Escape to Witch Mountain
May. 24th, 2007 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexagonI found them! I found playful acro-people to play with me! Yes, tonight was the night of the acroyoga workshop. I thought I would know at least one person there, for the rather good reasons that one person said they would go with me and I advertised the event to about 10 others, mostly yoga or gymnastics people, who I thought might like it. In fact I did know one person there: the yoga-teachin' husband of one of the regular teachers at 02 Yoga. And so I was right all along, but for the wrong reasons. Story of my life. :)
If you don't think acro sounds like fun then maybe I can't tell you why it's good to lift another person, or be lifted and stretched, or giggle and be dropped. There is something primal about it, supporting and being supported, that makes me feel human and happy, and there's a showing-off element and most of all it's just about playing. I'm not here to convince you, and I don't have the slightest idea why stuff like this doesn't sell out when boot-campy Ana Forrest garbage does. I will, however, post some pictures when they get sent around.
Circle work: initially we did some stuff in a circle with hands on shoulders, leaning to the left and right etc. Nothing too cool here except when we went around doing downward dog feet-claps. That is, hop your feet in the air and clap them together, then land. Got it? Hop your feet in the air and clap them twice and land! Only two people besides the teacher managed three claps -- one was the aforementioned yoga-teachin' husband, and the other was your own dear![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
flexagon. It's basically a fun way to practice hop-ups toward handstand.
Stacking: we did plank-on-plank, first two high and then three high (I flew top and middle and based it -- at different times, silly -- this marks the first time I've ever supported the body weight of two other people). We also did stacked tabletop, which I kind of hated, no surprise since I hate tabletop. I can imagine other fun stackers. Who wants to stack vasistasana with me, hmm?
Inversions: I did candlestick on the teacher but we didn't really learn it in class. Instead, we learned a shoulderstand-on-bridge thing where the base does bridge, supports their hips with their hands, and the flyer puts shoulders right above the base's knees and grabs their ankles and goes upside down. I don't like calling this a "shoulderstand" since I associate that too much with the usual yoga shoulderstand, but that's what they called a full inversion with most of the flyer's weight on the shoulders, so I'll call it that too.
Front flying: falling leaf, which is a straddle with the upper body relaxed -- a surprisingly good way to rub someone's shoulders, and I know this is done in Thai massage. From there you can pick up the flyer's hands and kind of stretch them, or hold onto their elbows and twist them around. For this it's best if they bring their feet together. You can get from that into airplane, which they called bird. You can also do odd things with pushing the flyer's head through the base's legs (if the flyer then does baddakonasana, it's called "walnut"), or hooking the flyer's hands around the base's neck to stretch them.
Back flying: finally I got to base the birdcage-to-straddle transition shown in my icon, whichnevers did to me a long time ago. And then I learned how to go back from there to birdcage again, which is harder, and I almost dropped my flyer but I didn't. I'm pretty confident that I can do at least the first part to apfelsingail when I see her next, which is one specific thing I really wanted to get out of this workshop. Happy wiggles!
Sitting flying: secretary, which I already knew, and throne where the flyer sits on the base's feet with their feet on the base's hands. It looks like its name, and there's nowhere really to go from there. If the flyer opens their hips wide, there's another sitting position where flyer and base and still facing each other but it's possible for the flyer to wrap feet inside the base's legs. From there it's then possible to unwrap, bring hands together and sort of throw the flyer up a bit to transition into airplane/bird.
Finally it devolved into sheer playtime. The class was down from eight to six, and we put a blanket on the floor and did a merry-go-round with 3 people's feet on the blankets and 3 people between those people, standing up. Everyone linked wrists, the people on the floor raised their hips and the other three ran around in a circle until someone's grip broke. After that the teacher said "anyone know any other cool tricks?" and I did because there we were... yes, six people... perfect for the jellyfish thing from Pilobolus where everyone links shoulders and every other person lifts their feet entirely. People were up for trying, and we got it to work on the second try. Oh my god, most fun EVER! When that one broke, the velocity was intense enough to fling us out into a straight line, and I was basically almost thrown out a window. After that we did a circle pushup where nobody's feet were on the ground (each person's feet on the shoulders of the person behind them) -- I stalled halfway up, embarrassing -- and a circle downward dog thing. Then we did "the monster", which is basically the central 3 people of Lava's "dragon" and which I am utterly failing to find a picture of. I flew as the front person on one of those, but that's it. Class sort of ended then and there was email-swapping, but I left to the sounds of two guys beating the hell out of each other with rolled-up yoga mats like giant 7-year-olds.
One of the women there I really want to stay in touch with -- she apparently has acro get-togethers semi-regularly at her place, and she knows some stuff about Nimble Arts and general cool things. And in 3 days I get to do acro-in-the-park withnevers in the city at the center of the universe! My acro-cup runneth over.
If you don't think acro sounds like fun then maybe I can't tell you why it's good to lift another person, or be lifted and stretched, or giggle and be dropped. There is something primal about it, supporting and being supported, that makes me feel human and happy, and there's a showing-off element and most of all it's just about playing. I'm not here to convince you, and I don't have the slightest idea why stuff like this doesn't sell out when boot-campy Ana Forrest garbage does. I will, however, post some pictures when they get sent around.
Circle work: initially we did some stuff in a circle with hands on shoulders, leaning to the left and right etc. Nothing too cool here except when we went around doing downward dog feet-claps. That is, hop your feet in the air and clap them together, then land. Got it? Hop your feet in the air and clap them twice and land! Only two people besides the teacher managed three claps -- one was the aforementioned yoga-teachin' husband, and the other was your own dear
flexagon. It's basically a fun way to practice hop-ups toward handstand.Stacking: we did plank-on-plank, first two high and then three high (I flew top and middle and based it -- at different times, silly -- this marks the first time I've ever supported the body weight of two other people). We also did stacked tabletop, which I kind of hated, no surprise since I hate tabletop. I can imagine other fun stackers. Who wants to stack vasistasana with me, hmm?
Inversions: I did candlestick on the teacher but we didn't really learn it in class. Instead, we learned a shoulderstand-on-bridge thing where the base does bridge, supports their hips with their hands, and the flyer puts shoulders right above the base's knees and grabs their ankles and goes upside down. I don't like calling this a "shoulderstand" since I associate that too much with the usual yoga shoulderstand, but that's what they called a full inversion with most of the flyer's weight on the shoulders, so I'll call it that too.
Front flying: falling leaf, which is a straddle with the upper body relaxed -- a surprisingly good way to rub someone's shoulders, and I know this is done in Thai massage. From there you can pick up the flyer's hands and kind of stretch them, or hold onto their elbows and twist them around. For this it's best if they bring their feet together. You can get from that into airplane, which they called bird. You can also do odd things with pushing the flyer's head through the base's legs (if the flyer then does baddakonasana, it's called "walnut"), or hooking the flyer's hands around the base's neck to stretch them.
Back flying: finally I got to base the birdcage-to-straddle transition shown in my icon, which
nevers did to me a long time ago. And then I learned how to go back from there to birdcage again, which is harder, and I almost dropped my flyer but I didn't. I'm pretty confident that I can do at least the first part to apfelsingail when I see her next, which is one specific thing I really wanted to get out of this workshop. Happy wiggles!Sitting flying: secretary, which I already knew, and throne where the flyer sits on the base's feet with their feet on the base's hands. It looks like its name, and there's nowhere really to go from there. If the flyer opens their hips wide, there's another sitting position where flyer and base and still facing each other but it's possible for the flyer to wrap feet inside the base's legs. From there it's then possible to unwrap, bring hands together and sort of throw the flyer up a bit to transition into airplane/bird.
Finally it devolved into sheer playtime. The class was down from eight to six, and we put a blanket on the floor and did a merry-go-round with 3 people's feet on the blankets and 3 people between those people, standing up. Everyone linked wrists, the people on the floor raised their hips and the other three ran around in a circle until someone's grip broke. After that the teacher said "anyone know any other cool tricks?" and I did because there we were... yes, six people... perfect for the jellyfish thing from Pilobolus where everyone links shoulders and every other person lifts their feet entirely. People were up for trying, and we got it to work on the second try. Oh my god, most fun EVER! When that one broke, the velocity was intense enough to fling us out into a straight line, and I was basically almost thrown out a window. After that we did a circle pushup where nobody's feet were on the ground (each person's feet on the shoulders of the person behind them) -- I stalled halfway up, embarrassing -- and a circle downward dog thing. Then we did "the monster", which is basically the central 3 people of Lava's "dragon" and which I am utterly failing to find a picture of. I flew as the front person on one of those, but that's it. Class sort of ended then and there was email-swapping, but I left to the sounds of two guys beating the hell out of each other with rolled-up yoga mats like giant 7-year-olds.
One of the women there I really want to stay in touch with -- she apparently has acro get-togethers semi-regularly at her place, and she knows some stuff about Nimble Arts and general cool things. And in 3 days I get to do acro-in-the-park with
nevers in the city at the center of the universe! My acro-cup runneth over.
