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Educational megadose (just circus)
Jul. 21st, 2018 10:59 amThe second week of circus intensive is a wrap -- just one more to go, plus putting on a show next Saturday.
Modern dance happened this week, as threatened. It did involve rolling around on the floor, though at least in kind of an interesting pattern, and it also had an exercise that started with "move like the earth", which is an exercise I walked out on when presented to me unexpectedly in acro class one day but was resigned to this time. Then we did things I liked a bit better, that illustrated to me how material can come from anywhere: we very literally danced about architecture, and we danced our phone numbers, and we combined our phone number dances with other people's phone number dances and we practiced critiquing and commenting on those works. But the most interesting moment for me was when the teacher called for "five dancers on the floor" for improv, and I wound up being one of those people. Being referred to as a dancer really confuses my brain, it turns out, even more than being referred to as an athlete. Nouns are weird.
I took notes about how people's movement can be compared and combined: continuous vs periodic, high and low, movement in unison or in sequence or in canon. Also, tableaus really work (I knew that), and people interrupting / changing / causing each other's movement is far more eye-catching than people working alone.
"Two very flexible people" -- We did a long exercise that started with using our circus apparatus -- I chose handstand canes -- and dancing / indicating just four digits of our phone numbers, then combining with others by blending material. A painful thing happened here, in that I got thrown in with the two contortionists (one of whom was also a handbalancer, and one of whom was bendier and more purely contortion) and had to pretty significantly modify some of their moves in order to echo them at all. I tried, though, and had a happier time of it when I realized that a scorpion "shoulderstand" on canes was a good substitution for a cheststand. Anyway, after we all stole each others' material we were asked to perform our three solos in unison, which in itself was a sad thing to ask of my body at 9:15 in the morning when it was stiff and sore. I didn't want to do a dropback into a backbend, or a split, or a croc for that matter. I did, though.
In the resulting critique circle, we were practicing giving feedback starting with "I saw..." and the teacher started out with "I saw two very flexible people...". I was sure this sentence would end with something about me, like "and one person who was trying" or "one person who has a different skillset" and I was prepared to laugh about that. To my astonishment, it continued with "and one EXTREMELY flexible person, which made me naturally see Extra-Bendy as the soloist." People! I got lumped in with the lower-level contortionist! And didn't make an idiot of myself, maybe?
Press handstand feels, not mine for once. Four of us had a press lesson with Pokemon in which I was trying hard to throw all instinct out the window and just follow all the prompts as strenuously as I could, and who cares if I fall over. What I actually did was press off a 2" height, with someone touching me but not helping with the lift... it was encouraging. But Pokemon called us in for a "real talk" about how presses are hard and frustrating and take time, and I realized that a fellow student was really angry and upset. Her handstands are better than mine and she can press beautifully off a ball, but those first few inches of the motion elude her and she HATES it. I understand, and I offered sympathy, and secretly I felt a bit more serene knowing I'm not the only one to have press feels.
Acro hasn't been very exciting for me lately. But on Wednesday I top-flew a 3-high just because I was bored with middling, with moderate success, plus flew a helicoper face-down. New things are fun. My old injured base maybe recovering from his injury is even more fun. And in the meantime there's a trio act to work on, which is extra appreciated when class isn't doing it for me.
A pec stretch tip We finished out the week with a shoulder health workshop, where I learned that a lot of people stretch their pecs wrong and end up just smashing the front part of their shoulder sockets. Apparently when you do the classic face-down thing with putting an arm out to the side and then rolling over to stretch it, you want the stretch on the front of your body to be in the pec, not the shoulder socket (okay...) and you want the compression on the back of the body to be between the scapula and the spine, not out between the scapula and the shoulder socket. OH. Well that's a new thing to watch out for. As with a few other things, my right shoulder does this better than my left one, so far.
Modern dance happened this week, as threatened. It did involve rolling around on the floor, though at least in kind of an interesting pattern, and it also had an exercise that started with "move like the earth", which is an exercise I walked out on when presented to me unexpectedly in acro class one day but was resigned to this time. Then we did things I liked a bit better, that illustrated to me how material can come from anywhere: we very literally danced about architecture, and we danced our phone numbers, and we combined our phone number dances with other people's phone number dances and we practiced critiquing and commenting on those works. But the most interesting moment for me was when the teacher called for "five dancers on the floor" for improv, and I wound up being one of those people. Being referred to as a dancer really confuses my brain, it turns out, even more than being referred to as an athlete. Nouns are weird.
I took notes about how people's movement can be compared and combined: continuous vs periodic, high and low, movement in unison or in sequence or in canon. Also, tableaus really work (I knew that), and people interrupting / changing / causing each other's movement is far more eye-catching than people working alone.
"Two very flexible people" -- We did a long exercise that started with using our circus apparatus -- I chose handstand canes -- and dancing / indicating just four digits of our phone numbers, then combining with others by blending material. A painful thing happened here, in that I got thrown in with the two contortionists (one of whom was also a handbalancer, and one of whom was bendier and more purely contortion) and had to pretty significantly modify some of their moves in order to echo them at all. I tried, though, and had a happier time of it when I realized that a scorpion "shoulderstand" on canes was a good substitution for a cheststand. Anyway, after we all stole each others' material we were asked to perform our three solos in unison, which in itself was a sad thing to ask of my body at 9:15 in the morning when it was stiff and sore. I didn't want to do a dropback into a backbend, or a split, or a croc for that matter. I did, though.
In the resulting critique circle, we were practicing giving feedback starting with "I saw..." and the teacher started out with "I saw two very flexible people...". I was sure this sentence would end with something about me, like "and one person who was trying" or "one person who has a different skillset" and I was prepared to laugh about that. To my astonishment, it continued with "and one EXTREMELY flexible person, which made me naturally see Extra-Bendy as the soloist." People! I got lumped in with the lower-level contortionist! And didn't make an idiot of myself, maybe?
Press handstand feels, not mine for once. Four of us had a press lesson with Pokemon in which I was trying hard to throw all instinct out the window and just follow all the prompts as strenuously as I could, and who cares if I fall over. What I actually did was press off a 2" height, with someone touching me but not helping with the lift... it was encouraging. But Pokemon called us in for a "real talk" about how presses are hard and frustrating and take time, and I realized that a fellow student was really angry and upset. Her handstands are better than mine and she can press beautifully off a ball, but those first few inches of the motion elude her and she HATES it. I understand, and I offered sympathy, and secretly I felt a bit more serene knowing I'm not the only one to have press feels.
Acro hasn't been very exciting for me lately. But on Wednesday I top-flew a 3-high just because I was bored with middling, with moderate success, plus flew a helicoper face-down. New things are fun. My old injured base maybe recovering from his injury is even more fun. And in the meantime there's a trio act to work on, which is extra appreciated when class isn't doing it for me.
A pec stretch tip We finished out the week with a shoulder health workshop, where I learned that a lot of people stretch their pecs wrong and end up just smashing the front part of their shoulder sockets. Apparently when you do the classic face-down thing with putting an arm out to the side and then rolling over to stretch it, you want the stretch on the front of your body to be in the pec, not the shoulder socket (okay...) and you want the compression on the back of the body to be between the scapula and the spine, not out between the scapula and the shoulder socket. OH. Well that's a new thing to watch out for. As with a few other things, my right shoulder does this better than my left one, so far.
