Week 8

So this week has started with an assignment from Jamie:
the assignment is difficult, wonderful, challenging, open-ended, vague, and joyful.
It also is an assignment I have personally been waiting for.
The assignment from Jamie was,
TO PLAY
so, I've been waiting for creativity to add in to the mix for a while now.
Since I've been at NECCA, my strength has improved, my flexibility has improved, my technique has severely improved...but I didn't feel the thrill of using my creative mind. At this moment, there hadn't been any call to use that creativity. It was mostly just doing things to make me a better circus body, but not many activities stimulated my artist mind. I live for the thrill of setting out to create a new act, decide what tricks to put in it, how i want to move, is there a character, or is it a relationship to apparatus kind of piece (character minus a severe storyline), what interesting transitions can I make, how can I get into a certain pose in a new way, how can i get out of a pose in a new way. Can i change the effect of the pose?...etc my brain goes on and on.

So the big question is, how come my brain is at a dead halt?
During members only, i felt absolutely NO instinct to create, to question, to be confused.
I want to LOVE this week, but I don't know what I need to do to get my brain to calm down.
I think art of it has to do with the fact that all my teachers are absolutely amazing, and they have perfect technique and how to break from that technique, but right now I feel slightly like everything i do is under surveillance. Even when I'm just training in my own little world, it isn't unusual to hear someone shout out "point your foot" or "straighten that back leg", which is very fine when I'm working on the technique, but when I'm just playing and creating, I need to be able to be awkward, and hesitant, precarious. Cleaning all that up comes later, and I know I'm supposed to develop better habits, so I guess it's also a resistance to that edict.

I'm determined to create something this week, no matter how short or long, confusing, clear, dynamic, it is.
I want to project all my skills I've built here, and technique I've refined here into a tangible work.

So,
expect SOMETHING from me this week. I demand it.
I won't promise it will change my life or yours, but it will hopefully fulfill my week, and leave me with some sense of satisfaction from this week's assignment.

Jamie G D (that's grace duff, not god, even though you are quite heavenly), what is your take on the situation? do you have wise words?

WEEK 7 Part 2

So this week has ended now, and things are looking up.
Last week I was in a rut, I felt like skills were plateauing, strength wasn't increasing, flexibility DEFINITELY wasn't increasing...I was frustrated. BUT
this week came a long, and I have a feeling it was the week to get over the hump, and now upward movement will occur. This week I got back my elbow circles on hoop (and I think their form is nicer now), I'm still getting stronger and getting more reps out of strength activities at a time.

To end the week, I had a flexibility private lesson with Bill, which means A WHOLE LOT OF PAIN, but if you deal with it and just breath, a WHOLE LOT OF GAIN! Since before this program, my weakest stretch has been my pike stretch, where you sit or stand with your legs straight and together in front of you and reach for your toes. My hamstrings are so tight that I can reach my toes with the tips of my fingers on a good day, it's just excruciating for my legs to go any further. Before my private with Bill, standing, I couldn't even put my hands on the floor in front of my feet unless they were like at least 2 feet in front. By the end of my private with Bill, I could place my hands all the way on the floor DIRECTLY in front of my feet, and actually PUSH down on my hands (weight transfer such as prepping for handstands from that position, press ups and stuff).

Yesterday Bill said to stretch LIGHTLY (the day after Bill is apparently like the day after surgery), so I only stretched a little bit, and then I juggled with Tony (master juggler guy) who helped me with my club passing technique. After member's only training time, Christi, Katie and I went to...the HOLYOKE MALL! It's about 45 minutes away, but it's a mall, which is not something that could ever exist in or near Brattleboro. We went, and had a fun time. Katie and I bought a few select things, Christi...um she bought the mall.

Today, I have an interview at the Fireworks Restaurant, since I RE-followed up yesterday, and then Christina (a protrack student and very good friend of mine)-who is working there as a hostess- put in a good word for me with the boss, and now the boss seems to actually think she might hire me.
We'll see.

WEEK 7 Part 1

I know today is only Monday, and Week 7 has just begun, but I just had some thoughts to get out:

Today was a LONG day, we had 2 hours all together doing flexibility and trapeze conditioning with Jamie, then half of us broke off to go do dance (not my half) and my half stayed around to do theraband (those stretchy latexy bands that you pull on to work muscles) exercises with Jamie and some more abs, and stretching. So for my half of the group, it was 3 hours straight of muscle work, and improving flexibility.

My left split is pretty much on the floor, getting more comfortable with that as the days go by. My right split (damn you right quad muscle) is still iffy, but I'm persistent to opening up that leg (even if it means just getting an hour with Bill and tell him to just go to TOWN on it).

Apparently what I thought was my shoulders being inflexible, was actually just my shoulders being very flexible and my upper back not being flexible at all. Again, as I already know, all my back stretches just rely on my lower back (which is nicely bendy) to deal with all the bending.

My core strength is really increasing. My harder trapeze strengthening exercises are getting less hard and more possible :) I'm going to be filming a progress video sometime this week.

It was just a very long day. I also had Lyra and Sling class tonight.
It was ok, it was good for me strength wise, but today was ALL hoop stuff, and just review on sling, and I know all the hoop stuff we're doing, but it's good to make me have to do it with perfect form and stuff.

Biceps, rest tonight.

Week 6

This past week has been meh,
I was out of Brattleboro from LAST Friday afternoon till Wednesday morning for a family matter.
I missed Monday Intensive class, dance class, lyra/sling class, and fabric class.
BUT, I have already learned what I missed in lyra/sling, and I talked to the teacher of fabrics, I'll pick up the choreo in dance, and Intensives was stretching, which I did a lot of while I was gone.
I drove from Boston to Vermont at 630am so I could make my 9am class with Jamie on time on Wednesday.
Wednesday morning circuit was nice, but it wasn't as hectic and brutal as I wanted it to be.
Physical theater class was good. I witnessed the MOST INSANE YES GAME improv i'd ever witnessed in the history of watching improv games, or being in them for that matter.
In the scene, Adam was jumping on a trampoline with everyone else, he falls through a hole, he breaks his legs, they steal his wallet, take him to a hospital, fix his legs, leaves him on the floor, bury him, watch him crawl his way out of the earth, swam away from zombie adam, found Treasure Island, took as much gold from treasure island as possible, went to God to buy Adam's life back, got SHOT by Adam.
It was EPIC!

Anyway, I'm feeling stronger as the days go buy, and my skills are increasing in control. I don't feel like I've reached mastery of any new tricks, but my strength and endurance is definitely increasing, so obviously mastery will come soon after ( i hope).
I'm almost getting past double front hip circles into TRULY continuous ones.
Will post video once I get that darn trick.

DOUBLES TRAP featuring BENT AERIAL and LEGS MONTANA!

It's the middle of week 5, my body is getting more used to the constant abuse it's receiving :)
My back got hurt at the very end of last week (weird nerve muscle thing), and I discovered on Monday that Jamie asking me to do some forward rolls was the solution to my back problem. It instantly cleared up.

On Monday night, we had Deena for lyra and sling class. Now, let me say it here, before you hear it anywhere else.
I FREAKIN' LOVE DEENA! She is really one of my most inspirational teachers here. She doesn't just look at circus as a sport/technique based performance. She uses it as a tool as well as dance and some theater to create really beautiful stage pictures, emotional connections. This is WHILE doing really beautiful skillful tricks.
So class was nice, she actually spent about 20 minutes having us just put together and sequence tricks that we've learned in little groups. I thrive on that kind of creation, and not just learning tricks. I love sequences, and finding new ways to combine tricks. Oh btw, she's also a really cute mom.

Tuesday was a little bit of member's only working on trapeze stuff. Then, Christi and I went to the gym to run for 45 minutes. About 40 minutes later (yikes), I returned to take fabric class. Caroline (my original fabric teacher for this class) returned, which means, the special brand of ASSKICKING that Caroline serves up has returned as well. It was a very challenging class but I feel like my endurance is getting back, and I can actually work on her "I'm the only one who can do this, but how bout you guys try this" tricks.

This morning was spent as a joint workshop between Protrack and Intensive, where we spent the first hour learning the essentials of rigging knowledge (most of which was covered previously, so I wasn't that interested, but I obviously paid attention to make sure I picked up anything new, and remembered older things). Then the next 2 hours were spent with a nutritionist who basically just spent 2 hours telling us to NEVER EAT ANY FORM OF SUGAR, and make sure you eat veggies. I was a little uncomfortable about it, because I feel like many times experts are brought in to speak to a group of people, they take an EXTREME stance on something (i.e. Don't eat any form of sugars, no matter what. You might as well kill yourself). I would much rather "i understand you will probably eat sugar, here is the best way to MODERATE what kind of sugars you are eating".

Then.... I had my private lesson for the week.
An hour long private lesson with Eileen to learn

The Art of Doubles Trapeze from Jamie.

Now, just to fill you in, at a huge dinner party a few weeks ago, we came to the conclusion that my circus/porn name is Bent Ariel, and Eileen's is Legs Montana.
So, to start, Jamie just had us get used to me taking Eileen's weight from catcher's lock on the trapeze. (Catcher's lock is a staple of doubles trapeze when one is basing the other under the bar. The catcher starts from balancing on their front hips on the bar, then as they tip forward, their legs seperate and straddle to hook around the ropes to create a nice grippy position to pick the flyer up in.)
We started learning some of the basic moves between a base and a flyer on doubles trapeze (cause once you know the main techniques, a lot of it, is just playing around and creating interesting transitions and pictures).
I learned that being a base is a lot of deceptive performance. One might think that the base has to basically just hang their and be strong. Well...let me tell you. Being a base takes a sh*t ton of strength and pain tolerance. After just an hour of class, I have bright red marks where the bar dug into my upper thighs in catchers lock, and my butt has a dent in it from the bar. I LOVE it though, I am really excited by doubles trapeze when it's done well. Eileen is a great partner, and I love that when we starting hashing out our notes from the private, she mentioned her "downstage" leg (a theater term) and I completely didn't realize that we were talking theater and not circus.
To end this post before I have to go to inversions class tonight, I wanted to post a link to Tempo Trapeze, the duo trapeze couple I saw perform at the big E the weekend before last. They are really great performers, and I love their techniques, and style of doubles trap.