I’m just finishing week 9 of the Aloft full time professional training program and I’m feeling fantastic. My body is feeling great, I’ve adjusted to the training volume so that I’m not sore all the time and I’m actually seeing progress in both skills and strength. The biggest improvement I’ve seen has been in handstands. After 3+ years of working on handstands, something finally clicked last week and I’m able to consistently kick up into my handstand and hold it for 5-10 seconds and actually feel in control and can sometimes change the shape of my legs or lower through a straddle or tuck to exit. I’m also noticing in conditioning drills in class, exercises I struggled with at first are getting easier and easier. Specifically the “there and backs” in straps are actually possible now (start in a meathook on one side, fully lower your hips so that your foot can pass between your hands and then raise back into a half straddle, then pike, then half straddle on the other side to the other side meathook and then repeat back the other direction). I haven’t tested my max reps for leg lifts, pull ups, and push ups so I can’t give exact improvements yet but I can feel and see the changes.
We produced our first Communion last month where I was the stage manager. The show went really well and I enjoyed being stage manager but its definitely a role that you’d get better and better at the more you do it. For this next Communion I’ve chosen an easier role, promotions, so I’ll have less to do the day of the show. I will write a dedicated blog post about all my thoughts on the different roles once I’ve done a few.
This week our focus is Cyr wheel and I love it just as much as I expected. It’s so hard to actually learn the skills so only having 5 days with it isn’t much time at all. I’m surprised how much it feels like juggling. It’s just that the thing you’re juggling is a 30lb giant steel hoop. And sometimes, you’re inside the hoop. And the juggling motion comes from your hips instead of your hands. The learning curve for Cyr is basically a 90* wall since you have to figure out how to balance on it while spinning before you can progress. I really enjoy it though so I’m very sad it wasn’t picked to be in our class rotation next term. I can see myself getting really into cyr, but with the way Aloft is set up it’s hard to get the space to practice it unless you get there early in the morning before anyone else is around to have to share the space. I’d love to take classes at the Cyr gym near the city so maybe I can pencil that into my budget once I have a job.
Week 7 we had cloud swing as our focus which was probably the focus I was most excited about for the whole term and I ended up getting sick the weekend before and having to miss 2 full days of it and a third day was incredibly struggled. Going to my previous day job when I was kind of sick wasn’t really a struggle. Going to circus school while being kind of sick is miserable. Cloud swing itself was a favorite of mine as well but not how I expected it to be. I was initially disappointed when I found out we couldn’t actually swing like you would for what cloud swing is known for (that requires special rigging) but we are able to set it up “static” and that still allows for sideways swaying and it behaves in a super unique way. A lot of aerialist say that sling is a mix between silks and lyra/ trapeze and I think that holds even more true for cloud swing. So much bar theory transfers onto cloud swing and so much silks theory can be used too. But because it’s static but rigged on two points it creates unique opportunities to spin like on a static trapeze and to utilize side to side swaying. It’s just so cool and fun to move on and some of that fun is just getting to take what you know on other apparatus and see what happens when you try it on cloud swing.
UPDATE: I was writing this blog post on Thursday and Sunday afternoon I re-ignited my old neck injury, an irritated disc that causes me to have a stiff neck. The universe heard me say my body was feeling great and decided to take me down a peg. It happened Sunday in lyra class but what I think the actual culprit was, was flexibility class on Friday. We were focusing on back flexibility, which we prepare for by doing a lot of active leaning back in your lunge and I pushed it too far. Sunday was just the next time I did any aerial so that's when it was officially triggered. Doing a pull up motion is what triggered it the very first time it happened so it makes sense that when I mounted the lyra on Sunday that it was set off again. This ain’t my first rodeo so I’ve already been applying heat and have scheduled the chiropractor appointment. I know it’ll pass but it’s such a bummer to have to just observe most of my classes in week 10.
