Friday 5 January 2018

Circus Update

I haven't done a proper circus post since November 2015! How's crazy's that?

I still adore aerial. I still get stiff and sore when I miss sessions, which I now know to be a side effect of fibromyalgia. I'm on Instagram now, where I mostly share circus photos and videos, but if you're really missing my circus stuff, the best place to get a regular fix is my G+ Circus collection.

So, what have I been up to? Well, hopefully improving! I've learnt loads of new moves on both silks and hoop, and have been working to tidy my presentation and improve my musicality. Sometimes I do better than others, but I'm working on it.

I've started helping out as an assistant instructor with the beginners. I really enjoy this, and it's teaching me a lot about what I'm doing, too.

I've found especially on silks that I can pick things up much faster than the other students in the advanced class. I think this is because I've been going the longest, so I have better proprioception (one of my favourite words), and maybe a better feel for the mechanics of the moves. For instance, this was my first attempt at a move we're calling 'hokey cokey' (because you go in, out, in, out and shake it all about). It's a 'spaghetti move', that is, one where your arms and legs go in strange places and fly about like a jumble of spaghetti ;-D

We're also, as a school, starting to work with our weaker sides more. I've been unofficially doing this for longer, because my right side is dominant but my right shoulder is also the more prone to subluxation, which means certain moves don't feel safe on it so I learn those on my left anyway, and it injures more easily so I need to be able to do everything on my left so I don't miss as much if/when it does injure. This led to an amusing moment when we were doing a mini sequence on our weaker sides, I got down feeling like I'd nailed it, then one of the other students told me I'd done it on my stronger side - and it took watching back the video I'd taken to realise I had been correct. It's made me realise I'm stronger than I think. Also, when I tried the move in the video above on my weaker side, I discovered I actually find it easier that way, and it puts me in a better position to transition to 'ginger snap' after (unfortunately, I can't find a video of that move).

I learnt a pretty new drop. I spent ages watching everyone else do it, so was really excited to try. Haven't had a chance since, but want to try again with a bigger distance to fall:


On hoop, I can now do a barrel roll roughly a third of the times I try:


Vikki is the shortest person in the school and is technically too small for the hoops she instructs in (I think I'm slightly too big, as I sometimes struggle to tuck through), so she bought herself her own hoop. 

The hoops we normally use have a fixed point mounting and are attached to a strop via a pair of karabiners and a twist point, that means if we start spinning one way, we won't end up spinning the other way as the strop/rope tries to undo itself. Very useful, but it means we can't do much strop work because it's uncomfortable, the karabiners sometimes make it physically impossible, and there's always the risk (however remote) that the karabiners could come undone and the hoop tumble... Vikki's hoop doesn't have a mount: the strop is tied directly to it. So last night, we had fun playing with a few stroppy moves


My favourite was this spinny drop - definitely one for advanced students only, and requiring an unexpected level of flexibility to get into the start position. Really fun, but a little scary.
    
I was planning to share more photos, but for some reason blogger's playing up and not letting me add them.

1 comment:

  1. Hey look! I'm not the only aerialist from my class who blogs: https://anovelwayto.wordpress.com/2018/01/09/confessions-aerial-addict/ (this is Rochelle, aka the one I will be traumatising in a Buffy game at some point)

    ReplyDelete