Acro and skill things, lately

[flexagon]

I need to brain-dump about acro because of the other things that are about to come along and wipe my brain like an Etch-a-Sketch.

It's been a big week or so. Last Saturday was the Boston Acroyoga Festival... 10 hours this time, and I think 80-something people. I was on the comp list, and it was great to be there (even short on sleep) and have a chance to take two classes from a visiting Seattle superstar.

I also competed in the "acrolympics", which, well, I have feelings about. Acroyoga... competition? Been there, done that. I didn't want to play, but a random polling of friends said it would be spoilsporty not to. OK, fine; hearing that teachers would be in a different category from non-teachers, I teamed up with Heatwave instead of either of my usual bases. We got together on Thursday to practice, and on Saturday we smoked everyone. I think we had five first places and a second place -- the way the scoring system worked we were ALMOST mathematically unbeatable. And the wins were kinda fun.

At the end they threw in a standing h2h competition. Since I was trashed already from competing, I now have video of me and the Ant up there with TERRIBLE form for 83 seconds. (The visiting superstars, who hadn't competed, calmly and firmly waited us out. Second place.)

How did I feel once the adrenaline wore off? Dirty. Annoyed. Ashamed at that lousy-form h2h, even though 83 seconds is still pretty effing good and I'd have killed for that hold time a year ago. Exhausted at the feeling that I should have to prove myself to the AY community over and over. In tears the next day, I wrote to superstar flyer (who, due to some stuff last year, I knew would understand) and also asked for feedback on the whole competition thing on my own Facebook page. I still don't know what to think -- some people benefited but many didn't. Scooper and the Ant refrained from taking it seriously at all, and competed together in a few events, which was hilarious and awesome; that may have been the best strategy. Anyway, I'll certainly enjoy splitting the prize with Heatwave: a semiprivate lesson with a circus coach.

I've done some good handstands since then, and some GREAT acro on Wednesday night, when I got my cartwheel into standing h2h (on Scooper) for the first time. We hadn't worked on it in a while, and we said "let's just try one and see how it goes", and how it went is it floated magically, calmly up through the air and settled. Wow! What the hell! I had no explanation, and we had to try about five more times before a second one worked; the main trick seems to be getting good foot placement on Scooper's forearm so that he can seriously boost me. With enough hang-time, I have a chance to get organized.

On Thursday night we played some more... we're starting to work chair-handstand h2h down low, and once we transitioned really smoothly and strongly from there to a regular low h2h: the beginning of getting pistons.

Handstands remain, well, handstands. Bender says I almost have the feel of the shoulder motion I need for my press, and almost is not quite, but almost is progress.

Comments

[nahele-101.livejournal.com]

How much time do you spend on handstands a week do you think?

Can you do a handstand push up yet? I've been working on those..

AY olympics sounds...weird.

[flexagon]

Handstands: I take two 75-minute group classes plus one 60-minute private per week. I don't practice on my own a ton, probably 15-30 minutes every week right now... I'm unsure enough of my proprioception that a coach's eye really helps.

I don't train HSPUs except occasionally, as a conditioning thing, with a heavy spot.

One thing I CAN do is come down, controlled, from a handstand to a shoulders-at-hand-level handbalance on canes. For that I need only a light spot to keep me from losing balance, not a help-spot.

[soong.livejournal.com]

I do social dance; I don't do competitive dance. I bet there are a lot of parallel reasons why we might not want to get into competition.

Hugs and lifts.

[nevers.livejournal.com]

haha, that sounds like something bender would say. i got to take class FROM him for the first time this past week (usually we coteach) and that was a treat.
the competition sounds very emotionally confusing. but you legit won all those things, right?

[flexagon]

I didn't realize you two were co-teachers! That's awesome. I do really enjoy his coaching and will miss him a lot when he heads off to ENC this fall. (Also, have you ever gotten to fly on him? SOLID.)

I (and my base) did legit win all those things. It just seemed kind of... showoffy.

I also kind of felt like I HAD to win in order to legimately question the idea of the contest, so that it wouldn't feel like sour grapes, which is a stupid feeling.

[flexagon]

Hmm, yeah. Partner dance is another one of those things where the cooperation seems like an essential part of the thing... and taking that cooperative thing and turning it competitive might feel kind of wrong-o.

[nevers.livejournal.com]

yes, it's cool because we teach very differently so we get to learn a lot from each other. never got offered to fly on him :).