The Three Auditions: ENC, QUEBEC, and NECCA Pt. 2

THIS IS PART 2 of the "The Three Auditions..." post. The previous post is PART 1.
This post covers the Quebec audition, and the NECCA's PROTRACK audition.

The Three Auditions: ENC, QUEBEC, and NECCA Pt. 1

Sorry for the distance between this post and my previous post. To make up for it, this post will probably become very long.
I have finally finished my set of auditions for the circus schools I've applied to for next year:

• L'Ecole Nationale de Cirque (National Circus School in Montreal, aka ENC),
• L'Ecole de Cirque du Quebec (Circus School of Quebec, aka ECQ), and
• NECCA's Pro Track (the 2nd year program of the school I'm at now).

I also got the chance to see Cirque Eloize's newest show "iD" in Burlington, as well as the "Cirque De Demain" festival show while I was in Montreal.

To read all about the ENC audition, and the shows:

Pre ENC Storm!

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. It's been a lot of "do do do" which is great, but not great blog material.
Classes at night have continued to be challenging and wonderful. Acrobatics class is the most "out of my element" of all my night classes, and it has become a really great class. I've been doing front handsprings, and working up to a back handspring (still in the safety lines, but hopefully removing those soon). I was hoping to have a back handspring by ENC auditions but because of snowed out Wednesdays in 2011, we've missed a few acro class nights, so I haven't had as much time to work on them as planned. Advanced Trapeze class is a super challenge, Aimee and Jamie recognize my need to clean and polish all of my trapeze repertoire. At times, I do find it frustrating doing the same maneuver/skill over and over, but then I check myself (before I wreck myself :) ) and continue with their guidance to perfect my technique.

This past month has had some exciting excursions. On January 28th, I went to see "PSY" by the 7doigtsdelamain (7 fingers of the hand) circus company at the Emerson Majestic Theater in Boston. I had the great opportunity to see the show when it had its world premiere in Montreal LAST YEAR during the Ecole Nationale de Cirque (ENC or National Circus School of Montreal) audition week. The show has changed a little, new performers have been added, and mostly all for the better. There were only a couple spots I would have rather not seen, but oh well, other people enjoyed those parts, so I'll shut up about them.

That same weekend, a group of NECCA students were offered free tickets by Elsie and Serenity (the owners of our school) to a show they perform in by Cirque Le Masque called "Evolution". Now here's where we had some controversy over the show. Obviously, we love our teachers Elsie and Serenity and the circus they do is BEYOND quality. But this show was just a hot mess, which I guess is ok for more "traditional circus". Mostly the circus acts themselves were well done. There were background dancers whom were not impressive, or dancing as a group. The music was awkward techno with choral samples screaming "EVOLUTION" (which was the only reference we could find to the title of the show).  We were happy to see Elsie and Serenity perform (always a pleasure), but we were equally happy that we didn't have to pay to see the show in the first place, to most of us, it just wasn't our thing.

This past weekend, Serenity offered a "Trapeze Building" workshop.
I jumped at this opportunity, cause I love building, and craft work, and understanding of things I do from their most basic form to the most grand. So, this Saturday, all the workshop attendees gathered in one of the NECCA rooms, with a huge amount of steel bars, welded thimbles, free thimbles, nylon rope, markers, thin cord, cheap towels, dental floss, and upholstery needles. Serenity started the workshop with what would be the most confusing aspect of building a trapeze for the first time, which is also the part that ensures that your trapeze is safe...a daring mix :) We learned how to splice ropes (which is to combine ropes by weaving them together. This is how the rope wraps around the bar, and then comes back into itself (the thicker part of the rope right above the bar). Having done lots of knot work and rope crafts in life, I found splicing to be not too hard, and slightly therapeutic. The most tedious and frustrating part was the second splices, the ones that would be at the other end of the ropes from the trapeze bar itself. These are what you hang the trapeze to rigging with, and they need to be perfectly measured so when they are hung, the bar is absolutely level. To test this, we would splice our ropes, then hang them by one of the pulley systems in the space, and lower them to the ground, if one of the trapeze ends hit the ground first, we had to adjust the splice. That is how we all got very good at splicing. I had to adjust my splices 6  times before my bar was level. Serenity said that with experience, you get better at not needing to adjust as much. Here is my bar at the end of the workshop:

The steps I have to take to finish the bar, are more "crafty" and less "safety" oriented. Towels as padding need to be sewn wrapped around the ropes where the splice meets the trapeze. Then, fabric (to cover the towels and to look pretty) needs to be sewn over that. In the interest of naming my new trapeze to go along with all my other apparatus ("Olga" my aerial hoop, "Elena" my aerial net, "Maria/Masha" my horizontal hoop, and "Yulia" my fabric (that I don't have anymore... :( ), I have decided to name my trapeze "Dasha" (to go along with the whole russian girl name thing.

Now, I've reached the point in the blog post where I must discuss, the big three letter looming cloud of doom.
ENC...also known as the Ecole Nationale de Cirque (or National Circus School) in Montreal, Canada. This is pretty much the most prestigious circus school one can attend on this side of the world. It is a three year long degree program, where you can be specialized (majoring in ONE apparatus/discipline), or a generalist (specializing in TWO apparatus/disciplines). The program is rigorous and mentally and physically demanding...perfectly demonstrated by their audition process. The audition for ENC is a 4 day long fiasco of assessments in strength, flexibility, acting ability, dance, acrobatic ability, ability and potential in your specified areas of experience, endurance, and lastly, the ability to keep your cool! They also make cuts at the end of the first day, and the second day. If you make it to the third day, you can slightly relax, because you're automatically held for the fourth day as well. Making it through the audition doesn't however assure your acceptance at all, so in the end, it is a big frustrating ball of emotions.

I didn't get past day 1 last year, which was mostly the strength and acrobatic assessments; two areas I severely lacked in. This year, I have been extremely better trained for the audition to come. I am in a much better place physically, and technically with all the circus I do, and even in the circus styles I don't know how to do or do well, I demonstrate body awareness and control. I am going to be giving it everything I have, and hope for the best. If I make it past the day 1 cut, I will be happy because that is a huge difference between last year and this year, but if I do get cut day 1, I will still be happy, because I know how much I've changed for the better, and I know I'm not done on my path, but I can only hope they see what I can do, and they get to know the T performer who I must say, is gonna bring FIERCE to the audition this year :)

This week, I am polishing my trapeze act (you perform an act the FINAL day of the audition if you make it that far, so alas, everyone has to rehearse an act even if they don't get to actually perform it. I have been getting amazing feedback from my coaches who know what I can do, and really push me to be my best. I owe them so much for the faith they have in me, and the fire they ignite within me.

So, this coming Saturday, I will be travelling up to Montreal (with a brief stop in Burlington to see "ID" by Cirque Eloize with my friend Rachel Schiffer, who's also my driving buddy to Montreal). I will be staying with a Smirkus coach/friend of mine whom I haven't seen in a long time, Amanda Dunbar. After I settle in, starting Monday...it's ON!

Just keep swimming...

Not anything crazy interesting to report...
right now it's in a weird area, cause we don't have a performance coming up,
but Ecole Nationale de Cirque auditions as well as the Ecole de Cirque Quebec auditions are at the end of February.
Some of us are preparing for that, so that's a slow simmering anticipation, rather than an immediate boiling one.
I'm working on a new trapeze act which will in its entirety be my new happy performable trapeze act, and in its 3 minute or less version, be my audition act for ENC and Quebec. Jamie has been really great working with me on it, we have been picking little transitions and figuring out more interesting ways of doing things.

Yesterday we had our mid-program physical assessment. At the very beginning of the program, we were assessed in many many physical strength and flexibility measures: i.e. how many pullups, straddle ups, how long can you hold an L-sit...as well as how low to the ground is your split, how low is your straddle, how bendy is your back...
So, yesterday was the exact same assessment, to see how far we've come in various areas and what we might still need to work on. I improved almost all of the strengthy ones, except for the Wall sit, which I utterly failed on.. grrrr. I still was the LONGEST HOLLOW BODY holder in the class, which made me happy. It was near 3 minutes. My splits have dropped, my Left leg one is near the ground, my right leg one is better, but not near the ground. My straddle is almost entirely on the ground.

Last night, AFTER the physical assessment and my trapeze private, we had Lyra/Sling class, where Caroline started me on her 12 step program to learning some cool release moves. Sadly the first step, was a few different kinds of pullups, so after my body was abused and dead from the day, I had to do PULLUPS for pretty much the entire class. HAAHAAHAA *sob sobsob*...

Anyway, I woke up this morning, my abs feel like hell, and I'm ready to read me some Harry Potter :)

All's Quiet on the Circus Front

So, it's been an interesting past little bit of time since we've returned from the holiday break. On the first day back in class, I had a private in Trapeze with Jamie and we were focusing on release moves (power moves where you let go of the bar to perform an acrobatic movement and re-catch the bar with either your hands, ankles, or other ways of grabbing the bar).
This was going well until all of a sudden, my hands ripped off of themselves.
To sum it up, all that time working on fabric for the Flying Nut show, meant that my trapeze calluses lost some of their vigor. So the first day back, deciding to do hardcore release-y trapeze....maybe not the best choice.

Conveniently however, I was out of town for the rest of the week, so I had a slight chance to rest my hands. Now, they are almost completely healed, and yesterday I had a trapeze private with Jamie and we worked on my upcoming new trapeze act, and it was fine. I taped my hands so that the healing rips wouldn't un-heal any, and we worked on combining tricks I can do, tricks I can learn to do, and really started forward motion on my "Apologize" trapeze act. Also...a picture of something I thought looked really ugly on me, but apparently it doesn't. There goes my sense of accurate self perception. Picture below:

Very Odd

It is so very odd.
I'm on BREAK finally, and all I want to do is train.

The Flying Nut (Necca's nutcracker-esque winter holiday show) is now over. We had a weekend of sold out performances. Our act was very well received by the audience. It was sad, cause I think as a group, a lot of us were mentally OVER the act, so it was hard to actually appreciate the praise of the act. It was a fun last weekend in Vermont for a little bit. We had our Secret Santa party on Saturday night, where everyone gave their final gift out revealing who they were (lots of socks were given, Dumbledore would have loved it).

All the costume work I did was well received as well.
In total, I made the giant skirt for Mother Ginger (see post below), made the pattern for the Fire group's multiple size tank tops, along with Jamie: made the entire set of 12 silver torso snuggs with appliqued silver stars on them for our Intensive fabric piece...am I forgetting something... OH YEAH!
I created an entirely new costume for Katie who was playing the sun in less than 1 day.
Katie who is in intensives was also given a role as the Sun, to do a duet piece with the girl playing the Moon (Emily). Emily shows up with this amazing costume she had made, and Katie was wearing this smirkus-esque hobo-esque unitard. So, I swooped in and masochistically decided to make an entirely new costume for her.
Voila...

Tech Week for The Nut

Hello people who are reading.
It's been a busy past few weeks.
The annual holiday wintery Nutcracker story performance at the circus school is upon us.
It is called "The Flying Nut" and this year it is being adapted to be about a boy who gets lost in the woods and finds all these woodsy creatures and stuff to entertain him (instead of a girl who finds candyland).
My program (Intensives) are 12 people, so we got brainstormed from the zodiac, into the night sky (stars). More specifically, we 12 are the weavers of the night sky. On a crazy amount of aerial fabrics, we fly and twirl and twist and lift as we weave around making all the stars.

Our piece was very hectic a few weeks ago, and we all were very pessimistic about its outcome. But it has really cleaned up, and people who watch it now are really into it, and getting taken away into our magical night sky world.

Having said all that, I AM EXHAUSTED, naturally, because of being one of the people more comfortable on aerial fabric, I am involved for almost the entire act (while some people are involved for segments of the act), I am multiple times, running to a fabric, climbing to the top, wrapping a catcher's lock (a position where you can pretty much lock yourself onto the fabric around your legs without needing to hold on with your arms), and then having someone lifted up by my arms, or they climb the fabric that is now wrapped around my body.
My hips had a big shock when we first started rehearsing, cause they are used to me holding myself up by them, but not so used to me holding both myself and the weight of another person as well. It put a lot of stress on my hip and for a couple weeks recently, my hip has really hurt me, and I had to take some time off of doing the tricks that really hurt my hip.
It is now better, and I've been given some very good advice from my coaches about how to protect my hip joints better when basing off of them.

In addition to performing in the group fabric act, my sewing/costuming talents have been put to good use, helping make some of the more intriguing costumes of the show. My favorite costume so far has been the Mother Ginger character costume. Mother Ginger (for those who forget) is the woman who has the GIGANTIC skirt that all the children come out of. With no budget, and some ingenuity, I "project runway"d a skirt big enough to hold people to go around a performer on stilts.

My lovely costuming intern, Suzannah Lowry.

More on all this later.

I'm off to take a nap.

Update on my life...

Hey everyone, sorry for the absence lately,
I was gone for thanksgiving, and then the week I came back was just hectic, but here's a quicky update on stuff, and this weekend, I'll post more.
Thanksgiving was low-key I got to see my mom, stepdad, and my best friend Sari.
I came back, and we got right back into rehearsing the Intensive program's act for the NECCA winter holiday show The Flying Nut (the Nutcracker story told through circus).
I ended up having a completely random opportunity to babysit for some circus performers' children while a bunch of NECCA staff performed at Mohegan Sun in CT.
So i got to watch some kids and then spend the night at Mohegan Sun for free (and got money for the babysitting). Seriously, not a bad deal.
On the way home, we stopped at OSGOODS which is THE fabric store to go to around here apparently.
I got about 60$ worth of fabric (including my most expensive fabric yet, 18$ per yard, but I bought that for a costume for myself, so I consider it worth it).
This weekend was pretty lame-o. Just worked at Fireworks a lot.
This week has started off with a painful bang, my right hip is REALLY hurting because of these frequest abuses rehearsals we have for the Flying Nut, I need to figure out some changes that I can make to protect it.
More soon...

Workshop Weekend and the past week.

So I'm sorry for the lacking of posting from this past week, but it wasn't a week where I felt compelled to jot something down. I do have a video to share however, it's small, but it might be slightly entertaining :)

Last weekend, was WORKSHOP WEEKEND, which is a weekend at NECCA where teachers from NECCA and guest teachers from various places come and teach a weekend filled of all types of workshops.
Francois Gravel and Michael Lanphear were going to be guest teaching a few workshops.
I signed up for Francois Gravel's "Single Point Trapeze" workshop (he does some really innovative stuff), and Michael Lanphear's "Stretching for Backs and Shoulders" workshop.
By the end of the weekend, I had also taken "Stretching for Feet, Legs, and Hips" with Michael and "Aerial Transitions" with Serenity.

All the workshops were really great, the Single Point was a little less physically stimulating than we had thought it would be, but it was still very great, as he led us through some exercises he uses when he is creating an act. My theatery brain totally loves that kind of work, so it was very good. The feet legs and hips workshop was INCREDIBLE, for 2 hours, we stretched in new and unusual ways. Most of the people in that workshop had trouble walking due to soreness for the next day or two. On Saturday night after the Feet Legs and Hips workshop, a bunch of NECCA staff and friends from out of town and I went to Flat Street Brewpub for Dinner. It was really nice to just remind me of how familial the circus community is, and if you don't know someone directly, you DEFINITELY know a friend of theirs.

On Sunday, I had Stretching for Backs and Shoulders (and then snuck my way into Aerial Transitions directly after). Backs and shoulders was interesting. I have been having trouble finding out what is going on with my shoulder's and upper back flexibility. Bill (the coach at NECCA who is known for stretching people like woah) has yet to find a good stretch for my shoulders, because apparently they have a really big range of motion and I don't feel a stretch. I thought my upper back was INflexible, but Michael found my oddness intriguing or something and was stretching my upper back himself, pushing it into a bent position, and...I felt nothing. Honestly, I felt that his fist was in my back, but I couldn't even feel that my upper back was bent so far. So again, I'm an anomaly to the teachers I have, but Jamie thinks I should look into Somatics, which involves the re-connection of nerves from parts of your body to your brain. What IS good, is that apparently, since my shoulders have such a range of motion, that they will keep me safe better.

So workshop weekend was very thrilling and inspiring, but that started off my week being very sore. On Monday, we did more work on the act Intensives is going to be performing in the NECCA Winter "Nutcracker"-esque circus show. It would have been more fun if I wasn't still very sore. I decided to take Member's only off that day so my body could rest before Lyra and Sling class. HAAHAA, funny joke, when I got to Lyra and Sling class, I found out that we were going to be doing various drops on Lyra (drops on lyra usually involve bruises, and more soreness). The student teacher wasn't extremely knowledge about the certain drops on lyra (her focus is more sling) so Caroline had me demonstrate them, because I've done them before.

The rest of the week involved general soreness, and a desire for my body to have a small vacation (this seemed to be the theme amongst everyone this week, REST THE BODY). Luckily, this week is Thanksgiving vacation! YAY!

Currently I'm working on my first FOR HIRE costume since I've been here. It's for a friend and teacher at NECCA Amanda, I will post pictures of that costume process for fun later.

Week 10: Woah

Nothing too crazy to write home about this week.
I had a good Monday, a rough Tuesday, and good Wednesday so far.
Today, I started with our group class being contortion specializing in shoulders and backs with Caroline teaching us. She's SOOOOO knowledgeable about flexibility, it's wonderful. The only thing was, because i'm relatively flexible, I was doing the "if you can do that easy, add ______ to deepen the stretch" versions of everything, but my ability to hold them for long periods of time isn't great. I will hopefully improve that endurance with time, but I definately learned some new awesome back stretches.
I also had my weekly private with Jamie today on trapeze (slowly becoming my specialty apparatus here at necca I believe). We focused on velocity skills (skills that are dynamic motions around the bar, things that are done more than once in a circular manner around the bar) and release moves (skills where you have to let go of the trapeze before finishing the trick).
During velocity skills we worked on my ever-failing mill circles (I need to break the habit I've now developed of bending my front knee before I give myself a chance to get up). Then we worked on BACKWARDS front hip circles (so now, I can start doing forward flipping front hip circles, and then pause in the middle of one, and reverse the direction of the flip.) It's really awesome, but it gave me some really awkward invisible bruises on my upper forearms near where my elbow rests on ANYTHING.
Then, during the release moves section of the private, we worked on the uber cool "beat twist to ankles".
This is where you hold on to the bar with your hands, swing your body back and forth, and on the forth, you bring your body so high up that you let go of the bar, twist around in the air, and catch the ropes by your ankles. I love it and I can do it now, I just need to clean it up and finesse it a bit.

Anyway, this weekend is WORKSHOP WEEKEND (a whole bunch of amazing teachers from NECCA and elsewhere come to teach a weekend full of workshops). I'm signed up for Single Point Trapeze with Francois Gravel, and Stretching for Backs and Shoulders with Francois Gravel and Michael Lanphear. I'm excited for both. It shall be wonderful. I will definately try and get video/pics to go with my experiences this weekend.

Last part of mega-update (part 4?)

Video from the weird playing time that Melissa and I had on the double sling with hoop on bottom.

More update (part 3?)

Last night after Lyra and Sling class, the assistant teacher Melissa (who's a badass aerialist, hulahooper, and drag king) played around on a rejected solo creation of hers, two aerial slings, one having a small hoop attached to the bottom). Here are the pictures from our little playing session, we want to meet up and try and create something really great on this. Video to be posted hopefully later today.

Less Quickie Update (part 2)

So, here it is, the first video documentation of the creation of a partnership between Eileen Little and myself (nicknamed: "Bent Ariel" and "Legz Montana" respectively) in a aerial duo named "CrotchShot"

Quick Update

I'm going to be posting an awesome post tomorrow featuring new pictures, video and some commentary of what happened at the end of last week and the beginning of this week.
But, to keep your minds intrigued until then: here is a picture from today.
Jamie is having us experiment with multiple people on fabrics, sharing fabrics, and using them in new and unusual ways as preperation for our act for the "Flying Nut" the circus school's version of the holiday Nutcracker performance. Intensives (my program) is going to be the constellations in the night sky (there's 12 of us, zodiac). Oh, quick preface, the show is a riff on the nutcracker, but it takes place out in the woods and has a totally different storyline. Ok, it has NOTHING to do with the nutcracker.
But here's this incredible creation Cooper, Christi, Eileen and I came up with all morning, and got this picture.

Quick description of what is going on, both me and Cooper have wrapped one of our own strands of fabric and one of eachothers' fabric (loosely so that provides the two slings in the middle to sit on) strands around our legs in what is called "Catcher's Lock" (relatively stable, though we still feel pressure when weight it put onto it). Then Eileen climbed up to the top sling via the bottom sling, and Christi got up into the bottom sling.

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.

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.

CHRISTI KICKED ASS TODAY!

At the Big E

The Eastern States Exposition also known as the BIG E is going on right now. NECCA is performing to represent Vermont, but the expo also has the BIg E Super Circus which has a Coca Cola grand chapiteau.
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BE VEWWY VEWWY QUIET!

While Sari was moving me in the first weekend, we found this stylish hunting vest.
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THE LAST 3 WEEKS Pt. 3

Since assessment day, our weeks have generally been like this.

Monday morning: Running class with Jim (let's pretend that never happened, it was a 2 week only thing), Jamie conditioning class, where she gives us fun stretching, and circuit training to make us STRONG LIKE BULL. Then we split into half of us going to dance class and half of us staying with Jamie for more stretching and conditioning.

Wednesday morning: Hour with Jamie, more fun circuit training (20 different strength exercises each one done as many times as you can during a minute, wait 20 seconds then switch to the next one).
After Jamie hour, we have Physical Theater for 2 hours (love it, though I feel sometimes as if I'm in Freshman year of Temple all over again, but whatever, I can shut up and learn).

Every afternoon, for 2-3 hours, there is Member's Only Training, which is time for just the Intensive and Protrack students to use the entire circus school to work on our training and practice things we're learning, and solidify things in class.
Also, once a week each person gets a private lesson. In September, all our private lessons were with Jamie so she could get to know us (she's our program director), and see what we need as a circus artist. With me, Jamie and I started doing some aerials, but we both kind of felt like I will get enough aerial for now on my own time and in my aerial classes, so we really worked on stretching my less flexible joints.

Jamie has become slightly intrigued by my particular flexibilities. Apparently, the flexibilities that I have naturally contradict her generalizations about people, so she has fun inspecting me. I have never really had to work that hard for my straddle split, it's just always mostly there, and I just need to wake it up. My lower back has always been flexible, and all the bends that I put in my back quickly migrate to my lower back, cause my upper back doesn't want to bend. This makes certain balance tricks in aerials place higher on my back than most aerialists. Which is fine cause it's my back's balance point, but she has fun playing with it.
Mostly in our privates, she has been getting my splits deeper, and opening up my hip flexors for my pike. Right now, if i sit with my legs straight out in front of me, and try to grab my feet, i can hunch over and barely grab my feet, eventually the goal is the have a flat back and be complete folded at the hips so my torso is flat against my legs. This is by far the hardest stretch for me, and my body's panic reflex while stretching this has has some angry moments. I started crying in my private last week, just as a reflex of my body panicking while stretching. Jamie has faith in me somehow, I'm already getting better at letting go as she pushes me into the pike stretch.

Also, I have Hoop/Sling class Monday nights, Advanced Fabric Tuesday nights and Inversions Wednesday nights.
Right now, Inversions is my favorite class, even though it's the hardest class for me. It deals mostly with back bends and all the very acrobatic work involving back bends, My back has really opened up in the last 3 weeks, and I now can be in a bridge, and kick my legs over my hands into a standing position (video to come).

Also, me and Christi keep each other honest and we make sure we go to the fitness gym almost every day to either do weights or cardio. She and I have become a weird little fabulous team.

As October is coming up soon, we were allowed to start asking for privates (now that we aren't just by default with Jamie doing personal investigations). In October, I will have a handstand private with Aimee (she's a goddess, I'm so excited to finally work with her), a hoop private with Deena (which I'm probably gonna ask to switch to trap so we can just nail down some momentum tricks), a contortion private with Bill (basically, he manhandles you way past where you can stretch yourself, and you get more bendy), and a double trapeze private with this LOVELY LOVELY woman Eileen who's in the Intensives program with me. She's an actor in NY who's sooo hillarious, she founded an aerial theater group in NYC, and we make each other laugh way too often. We thought that we might work together well, so even though I have no positive experiences with doubles trap, I'm willing to give it a try with her.

Ok, well that's pretty much we're I am at now, circus in the morning, circus in the afternoon, cardio/weights in the afternoon, and more circus at night...and repeat.

Now, the pictures/videos, blogging should become more of a regular thing now that I have my laptop.

THE LAST 3 WEEKS Pt. 2

Pt 2, of the 3 week recap of the beginning of my NECCA Intensives program.

So the first day of our Intensives Program was our FIRST Assessment day:
What is an assessment day you ask?
It is a day where your physical strength and flexibility is measured by doing various exorcises:
For example: how many pullups can you do, how many v ups (hang with hands on the trapeze bar, and raise your straight legs until your toes touch the bar) can you do, how long can you hold an  L sit (hang hands on bar, legs straight out in front of you at a 90 degree angle in the air, hold for as long as possible). How many pushups can you do. How low are your splits, how low is your straddle, how long can you hold a handstand...etc the list goes on.
The goal is to take WHEREVER we are at now, and compare it to an assessment we will do in the middle and at the end of the program, to compare, and see our growth.
I was awarded LONGEST Hollow body position held amongst the Intensives group (my little proud moment of the day).

That assessment kicked our asses nice. We have a long way to go, and I'm excited to get there.

THE LAST 3 WEEKS Pt. 1

So I'm going to break the last three weeks down into smaller chunks of readable content.
Here's pt. 1:

Moving into Brattleboro September 2nd was quick and easy. My best friend Sari helped as we drove from Boston to Montpelier in one car, grabbed more of my stuff, including my mattress, and then drove the truck from Montpelier to Brattleboro. I like my apartment. It's cute, enough room for me, my bed, some walking space, and my eventual sewing studio (which is how I intend to make my money this year). It also has an ample kitchen area where I've been enjoying cooking meals of modestly epic proportions :)

The first weekend here was kind of lonely, since I hadn't met any of the other people in the program yet, except I knew Trevor, and I knew Lauren both from Smirkus.
Lauren is conveniently living a few blocks down on the same street as I am.
Trevor is living at the "NECCA HOUSE" which is a building owned by Elsie (co founder of NECCA)'s husband Jim. He rents rooms out to NECCA students. Trevor lives in an apartment with: Shannon (Intensives program), Anthony and Christina (a couple from Alaska, in Pro Track), Christi (my new best friend, from Texas, in Intensives), and Stacy (a stripper from all over, pro track).

On the first Monday here, Christi, Trevor and I decided to go to the Guilford Fair where NECCA was performing throughout the day. We ate "Mexican food" (aka, a Vermont lady who put hot sauce on rice with onions and cheese, and saw some good acts. I finally met the bald guy whose head Cat stands on, his name is Henry Wheaton, and he's utterly fabulous. and Clara (Pro track last year) performed double aerial sling, which was très encroyable.

At 4, Intensives finally met as a group for our Orientation. Our year was vaguely mapped out, and hopes and dreams were discussed, followed by a tour of the school, and info about how to be at the school. It seems like an interesting group of people from vary different circus and life backgrounds.

The next day we didn't have anything during the day, but I had my Advanced fabric class at night.
Let's have a moment about this. about 16 people are in the room getting ready for the Intermediate/Advanced fabric class. It's a mixed level class taught by two teachers, so they are hoping to split us up into Intermediate and Advanced. Out of the 16 people that were there, eventually it has become me, and 2 other girls in advanced, and everyone else in intermediate. Caroline is the advanced fabric teacher and she is KICKING MY ASS, and i hate and love it. The good thing, is super good coaching with so few people, the bad thing is, there's almost never an excuse NOT to be up on the fabrics, because it's not like you're waiting for your turn.

I've found that teaching beginner level circus all summer has made me sadly lose some of my strength for more advanced level tricks, which I essentially didn't get to train all summer. I'll get them back soon enough, but these first few weeks are going to suck.

GENESIS

Hello everyone, I have wanted to start a blog about this year, but I didn't have my computer until a few days ago. So I will tonight start writing what happened these first 3 weeks of the program, and then I will try to keep posting regularly, and providing (what hopes to be) lots of progress videos, photos, information, and lovely anecdotes. I hope you enjoy.