Take Four – January 25, 2009

My last class in January, and I was finally getting used to going to a class that met regularly. My plan for Senior Project was to ultimately learn how to do moves, and if I got the chance, to create a routine on the aerial silks. Our instructors, Mary Kelly and Jackie, were clearly avoiding the silks and I wanted to know why. So finally, I opened up to Jackie about my purpose for taking this class, as a test pilot for my senior project, to confirm my suspicions that this would be an exciting and interesting way to spend three weeks participating in, writing about, and researching. Her answer was that I was right; she was hesitant about taking us onto the silks because the silks are a lot more material than the corde lisse, and can therefore be much more difficult to handle. I told her how much I wanted to only learn on the silks and that there was no course based solely on the silks until the advanced level, which I was clearly not ready for. She did promise that we would go onto the silks very soon though, once she felt confident that everyone would be able to handle them without being too much of a personal safety hazard.

We did the same warm-up as the previous three classes. My goal for the rope climbing was the same, to get over my fear of heights and to make it higher than before. This week, I made it my highest yet, coming within mere feet the top. Tired, but proud of myself, the gym’s owner, and my senior project sponsor, Shana Kennedy, realized that I was making the climbing much harder for myself that it needed to be. She suggested not grabbing so far above my head so that I could use my arms more effectively in the climb and not to go all limp. By keeping my body tighter, my abs (I have strong abs) did much more work than my legs and arms, I felt my less tired. Yay progress!

This week, we didn’t learn anything new on the corde lisse. We reviewed the “elbow lean away”, “1-hand hang”, “squat”, “back arch”, “thigh side lean”, “back of knee hang” and “upside-down descent”. The “thigh side lean”, which I am terrified of and probably always will be, was made even more terrifying when one of the instructors, Niff, told me that I had to lean over even more. Clearly not what I wanted to do when I already felt so uncomfortable. The rope pinched and I felt so unbalanced that after about a second and a half in the position, I asked her if it was alright for me to come back up. The only other interesting thing to happen on the corde lisse was that I tried the “upside-down descent” from the air. If I had seen myself, I probably would’ve laughed. I now know that I did the entire thing wrong. First, instead of keeping my arms and shoulders (biceps, triceps, and deltoids) engaged, I just hanged there and hoped for the best by way of trying to create some momentum by swinging my legs back first. Jackie spotted me, and probably did most of the work, and therefore could not see my flaws, for fear of dropping me.

After quickly going over the birds nest move on the trapeze, we began to learn the “mermaid sequence”. Obviously, we started with the “mermaid”. We then did the “½ angel”, a move where you let go with your inside leg (right leg if your ankles are hooked to the left and left leg when your ankles are hooked to the right in the “mermaid”). Essentially, you are holding on with your left ankle and right hand, with the right leg and therefore you abdomen/torso pointing toward the floor. Next came the “back angel”, a move where you pull the leg pointing toward the floor through the gap between the bar and your body and let it point down to floor on the other side so that your abdomen/torso is facing the ceiling and your back is facing the ground. The final move was the “one-hand one-foot” move. Perhaps the simplest move, you switch hands holding onto the bar, from my right hand, to my left hand so that I looked like one of those monkeys that link onto each other to create chains. Mary Kelly and Jackie promised that we would learn the rest of the “mermaid sequence” next class because we had simply run out of time.

Class again ended the same as it always did. On course with my record of slow improvement, I realized that I did not need spotting on my toughening moves but I still needed someone, or a team, to help me with the strengthening ones.

Overall, this class was mostly review, with the only exciting moments coming when I messed up a few times on the rope and learning the “mermaid sequence” on the trapeze. I still had fun and I could feel myself becoming slightly stronger and slightly more flexible. My flexibility goal is now to get my split on both legs and return my straddle to its former, nearly perfectly straight glory. I can do it, I know I can.