Learning how it works

I have a good feeling about handstands and acro right now -- not really related to my absolute level of skill, but feeling like I'm learning certain things at a steady pace right now after some plateau in the early part of the year. Handstand semiprivates have been critical to this. The randomness is slowly starting to come out of the process of kicking up to a solid handstand in the middle of the room... the fewer moving parts, the better? Ohhhhh, that makes sense. And I'm starting to be able to do simple leg variations (open/close) in handstands while drifting free of a spotter's hands. Two reps of that happened this morning... well, one and a half before the spotter really was going to have to step in and save me, as the last open wasn't terribly controlled. But it was progress.

And I'm starting to understand how a coach can see progress in a student's technique even if the student only knows their handstand still isn't sticking. Starting to understand just how useful video feedback really is. Starting to be able to press myself up from the ground to standing on handbalancing canes. And for the icing on the cake, I got through today's whole lesson with no wrist guard. It's healing.

Here I am flying "needle" on Scooper tonight. Not every trick went well today, but this did. We held it for at least 30 seconds, and he put me down on purpose rather than me falling out of it.



Needle's a strangely emotional pose for me because it requires so much trust. It's also a crazy isolation, and for a long time I didn't like working on it. But now it works, and when we find the stillness here it's just magical.