ice water and ocicats

Last night, studying NASM stuff with my friend Pole Dancer, I was nattering on about something, maybe the heartbeat: the atria contract and then the ventricles (based on the same nerve signal, but the AV node slows it down en route), and thus we get the classic two-beat lub-dub that you hear when you press your ear to someone's chest. She said "You make this stuff all so interesting!" I said "It is interesting and cool... isn't it? All this stuff is real, it's about what's inside us all the time!" And she said "It's exciting and interesting when you teach it. Have you ever thought about being a teacher? You'd be a great teacher."

I think she thinks a bunch of things about me that I think about Dan the Cat. Without trying to duck the compliment, it's kind of scary to realize it's all relative. I feel a certain weight of responsibility -- which I guess is the whole point of studying with someone else. I don't necessarily mind, because if I'm studying while thinking how to not only understand but teach the material, I'll learn that much better and I know it.

I hope I have mentioned that working on handstands every day is the bomb. I'm used to extremely slow progress, but, well, not lately. Today (when I took my daily PT-stretch-and-handstand break) I held a freestanding handstand and counted to 20; it probably was not 20 seconds but I bet it was a record. Tonight at gymnastics I also measured that mat I straddled up to last week: seven inches thick, not four or five. Tonight no such heroism was on display: I just straddled up normally in front of a crash pad, again and again and again. Once or twice I caught my balance for a few seconds, but I made it up, I don't know. Definitely over 20 times. I still seem to lose the feel of straddle-ups in between sessions, but by the end of a session it feels like I hardly need to jump. And every time the neural pathways get reinforced. You know what I really like? The word accretion. Yep, and tamales and dodecahedrons. :)

Through great good luck I found out that Eliott from my studio was doing an arm balance workshop yesterday -- it wouldn't necessarily have been an inversion workshop except that Eliott loves handstands. I'm doing an inversion workshop (actually an inversion workshop) with Ana Forrest next weekend at Back Bay Yoga, so I feel especially lucky in my handstand training lately. This balances my bad luck in being sick all week, and therefore really weak. :b

The best thing we did in Eliott's class is practice falling out of handstand into wheel in the middle of the floor. I didn't really straighten up into my full handstand before falling, just came over with knees bent. Up and... thud. Up and... thud. Up and... thud. It was rather cathartic, actually. I still wonder why gymnastics people caution against doing it that way, while yoga people caution against cartwheeling out and rolling out. All three ways seem okay to me. The gymnastics ways do seem lower impact as long as a person is good with working with momentum, but I'm getting better at falling into backbend and I certainly see it as a legitimate way out. It probably helps that I have a pretty comfortable wheel.

I haven't whined yet on LJ about having a slightly torn hamstring. :-( It's my right semitendonosus, for those who really care. The massage therapist wants me to go to physical therapy, where the badly healed-up fibers in the muscle can be ultrasounded away and where they will give me exercises to do. Also, I'm supposed to not be stretching it too much. It's hard for me to feel the difference between the good stretch and the bad stretch, so I may just take this opportunity to focus on other muscles for a while. I suppose this could screw up my annual stretching pictures in March... only the hamstring ones though, and healing up properly is more important. Goddamn hamstrings.

I'm still strongly considering NASM peronal trainer certification. I have a friend who will do it with me if I do. We're about to start up another technical book club at work, so I might be studying a lot this spring.