October! Yay!

[Heather]

So long time no post. Sorry about that, but I really haven’t had much new to report, unfortunately. It’s Howl-O-Scream season, so I’ve been very busy with strike, install, and rehearsals and now, of course, we’re into the event. The weird schedule makes it really hard for me to find time to stretch, so I’m having to rework my stretching schedule a bit. I usually stretch at night as I’m watching a movie or some tv with my boyfriend before going to bed, but since the Howl-O-Scream season started, I’ve been working weird shifts (mostly 16:45 to 1:15), so I haven’t been able to stretch when I usually like to. It certainly doesn’t make me happy and I can feel it when I don’t stretch. I don’t want to regress in my progress, so I’m trying to work out a stretching schedule around my work schedule and I’m also trying to make myself stretch even when I don’t feel like it. I’ve also started doing several of the stretches twice. For example, I usually do front splits, then front oversplits, then front oversplits against the wall and then I move on to straddles. Now I’m doing front splits, front oversplits, front oversplits against the wall and then go through them once more. I can stretch farther when I do this, so I’m hoping it will help me progress faster. My back is still ridiculously inflexible, which annoys the snot out of me. ;--; I also finally took some video of me stretching to show my progress, but I have yet to put the clips together. Annnd, I found out during aerial class last night that the artistic director of the studio’s daughter (the contortionist who taught my summer contortion class for the first two weeks) will be coming back in November to perform in a fundraiser for the studio and will also do a contortion workshop at that time. Needless to say, I was ecstatic to hear that. I can’t wait to take the workshop. I also really want to push myself to increase my flexibility as much as possible until that time so that I can gain more from the workshop. ^_^

As for aerial, my aerial instructor, Kate, was fired, so we have a different instructor now. She’s really nice, but her knowledge seems a bit random and spotty. She knows a lot about trapeze, but next to nothing about silk; for example, I had to show her how to do the saddle footlock. And in more than one class we spent a large portion of time working on weird hand balancing tricks, which, while interesting, are not what I pay to learn in my aerial class. Anyway, regardless, things seem to be going well. I finally got my butterfly! I’m also finally getting to play around on the hoop some, which is fun--very different than the trapeze. Throughout the month of October, the studio is taking its outdoor rig to some events and allowing the intermediate-advanced students play around on it. The rig is higher than what we have in the studio, so I was excited but figured I’m not advanced enough, but the artistic director specifically asked me if I was going to participate. Most of the events are on Saturdays, so I can’t attend because of Howl-O-Scream, but there is one date that is on a Sunday, so I’m going to talk to the artistic director at tomorrow night’s class and see what the details are. If anything, I could certainly use more practice and it will be great to get higher off the ground. There’s also an aerial workshop coming up! Apparently the woman who helped to start the aerial program at this studio has her own company (in Miami? I think?) and she comes back every year to do workshops. She’s coming in November and is offering a beginner, intermediate and advanced level class! I figured I’d just do the beginner level, but after looking at the list of prerequisite skills for each level and being told by more than one person that I should aim for the intermediate level, that’s my goal. I’ve already (well, I won’t say “mastered,” but) acquired all of the prerequisite skills for the beginner level class and quite a few for the intermediate level. So, now I have a little over a month to pick up a few more skills. I’m trying to remember the ones I don’ t have down yet off of the top of my head, I think these are them:
Trap: Amazon, Plank/Coffin, Seahorse, Hip Balance (I have to hold the actual balance for at least 10 seconds)
Silk: Same-side Wrap, Frog, Opposite-Side Wrap, Two Straddle-Backs in the air without touching the ground
I’ll see if I can get the complete list after class tomorrow night. I can do Amazon, but I can’t get back on the bar after it yet and I can hold Hip Balance, but not for very long. I’m working really hard on Same-Side Wrap and Frog right now (and my poor hand and knuckles are quite bruised as a result). I’m fairly confident I will acquire all of these skills in time with the exception of the two Straddle-backs in the air--I can barely do a proper Straddle-back from the ground and it’s taken me four months to get that far. We’ll see though. I have no problem taking the beginner level class if that’s all that I qualify for.

On a semi-related note, I’m thinking about starting to do my ab exercises every night as opposed to every other night. I think I heard somewhere that the abdominal muscles are so dense that you can work them out every day and don’t have to alternate like you do with arms and legs, etc.

[Jenji Dea]

Sound good all in all. Work those Abs I found that those yucky stuff ... pull ups( on the bar or trapeeze) toes touches ( on barr and trapeeze ). and on the floor pike ups ... work the abs well.