Way to make a girl blush

[flexagon]

Weird, the last TWO updates on my Facebook timeline are totally unprovoked compliments about acro. Also, last week someone asked me if I was an acro teacher, which had never happened before (although people think I might be a yoga teacher all the time). Splutter. It's so public, there is nothing I can do but gracefully accept the compliments, and I feel conflicted about it. I'm not a superstar! ...although the circus training is definitely giving me some tricks that stand out in the acroyoga world.

I am thinking about trust, and how I bailed a couple of times on Weds night when being pitched by Heatwave ("sorry, trust issues!"), but with the Ant I was totally fine being pitched up to head height. He said how high he wanted to take it, I said yes, he caught me every single time, the end. Weirdly, we all happened to be looking over at another group just as a flyer freaked out mid-pitch and karate-kicked her base (soong, as it happens) in the face on the way down. It was kind of neat-looking, in a Matrix-y way, and also horrifying, and I think it reminded the bases that they're depending on me, too.

Comments

[flexagon]

Trust is a big deal in flying and a HUGE deal specifically in pitching. I only have two people that I trust near-unconditionally to catch me on the way down, and one of them is the teacher so he hardly counts. (The Ant is the second one.) And that's just with straight pitches -- even the Ant will drop me sometimes if trying to catch me in high foot-to-hand or bird. That's why we still do those things in lines.

i tried to fly some hand-to-hand on a great base today. i hated it. first try i wasn't tight. second try i tightened up but i still hated the feeling of my hands moving around, and he wasn't able to balance me.

Oh, super interesting, and to be honest I expected something like that. You are a handbalancer, and my guess here is that you were trying to do a handstand. :-) Have you heard of the difference between "righting reflexes" and "tilting reflexes"? Very relevant. Check out this post by Toledo:

http://www.facebook.com/portal.ido/posts/507207749297859

Basically, flying hand-to-hand means doing two of the three parts of a handstand. You are responsible for alignment and tightness, but NOT BALANCE. And the part of your body that stays still is more around your midpoint, rather than being at your hands, as it is when you do a handstand on the floor. This is the same way things are when you walk on a slackline (another somewhat evil feeling), where your foot is not the balance point. Worst of all in hand-to-hand, the balancing is not done by you. It gets easier when you TRULY give up that control to your base, and just make yourself into a stick. They balance the stick.

(You might try a standing hand-to-hand, if you aren't worried about heights or can try it in lines. The base has a lot more opportunity to balance you there, since they can actually walk to get under you if need be.)

[nevers.livejournal.com]

i swear i was tight and not balancing myself! also i dan had just read that portal post :). i WAS able to acheive tightness when standing on the banquine but of course it's easier standing than handstanding.
i would be game for trying a standing hand-to-hand in lines.

[flexagon]

haha, okay, I believe you. :-) It's not always conscious though. I have the same problem at times, and my body is not nearly as trained in handbalancing as yours is.

Btw, I've done the tiniest bit of banquine in Z-dawg's class long ago; not since. I spotted some at acrotastic in 2010, but never flew.

(There's a four-hour acro workshop starting, in 3.5 hours and all I'm doing is jittering around the house waiting for it to start and trying to be productive.)