Week 4

Well, week 4 has mostly been uneventful in the bigger picture, but a very useful week.
The weather here has been nothing good, so morale is slightly low at Camp Necca.
On Monday, I had ballet again, but this time with Deena, and I found it so much more accessible.
She explained what the terms meant, and why they are called that, and explained more about the body and its catalysts for all the ballet movements.
According to Deena: EVERYTHING IS AN AB EXERCISE!
We also had conditioning and stretching with Jamie as usual. We learned the GIRLY ABS exercise

(quick backstory: Elsie and Serenity were once asked to teach a class somewhere and it was a bunch of buff gym body guys, and when they heard that Elsie and Serenity were gonna give them an ab workout, someone mentioned "blah blah they'll do girly abs"...Els and Seren proceeded to rip those guys to shreds with this ab workout.)

Let me tell you, those abs were a killer, and I'm pretty sure we didn't do it for the full time it was supposed to be done (ran out of class time), so i am worried :)

Monday night's Lyra/Sling class was a whole bunch of tricks that my shoulders don't like doing. Since i'm really broad shouldered, certain moves where you have to squeeze your shoulder blades together are not very doable by me. Since I've been on hoops for so long, I've figured out my own way of doing tricks that still look like the trick just have adaptations to accommodate my body (which is what many performers do), but since i'm in class, we're doing the technically accurate way, so it was difficult.

Tuesday was a non morning class day, so Christi and I went to the gym after Member's Only Training Time (btw, Member's Only Training time is time for just people in Intensive and Protrack (and a very select few others) to train in the school, it is a block of time almost every day). We did our cardio, and worked on hoop stuff and some trapeze strength work.
Tuesday night, however, I had more advanced aerial fabric with Elsie. I tell you, that woman knows how to KICK MY ASS! But in such a good way. We worked on some really cerebral body connected fabric tricks, which take a lot of work both physically and mentally to do perfectly. Elsie said I was doing a fairly good job at the windmill (instead of the drops where you just let go, spin while plummeting and then catch yourself, the windmill is a CONTROLLED roll down the fabrics, where you actually create the spin as you descend). She gave me some really good feedback, and I quickly realized that Elsie knows exactly how to teach ME, as a specific individual. She seems to understand how my mind works to understand tricks (probably one of the many reasons why her and Serenity are known as some of the best aerial teachers in the world). We also learned a climb Elsie by accident invented, which inadvertently cleaned up my messy bicycle climb (a hard climb for me because of my hip flexers, but somehow her climb made it easier, even though it's a harder climb...i love when that happens). The result of the fabric class was that I felt gross, and sweaty and exhausted, but I also felt severely accomplished, and that I had made a lot of progress.
Wednesday, we had Jamie conditioning class in the morning (accompanied by my playlist I created for the occasion). We did more of the circuit training list created by FEDEC (fedec.eu if you're interested) which is the federation of circus schools of Europe. They have manuals on everything, including a list of 20 exercises that if done, work all the muscles you need to do circus (kind of weird to think that they can make such a concise list). I decided to take Member's Only off for the day, to give myself a day of little aerial. I ended up working with Shannon on her meathooks for a few minutes, and then juggling with Cooper, but nothing crazy.
At 2:30, Christi and I had our shared private lesson in Gyrotonics by Deena. It was nothing like what I expected, but it felt really hard and really good at various times, sometimes at the same time :) Deena said that my hip flexers are sooo locked that my legs can't access my abs. Which is the problem that occurs with my pike stretch on my right leg, and splits with my right leg...basically I HATE MY RIGHT LEG.
after the Gyro private, we had some time, so I went home and made linner (lunch/dinner) before Inversions class. I had a really frustrating Inversions class this week. I'm having a really hard time realizing that though I could hold a handstand for a good while, it wasn't proper form, and so now I'm holding less of a handstand because i'm doing it correctly. Meh. It will get better, I'm just being stupid and frustrated.
Anyway, it is Thursday, I am off to Member's only in a little while.
Until next time.