Ido Portal #2

I'm glad I went to the second day of Ido Portal on Wednesday. He had us do some intensely painful drills that didn't have a lot to do with handbalancing but were kind of cool, like rotating from a squat to a backbend and around to a squat again. Then, at last, we did do an underbalance drill, and this is how he taught it:

Handstand facing the wall, about a hand-length away. Point toes and lean against the wall: congratulations, you are now underbalanced and must be saved.

The elbows don't bend. Rather, the line of the body breaks at the shoulders. First the shoulders come forward over the hands, then the hips, and finally the feet float into place. Snap into the straight handstand position quickly and fall back to the wall. Another way of saying it is that the line breaks at the shoulders, and then the shoulders straighten as the hips break (into a slight pike) and then the line straightens again.

It works, and I find it easier than bending elbows, so... good.

What I forgot to say about #1 is that we finished with a tabata in crow pose, and I was amazed at how hard it got by the end.

Acroyoga Festival day 1

I'm back at rifmeister's place after the first day of the acroyoga festival, and not feeling quite the way I expected to feel. Today was a single workshop from 9 to 5 taught by the founders Jason and Jenny, and it focused on "washing machines". Awesome, except for two things: first, I wound up basing all day instead of flying, and second, somehow the giant room full of really high-level people left me feeling kind of negative about the Boston scene.

That said, who cares -- San Francisco is beautiful, I got to see people I haven't seen since last year, and I was stronger and better than I was at last year's intensive. The basing was hard on my wrists and shoulders, but with my flying muscles still sore from Ido Portal it may have been all right to let those ones rest. We also did some great flows that I want to remember and take back home.

( The washing machines, five of which were new to me. )

J&J said it was the most such things they'd ever taught in one day, and the only one I know that they didn't teach is spider roll.

Also seen: ninja star, which hasn't been taught but I'm hoping to figure out anyway.

The rest of the festival is going to break each day into pieces, and I'll make sure I get to fly some of those pieces.