All out of hoop

My second hoop course this year finished last night.  I feel like I'm getting somewhere now.   It will be a while before I'm as comfortable on it as the trapeze though.  I'm still working out the logistics of the space.

Here's my latest routine which was our end of course exercise - incorporating the stuff we worked on in March:

Hoop possibilities

I've just finished my first 6-week course in Hoop and we finished with a little presentation that was lots of fun.

Flying Fantastic 6 week hoop course - The results (1) from Flying Fantastic on Vimeo.

I'm the one on the right.

This was a beginners course in Hoop and while my trapeze background made the physical movements fairly easy, I enjoyed the slow pace which allowed me time to focus on doing things properly and cleanly. I'm always fighting my instincts to be slap-dash so I feel like I've been starting from scratch for the last 12 months: relearning how to do everything with control and elegance. It was great to learn from Clare Midgely and when I wasn't learning moves, I was watching how she taught the classes. I still have a lot to learn.

Next week I start a 4-week course in Hoop with the lovely Rose Donnelly at MAH. This is likely to be faster paced - teaching to MAH students experienced in a range of aerial skills. I'm excited about developing my hoop skills further and hopefully ending up with the basis of a routine I can work on.

This is leaving me feeling very conflicted. I feel like I'm betraying my static trapeze and turning my back on years of tricks and experience. This is stupid, and I know both can co-exist. Hoop for crowd-pleasing, easier-to-rig, more accessible work. Trapeze for pushing myself to put more difficult tricks into routines and choreograph to please myself.

Injury time

I've been taking hoop classes in addition to my trapeze classes this year and I love getting to know a new piece of apparatus.  Perhaps a bit too much.

Last week, before my trapeze class started, I got a hoop out and started to play around during my warmup time.  I had done a very quick warmup so that I'd have time.  This was big mistake number 1.  Mistake number 2 was deciding, after having had only 2-3 hoop classes, to play around and improvise.  I stupidly flung my head back and pulled something.  It was ok, as long as I only looked down or straight ahead.  I spent the rest of my trapeze class tentatively exploring my range of motion and planning my recovery (heatpacks, pain killers, no "bed rest").  I've hurt my neck before so knowing what to do was reassuring.

Did you know how much you use the muscles in your neck?  Every time you move around in bed, your neck muscles help your head turn or just get comfy.  I didn't really sleep well for the first couple of nights after my injury.  Eating in restaurants is difficult.  The staff probably thought I was being rude when I didn't turn my head to look at them.  Also, it's tricky to speak to a group of people when you can't easily turn to see them.

I don't know how people with chronic pain get by.  I knew that if I sensibly dealt with my injury, the effects would be short term.  The constant pain was still frustrating and annoying though.  I wanted to rest but sitting still is the opposite of what my neck needs.

Five days after the trapeze class, I had my next hoop class and I felt that I'd gained enough range of movement to be able to go.  They have a great led warmup at Flying Fantastic so I knew I'd be properly warmed up for the class. (I must remember to do that same warmup for trapeze class!)  I made sure that the class co-ordinator and class teacher knew about my injury.  For each move we did on the hoop, I evaluated whether I should do it or sit it out.  Everything was being clearly explained and demonstrated so I was confident with what I was safe to do.  I ended up with 2 new hoop moves and had great fun in the class.

Lessons learned:

1. Always do a proper warmup before touching the kit
2. Don't play or experiment until you really know what you're doing and can be safe.
3. I don't like having a sore neck.  I'm crossing 'neck hang' off my wishlist.

Christmas revisited

Finally got around to putting my Christmas performance online:

The 'pulling on jeans' move

A couple of weeks ago I had the interesting situation of being one of only two people in my trapeze class.  It's so rare to get so much individual attention so I didn't let the opportunity slip.  I was having trouble with something, I forget what, and asked for help.  What ensued was a 20 minute masterclass on exactly which abdominal muscles I should be using, how to locate them, how to practice activating them.  It was a revelation to me.  I'd been relying on muscles too high up and there's a limit to what you can do that way.
The turning point was when I was told to imagine sucking in to pull on jeans.  We've all been there and I love the image of that.  Suddenly it all makes sense.
Since that class, I've been using random moments like walking down the street to work those new muscles. I never want to forget them.
It seems to be paying off.  In last week's class, we were going through the usual conditioning and I realised that I should stop cheating 'hocks half turn' and see if my newly found muscles will help with it.  To put this into perspective, this is a move which has always seemed to involve levitation.  How is it possible for your body to hang in mid-air like that?  Amanda broke it down for us and helped us spot each other trying it. I activated my 'jeans' muscles and gave it a few goes.  I was getting close...
Then near the end of the class I decided to try it again and bam!, I got it! I kicked my legs with glee once I was through.
I don't really know what this all means yet.  It's such a fundamental aspect of aerial work - I feel like I have to relearn everything, this time doing it the technically correct way.  Hopefully it'll help me cross off a couple of the moves on my homework list too.

Unexpected progress

I've spent years remembering old trapeze classes, thinking about all the amazing moves my classmates learned while I floundered.  My new-found strength has given me the confidence to try and tackle all those moves and this week in class I was putting in work for some of the new moves on my list: 'off at the back', skinning the cat to one arm hang, plus little attempts at toe hang, heel hang and mill circles for a laugh.

My teacher saw me doing very little as I tried to get my confidence together to try 'off at the back'.  She broke it down for me, explained what my body should be doing and then blew me away with a demonstration that had such control and clarity of movement.  Suddenly I could see a way of doing it without smashing my face in or pulling my arms out of their sockets.  Love her!

Starting on a low bar, I gave it a try following her tips and advice.  It worked first time!  Of course this move requires a fairly high bar so I wasn't finished yet.  I moved to a medium height bar and tried again.  Success!  So  I moved to the bar that was the right height for this and did up and over, scary pause and mental preparation, then off at the back.  Wheeeeeee!

I felt like I needed to throw a party to celebrate.  I mean, it's no perfect and beautiful move right now, but technically I know I have the ability to do it.  Yay!  Think of it like setting a new personal best at something you've struggled to progress in for years.

Revised homework list: 

Category 1 - Bring it on (stuff I can probably do with teaching and practice)

• Hocks on the rope
• Knee balance to death roll
• Backward roll to ankles
• Skinning the cat to one arm hang
• Rotation out of double nappies
• Crucifix to up and over

Category 2 - I wish (stuff I've tried before and never been able to do)

• Toe hang
• Heel hang
• Mill circles
• Knee leanout to ankles

Category 3 - Yeah right  (stuff that looks really hard and probably out of my league)

• Neck hang 
• Crucifix beat to hocks
• Armpits spin (don't know the actual name)

"Crucifix to up and over", you've just been promoted!

Breaking it down

Last night's class was great fun as always. In order to make progress on our ambitions, we were encouraged to think about what to work on in order to be able to achieve that goal.
I've decided to look at them one at a time for the moment.  First up: skinning the cat to one arm hang.  I can sort of do this already, in a messy scary did-you-fall-off? looking move. No control. No confidence. So I need to tackle this from both ends of the move.
Skinning the cat is when you are in pike under the bar and you rotate yourself backwards so that your feet are pointing to the floor and your body follows. The move isn't too hard to get into but once there, you can get stuck.  You need really strong core muscles and strong arms to pull your body back to pike.  So training usually involves rotating to your limit and back, or having a partner help you lift yourself back some of the way.  I need to be doing both of these training techniques in order to improve.  If I can't pull myself out, even a little, I don't have enough control.
Then we have one arm hangs.  Exactly what you might expect: hanging from a bar using only one arm, well, hand.  The work for this will be practice practice practice to increase my endurance. On the trapeze and on my pull up bar at home.  Keeping correct body position, keeping shoulders down, for an ever increasing number of seconds on each attempt. In fact, my pull up bar might be my secret weapon for this move.  Like with the pull ups I conquered last year, regular (maybe even daily) practice can really show fast results.

In other news, the DVD for the Christmas show will be out soon.  So excited to see it - I loved working on it with everyone and I'm curious to see how it all looked.  I've never been in a proper aerial show before.

Homework

Last week's class ended with a suggestion to write down ambitions for the next few months.  On the train home, I started jotting down the list that had been swirling in my head.

Category 1 - Bring it on (stuff I can probably do with teaching and practice)

• 'Off at the back' - a progression from Up and overs
• Hocks on the rope
• Knee balance to death roll
• Backward roll to ankles
• Skinning the cat to one arm hang
• Rotation out of double nappies

Category 2 - I wish (stuff I've tried before and never been able to do)

• Toe hang
• Heel hang
• Mill circles
• Knee leanout to ankles
• Crucifix to up and over

Category 3 - Yeah right  (stuff that looks really hard and probably out of my league)

• Neck hang 
• Crucifix beat to hocks
• Armpits spin (don't know the actual name)

So I want to have learned Category 1 moves in the next six months.

I want to have given the Category 2 moves a good try for 4-6 weeks to see if I can get anywhere.

If I nail any of the Category 2 moves, I'm bumping a Category 3 move up for a try.

The joy of the learning to fly

Tomorrow I am back in my trapeze class after a painfully long break for Christmas and New Year.  I am excited beyond words.  My body is twitching, literally.  I am itching to commence battle with gravity once again. 
My tools are many layered. 

Strong hands, arms and shoulders give me the courage to be high in the trapeze and ropes.  'Core' strength helps me haul my body and legs into the right place. 
Practice and conditioning moves help my body know what to do: muscle memory is a joy once it kicks in.
Determination keeps me going when I feel weak and like a failure.  I must believe in myself. 

Learning new moves is my top priority for the new year and I can't wait to crack the new puzzles that are ahead of me.  The combination of physics, body dynamics, mental discipline and visualization are a complicated mix to get right.  Sometimes a memory or idea can be all it takes to go from failure to success.  Sometimes it's something much more fundamental: being stronger, or being lighter.  Though at the back if my mind I know that there's only one thing in the way of some of my precious new moves: fear.  A very sensible fear of smacking my face with a heavy metal bar.  Or a fear of falling from a great height and being too shaken to go back up.  I'm frustrated by how long it takes to learn these scary moves in a controlled careful manner - but to go faster is too great a risk.

What keeps me going, in a wonderful modern world, is inspiration garnered from fellow aerialists.  Once limited to the trapeze studio or occasional visit to a show, the Internet and particularly YouTube opens up a feast of artists varying in style, technical ability and performance. Watching them helps me understand what kind of aerialist I want to be, what kind of tricks I long to master, what videos I want to create and upload.

Of course, all of this is nothing without my most valuable assets: my amazing and talented teachers.  Strong, elegant, highly skilled, totally inspirational.  Always pushing me further, telling me off, keeping it difficult and wanting me to always do more.  They are in my head.  "Point your feet". "Tummy in". "Shoulders back". "Arms". "LEGS!"

I will never reach perfection.  There will always be something to strive for.  Something new to set my sights on.  And for me, that pursuit is the joy of the aerial arts. 

Performing...playing.

Today someone I have huge respect for called me an aerialist. That was incredibly cool.

I attended a Creating Circus intensive week at MAH in August and ended up with a reasonable semblence of a routine. So now I'm being faced with the scariest of all things: opportunities to achieve my goals and dreams. The only thing stopping me now is me.

I have a Christmas Show at my aerial school that I'm planning to perform at AND there are two other shows that may give me the opportunity to perform this year. The first one is a charity show on 8th October and there's going to be a variety of acts performing: pole dancing, street dance, fire breathing and some aerial. Looking at the lineup, it scares me that it's just going to be little old me on that trapeze for over 3 mins. It would be nice to have an ensemble to hide in. This is what I wanted though - the chance to perform.

While I work on my goals, I'm trying ever so hard to avoid being a pushy mother as I introduce my girls to the world of circus arts. My 2 year old had her first ever circus class today and while she loved all the floor exercises, I think she was even more keen on the aerial. At the end of class, I was a bit cheeky and went into catchers on a reasonably high trapeze so that I could swing her in some fledgling beats. The grin on her face afterwards was fantastic. Tomorrow I get to do it all over again with my other (5 year old) daughter in her class :)

Starting a routine

I've been in a bit of a funk recently so this is when I get slightly obsessive about my trapeze routines. Recently we've focussed on skills training in class but now that we have some lovely sequences put together, I'm inspired to work on a routine again.
This is where my OCD kicks in: choosing music.  I am at a slight disadvantage in that I have no brief, no client, no show to aim for.  The music shapes what kind of routine I build but I don't know what routine might get me closer to my goal of a paying trapeze gig.
So first stop You Tube for ideas and inspiration. I have 3 favourites at the moment:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tyhv2F22GI
Liza Rose in 'Studio: Morning'
A modern dance trapeze piece with beautiful music. I've bought the track and find myself listening to it often. This is what I aspire to: cool moves seamlessly merged into movement around the bar and ropes.
2. (You Tube won't give me the link on my mobile)
Sofia Tsola trapeze act
Seamless beautiful artistic trapeze where every movement is precise and controlled.
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wouFh6H5euE
Cameron McHenry
Fun exciting burlesque-style routine with upbeat music. 

So I'm drawn to 2 styles.  The fun burlesque style is more likely to work in gigs and events in London that I could potentially perform at.  After searching for music in that style, I have a track I could use.
The more fluid modern dance style is what I really want to perfect but I don't have any dance training or copious amounts of experimentation time to help me work out the minute detail in such a routine. It would take months.  I've continued to ponder it anyway and have thought hard about what would make a routine like that work for me.  The music is key and I've eventually decided that it has to be music that moves me, something that has meaning for me rather than just choosing a track with a beat that is easy to choreograph to.  There are 2 Craig Armstrong tracks currently fighting it out to win my heart.

So now I have to decide: more  commercial routine or more self indulgent dance piece? Ideally I could work on both but I have very limited time and would like to have at least one finished piece in the next few months.  Any aerialists out there with words of advice?

A month of healthy living

It feels like only yesterday that I made the firm decision to be healthier. I'm still doing EA Sports Active 2 (EASA2), though there was a week of feeling under the weather that made me drop 4 workouts. By the end of that week I wasn't feeling brilliant but I did a workout anyway and found that it actually helped me get my oomph back.

I've only been using stairs at work, except for one last minute meeting on the fifth floor that I didn't have time to walk to. I've got a fruit bowl on my desk that I fill at the start of the week with enough fruit for 3 portions of my 5 a day for the week. I've reduced my portion sizes - something that I realised I should do after reading Kate Driskell's blog. I've started buying tasty salad (Watercress, Rocket, Baby Spinach) for adding to pasta and sandwiches. I even brought my own lunch in to work once this week. That's the first time I've ever done that in the last 16 years!

After this week's trapeze class, I felt really motivated to continue to improving and I ordered New York City Ballet workout DVDs when I got home. I'm going to be working on kick ass extension in my legs to improve my hanging beats. The ballet will help with my strength and posture for a lot of my trapeze work and the kids might join in too.

I probably shouldn't bother noticing but there's a weekly 'weigh-in' with EASA2 and it cheers me up when I notice a small steady drop in my weight each week. It would be so nice to be under that overweight BMI line for a change. Less of me to haul around the trapeze would be great too. I'm aiming for a healthy weight (76kg) by Easter and if I do really well and get there much sooner, I'll change my goal to be my 'ideal weight' (69kg) - though it would probably blow my mind to achieve that.

Someone hauled out a fully loaded biscuit tin earlier today. Hob Nobs and Rich Tea just aren't worth it! I'd rather have a clementine than waste a workout burning calories I got from a biscuit. It amazes me how many calories are in food compared to how few calories I burn with a good workout.

New Year me

I'm not one for New Year's resolutions. January 1st is just another day to me and I don't see what all the fuss is about. I do, however, have post-Christmas plans to get fitter and healthier. All that chocolate and excess needs to be kept to a short holiday period or it'll just take over.

I want to improve my aerial skills and that means getting stronger and fitter. I only really have time for one weekday session at MAH so I've been looking for a solution for additional training and exercise that fits in with my time constraints. There are lots of possibilities...

Cycling to work - I enjoy it but it takes too long when you factor in changing, showering, locking bike up etc. Also, I don't like cycling in the dark and it's genuinely too cold at the moment. When daylight returns in mid-March, I'll look into this option again.

Lunch-time gym sessions - I can join a gym at work for £19 a month and it has a machine that would let me work on chin-ups etc. I doubt I'd go though. I kinda hate gyms. I usually don't have a lunch break because getting the kids to school and nursery and picking them up eats into my time too much for me to have the luxury of a full one hour lunch break. In an ideal world, the gym would be my easy option but realistically I'd be one of those gym members who pays and never goes. I'd rather save my money.

Gym after work - I looked around for gyms that I could go to once the kids are in bed and was shocked by the lack of reasonable options. The average cost is about £50 a month and they tend to shut by about 10pm. This costed itself out of the running.

Home exercise - I considered this to be a non-starter because I don't enjoy exercise DVDs or exercising while watching TV. Then I bought hubby EA Sports Active 2 for the PS3 for his birthday last week (he *did* really want it!) and we've started doing workouts while the kids are in bed. I'm amazed at how much I enjoy it. There's a heart rate monitor and the exercises in each workout so far have been varied enough to keep me interested. Last night focussed on upper body strength - YAY! I plan to do 4 workouts a week and there's enough trophies and goals and online tracking to maintain my enthusiasm. My 9 week plan ends in March, which seems a long way off, but I'm curious to see what results I can achieve in that time so I hope I stick with it.

My other endeavours in my fitness kick are "leaving the building at lunchtime" and "using the stairs". I've started using Tescos for my lunches so that saves money and varies my diet to be healthier. I've also stopped using the lifts at work. The furthest I've gone so far is to the third floor. Woe betide anyone who books a meeting with me on the top floor this week!

Tonight is my static class night and I'm hoping that there's some vague strength and fitness improvements since last week. I should probably start doing chin up challenges in class to gauge my progress. The day I can do an unassisted chin up from a fully extended hang will be an awesome day in my life. Hmmm, I've ended up with strange goals in life.

Climbing back up that rope

I first started on the static trapeze in 1999. My then yoga teacher handed out leaflets in her yoga class advertising some absolute beginners static trapeze lessons in Glasgow and I was excited and intrigued. After my first lesson in an amazing large space - a church hall with vaulted ceilings, 2-3 trapezes and a couple of ropes - I was hooked.

Static is the usual entry point into aerial circus. You start off there and often progress to rope/corde lisse, hoop/cerceau, silks, swinging trapeze, flying trapeze and a whole host of cool stuff. You are less likely to kill yourself when you don't know what you are doing and have limited upper body strength if you are on a static trapeze bar.

When I moved to London in 2000, my priorities were find place to stay and get place on static trapeze class. I was fortunate to cover both of these off by the time my new job started. After over 5 years training weekly with the fabulous Lorraine and a varying classroom/studio of cool and strong people, I was at the peak of my physical fitness and trapeze abilities but had come to the point in life where motherhood called. I took a year off for my pregnancy, then managed a year's training before I was off again for two years during and after my second baby. Aerial had to take a back seat to my growing family.

This year I've been slowing getting back into it. After a haphazard start, I finally found an amazing space to train in - My Aerial Home. Convenient, friendly, relatively cheap, lots of rigged trapezes and ropes. I've been training there for a few months now and love it to bits. It's going to take a long time for my skills to fully return but I love being able to head there on Monday practice nights and go through my conditioning and then work on whatever I like.

For the last few weeks, I've been playing about with a small sequence of moves for a 'Trapeze Tag' section of a performance we're putting on for Bromley Arts Council Fete. It's exciting and terrifying to think that I'm going to be up on a trapeze in front of random strangers. It might even be outdoors! I've only ever performed to invited family and friends at Circus Space 'aerial' days. The fact that I have this opportunity amazes me. I'm full of questions and concerns but I don't have the time to actually stress about any of it, which is handy. We've a full rehearsal this weekend and then the performance on the last Saturday of the month.

Update 2/9/2010 : At the rehearsal I found out that I either had to do a full routine or nothing at all because the rest of my 'Trapeze Tag' colleagues had failed to show. I decided to go for it and used all the tricks I could think of to make my short sequence last the length of the music. It worked well in rehearsal but when we got to the venue on the day, rigging restrictions meant I had to ditch my big finish (a hocks dismount). My routine went well but I finished with lots of music left and had to busk it a bit to the music end. I don't think anyone noticed. It was fun performing again and being outside doing it was a great laugh. However my kids decided that the bouncy castle was much better than all the boring trapeze.