Another work week over

[flexagon]

This week I read The Glass Castle -- the first book I've ever seen that documents a childhood sort of like mine. Oh, I don't think my parents were quite as crazy as the parents in the book, and their dynamic was quite different, but parts of it were outright spooky: the substandard housing thing with fake plans for something better, the kids drawing up a budget for the parents to use and the parents just not doing it, the parents studying esoteric subjects while basic needs around them aren't being met. The kids creating solid city lives with high priority placed on housing and yes, putting food on the table. It's true that I never scavenged out of garbage cans... might've though, if my parents had had four kids, and that's why I never say I wish I'd had siblings. Reading this book though, I wanted them for the first time. Yeah, it might have been awful, but imagine allies, real allies my size helping to plot the escape.

Anyway, I've been reading a lot of crossfit.com stuff this week in an attempt to ignore heisenbug being gone. I used the lat pulldown machine yesterday to see how close I am to a bar muscle-up... 80 pounds was easy and 90 was just a little too hard, which makes me think I could possibly do 90 if I was fresh but am nowhere close to 130. (I also tweaked my thumb a little; no wonder these things are usually done on rings). It might be nice to do some reps of those. I also want to start timing myself on L-sits, which I used to not be able to do at all and now I can do for up to 5 seconds. Crossfit recommends working up to 3 minutes... huh, whatever... my goal is more like 15 seconds.

Comments

[flexagon]

5 minutes!? Wow, this is going to come out wrong but I had no idea you were ever that good. 5 minutes is a long, long time. I'm impressed.

Pirouettes in handstand aren't on one hand though. You lift one hand, turn it in, step on it, turn the other hand to match, etc. I've seen people work on it in gymnastics sometimes, although there the goal never seems to be "just balance", it's like "get up, do something, then come back down". I know I only have one data point here, but it's really much, much less controlled than they seem to teach it in a circus context.

[bluechromis.livejournal.com]

Ah, have I never told you I was on the junior national team? I was pretty serious about it until between age 11 and 12 I grew 4 inches, went from no boobs to a C cup, and instantly had hips. I started hurting myself all the time, my coach was on me about my weight all the time, or at least seemed disappointed all the time, we were moving so I had to switch gyms anyway, and it was really expensive, so that was when I decided to quit.

However, honestly, 5 min. wasn't particularly good where I was. The expectations were pretty high. I could definitely do a pirouette as you describe though.

[flexagon]

If you did, I think I didn't really understand what it meant. I'm impressed now, that's for damn sure.

[bluechromis.livejournal.com]

Eh, don't be. I started when I was 4, practiced 4+ hrs/day (not when I was 4!), 5-6 days/wk. It would have been sad if I hadn't been any good. I am still a little pissed/disappointed/embarrassed about how it ended though. Oh well. Life was so fucked up at that point if I hadn't grown it would have been something else.