidation.  The last time I actually took a silks class was exactly two years ago, during my first semester at Circus Center.  (Let's take a moment to contemplate that I have been at Circus Center for two years.  Wow.)  It was, in fact, my very first class at Circus Center, and I can still readily conjure up the extreme nervousness that I brought with me. 

I had been told before beginning at Circus Center that silks was more difficult to jump into as a total beginner than some other aerial skills because right off the bat you have to be able to climb something soft, bunchy, and stretchy.  I feel like this is true: climbing requires both strength and coordination, two qualities which I dramatically lacked two years ago.  I managed to tweak my shoulder during the first few weeks and decided quickly that I was going to have to find something else to specialize in.

Happily, many things have changed in the past two years.  For one thing, I know how to climb.  I don't like climbing--in fact, I'm not overwhelmingly fond of being more than twenty feet off the ground, but that is for another post--but I can do it without exhausting and/or injuring myself.  I can also hold myself on fabric while I figure out what I'm supposed to be doing with the rest of my body, which is also a valuable skill on silks.  By simple irtue of having some upper-body strength, I find this so much more painless than it was two years ago.

I think I've mentioned before that hanging out at Circus Center will skew your self-perception in ways you never thought possible--people who tell me I'm strong or flexible or graceful are likely to hear me say "oh, you should see the people I hang out with," which is true, but the people I hang out with are not exactly (no offense, guys) normal.  So it was a pleasant surprise to discover that I am strong enough to monkey around on silks without difficulty.  It was sort of a way for me to see what people now and then tell me: I am pretty strong, and the strength of the people around me has no bearing on that whatsoever.

I would enjoy telling you what we did in class, but silks is even more description-defying than trapeze, if you can believe it.  I am going to try to come up with some video, especially when we start doing super interesting things.  I will say for Veronica, the instructor, that she managed to get us doing a drop in the second class (the first, for me, since I missed the first week) of the semester: we did something that she called a frog drop (but I'm sure it has six or seven other names).  It was not particularly scary since when you "land" at the end of the drop, the fabric is securely cinched around your leg and also held in one hand; we also started no more than ten feet off the ground.  However, any kind of drop is inherently scary, and I am always pleased when I ignore/drown out the voice in my head that vigorously objects to drops.  (It's the same voice that thinks toe hangs are a terrible idea.)  I suspect that we have bigger, cooler, and scarier drops ahead of us.

But of course the real litmus test of any circus class is how sore you are the next day.  And I am rather sore, especially from the conditioning which Veronica oh-so-casually tossed into the last ten minutes of class.  (One word: jumping.  No one will accuse me of gracefulness if they see me trying to do jumping exercises or anything which requires foot coordination.)  My calves are displeased; even my biceps are a little stunned from all the climbing.  All in all, it's not a bad way to start off my semester--or, for that matter, my year.

Oh! A show!

Oh!  I am kind of behind the times, but I have a show coming up this Saturday.

Yeah, like this Saturday.  Like, I'm not on top of things right now.

Open House time!

It all goes down on Saturday, December 19th, over at Ye Circus Center in San Francisco.

Fun stuff begins at 10am--face painting, balloon animals, circus workshops and lots and lots of kid activities.  Most of it is free.  The flying trapeze net will be up: last year they had a sweet $5-per-swing deal going on, and I think something similar is happening this year.

Then the net comes down and the free show starts at 2:15 (runs until 3:00).  It'll be short and sweet, and I got excited just looking at the roster.  Lots of great acts!  ...And also me!

There is also a not-free show that night at 7:30, courtesy of the Professional Program and the Clown Conservatory.  These shows are generally amazing.  Tickets may be purchased here.

If you are in San Francisco or the Bay Area or the Pacific Time Zone, you should come.  What are you doing on Saturday?  If your answer doesn't include "balloon animals" you are obviously not going to have as much fun there as you'll have here.  Balloon animals.

I am doing the same old act with a few new skills; it's a bit longer than it was in the Showcase back in June.  (In fact, to my chagrin, it appears to be the longest act of all those in the afternoon show.  Oops!  Sorry guys, didn't mean to hog the spotlight.)  I also have a functional, does-not-have-holes-in-it (currently) costume.  My left foot does have a hole in it from too many toe hangs, but I have a whole, er, six days for that to clear up.

Yeah... Six days.  How about that.

See you there!