Acroyoga workshop synopsis

[flexagon]

What a long, surreal weekend. Going to acrobatic flying today was the right call. Sadly, though, I didn't get ANY PICTURES of myself... not a one! I would love nothing better than a photo shoot of the things we did, but in the meantime I've tried to find pictures on the web for illustration.

Friday: inversions and how to spot them. Basically, a scissor lift is the best way to get a beginner upside down, and then hot-potato spotting with hands on the person's hipbones handlebars.

Friday part 2, acro basics: folded leaf, walnut, "high flying whale" (hee hee, that's such a silly name) and the one where the base is on hands and knees and the flyer does a shoulder-standy thing on them. The only thing new to me is when we went from that last one to a counterbalance, with the base able to take their hands off the floor.

Saturday part 1, thai massage: I learned a whole sequence of thai massage moves for the lower body, which I should try to write down separately and/or practice on heisenbug soon so I don't forget. This involved some really cool moves involving elbows, knees, shins and a lot of pouring body weight around.

Saturday part 2, therapeutic flying: pretty basic sequencing of folded leaf / superyogi / twisting type stuff. Also back flying: birdcage, and then finally birdcage-into-bat transition, which I had done before but only once, 1.5 years ago. The new thing I learned was the "plop" dismount from birdcage; the flyer just grabs the base's feet, goes into a tuck and lowers down.

Sunday is where things get crazy, part 1: acro training tricks. This definitely gave me some things to practice. We did:

• Normal abs consising of hollow-body rocks; shoulderstand rolls to tuckup; V-ups
• Crazy partner butt-bumping abs, with two people lying down, grasping hands and shoulder-standing to switch butt positions repeatedly
• Fast pushups, fast down-dog pushups (ha ha)
• forearm stand, which I can rock pretty well, and tripod-headstand-to-crow-and-back, which I can rock really well
• Assisted headstand straddle presses; assisted headstand-to-handstand presses (the spotter is behind the person, in goddess pose)
• Handstand walks, which in theory is the first 2 inches of a handstand press repeated again and again... ha freaking ha. I would have thought it was impossible except that I saw it done right in front of me.

Once everyone was thoroughly exhausted from that, we put it all together in a 1-hr asana practice that had strength moves sprinkled through it. Uffffff, I was soaking.

Sunday is where things only got crazier, part 2: acrobatic flying.

• Straddle throne, from which one can transition to folded leaf, one foot at a time:
  
  
  
  
• Bird to dhanurasana
• That twisty transition from folded leaf to the reverse (and thence to bat), which is too crazy-confusing to describe here, but I hope to be able to do it to apfelsingail at Christmas. I think this is a picture of someone halfway through that move, which means mid-twist.
  
  
  
  
• Bird to "shoulder stand", aka "candlestick variation", like this:
  
  
  
  and then from there the flyer can bring one knee down into a stag position on one of the base's feet, and let go with the hands while the base brings one foot back down; very pretty and impressive looking and yes, apfelsingail, I will definitely remember this one and pictures will be gotten. :)
• Some winding-down Thai massage where we walked all over the other person's forearms. Very nice.

What did I actually learn that I want to remember and keep practicing?

• That whole massage sequence I didn't describe.
• If I'm basing and my flyer has a layer of slipperiness over their hipbones, pronating my feet so that the feet cup their bones can help a LOT.
• In handstand, it is good to practice pressing off the wall with one toe and finding balance with the fingers.
• Acroyoga teaches that there is no way to correct an underbalance in handstands, which seems kind of silly to me, because yes there is.
• The ribcage part of the hollow body is still too hard for me to find. Maybe I need to do that often, like Kegels, when I'm lying in bed or bored in a meeting.
• Those "handstand walk" mini-presses. I need to find a productive way to work on them. Maybe I'd do better going from a step to ground level.
• As a base I have to push into a person so they'll be comfortable falling onto me. This goes triple for new people who don't realize I'm strong and don't trust me to start pushing at the right moment.
• I am pretty freaking awesome and can do great things, and am capable of learning more!