Belated Circus Video

What my mother has been waiting for:

Of course, when I look at it now all I see is the fumbles I make, the time I spend thinking "Wait, what now?" and so on. Advantages over the previous act: I have a character. Disadvantages: the song isn't as good for an act, and the moves don't go as well to the song.

I think those parts are a function of how I choreographed, which is to say that I chose the song (and in certain ways the character) because I was performing in two weeks and hadn't yet found anything better. I had a few sequences I wanted to fit in, and I cut stuff out to fit the music. It worked, and the act is okay, but it could be way better. And although I like the fact that the character came semi-first, and the music came later, I think that it probably works best to spend enough time playing around with the music that they really flow. So next time, before I start stringing tricks together, I'll find some music.

I Found My Heart in San Fransisco?

Har har har.

But somewhat more seriously, as I was walking (slowly, slowly) up from aerial class today towards the MUNI stop, breathing in the cold fog and breathing out slightly warmer fog, considering eating the chocolates I had been given for christmas as dinner (they were delicious), I had one of those movie-homecoming moments. You know, the last scene of the movie that goes with the epilog of the heroine having found a home and a new life and going off to change the world? It just felt comfortable and right. Which is pretty awesome, since I didn't really feel at home in Chicago until the end of my second year or something like that. I think, in part, it is related to the fact that I am doing things that force me out into the city more often than I was in Undergraduate, and also because everyone here is super friendly. Like, whoah.

On the other hand, I went to a stretching class today. Trust me when I say it was seriously hard core. No intro to yoga class, this. As in, they nicknamed it contorture. It appealed to a somewhat older audience than the aerial class I usually take, I think, although I am uncertain as to why -- flexibility goes before strength does, at least as far as I knew.

I'm going to start by saying I am not a contortionist. There are people who are bendy, naturally, and there are people who build muscle mass naturally. I am fairly squarely in the latter category, given my gender and age. When I was a gymnast, I hated it when my coaches would push me into stretches, because it hurt. And I was still not as flexible as my little brother, no matter how much my coaches pushed and pulled and stretched. Now I am perhaps a little more flexible than my little brother (he stopped stretching, I didn't), but I have discovered that it still hurts. And, if I thought that the pushing my gymnastics or diving coaches would do was bad, it was mostly because I had never trained with contortionists. Ouch.

Ouch.

Ouch!

The moment when I realized that I simply cannot do this ever again was when I couldn't breathe because the coach was compressing my lungs against a balance beam (pulling my shoulders back), while critiquing me that I should stop holding my breath and just relax (oh right because that is a perfectly natural thing to do when your arms are being torn out of their sockets); "See? When I said that you stretched farther!" he said as I almost passed out. I should have perhaps said the safe word (you know a class is going to be bad when there's a safe word. It was "Papaya") but I would have felt like a wimp, and my stubborn determination in the face of pain in general serves me well (I will not say whether it served me well in that situation or not, I have not decided yet). Also I couldn't really choke anything out (no air, and all) and settled instead for shaking my head madly.

When I do aerial stuff, I feel challenged and pushed but not that I am trying to get my body to do something it absolutely positively was not made to do. This time, I felt like saying "No, I cannot do that, I have organs there."

I was unaware, up until today, that one could stretch so much one felt sore the next day. I'm worried that tomorrow I might not be able to walk. And this class came highly recommended, too!

I'm also wondering if stretching out my pike and not so much my bridge for years in diving has made my arch worse than the rest of me, which is another explanation for why I was thinking "this class is maybe pretty okay even though it hurts like none other, and it would be super useful to get more flexible" until they started stretching out our backs, when it turned into "O God O God I am in pain and I cannot breathe haallllppp!"

As if to make matters worse, a dancer dropped in to the aerial class who would have been a great contortionist. Part of me is really jealous of people who can bend like that, in part because I think that their poses look so much cooler and prettier than the ones I can do. This is only made worse after 1.5 hours spent undergoing huge amounts of pain in order to... not bend that much. I mean, really. Even just being able to do the splits would be nice. On the other hand, she couldn't really do a straddle-up, or climb the silks. And I think I would be much more disappointed if instead of being able to climb to the top of the silks (or ropes or lampposts or trees or what have you) I could, I dunno, put my leg behind my head, or kiss my foot without bending my knees.

Time for a hot shower and sleep. And fingers crossed that I can get out of bed tomorrow! It will be lucky if I can.

Excitement!

First, a drabble, inspired by the word "elocute":

She feared becoming the teacher from Charlie Brown – standing in the front of the room, pontificating, while all anyone could hear was “wah wah wah”. She could envision her students’ eyes glazing over, the boy in the back of the room falling asleep, the two girls in the corner passing notes.
That was, if anyone asked her, why she chose to speak so clearly. Sharp consonants and round vowels would keep her from fading into the ignominy of incomprehensibility.
But she couldn’t explain all that to Johnny when he asked, “Why do you use your teacher’s voice all the time?”

I have many reasons to celebrate today. First (and most important): I am done with my first quarter of graduate school! W00! I finished up my last final today, hand it in tomorrow at 10 AM, and so that leaves me with a week or so more time to really dedicate myself to my rotation lab before I go on vacation and start my next rotation. This is pretty thrilling to me.

Second: my silks instructor today (I celebrated by going to the city for lessons. This was not an abnormal activity for me, but it was celebratory anyway.) looked at me at the beginning of class and said "You know lots of tricks. You should start trying to tie them together. Your job for today is to make a phrase of two or three tricks." Which was happy (I know lots of tricks!) but terrifying (What do I know about stringing them together?) But I did it, and at the end of class she had everyone (which meant both of my classmates and herself, so not many people) watch while I did my little phrase. It was probably terrible, but I didn't fall down -- I actually came out of the last trick gracefully (which is a big deal for me) and so I was happy with it, especially for the first time. Chris (a classmate) had the same duty, and while his had a lot more cool tricks, he got tired halfway through and it was sloppy afterward. On the other hand, he has a lot of dance experience so he probably has a better idea on where to start with this "choreography" thing.

Footless

A rather literal take, because I feel like it.

People were rarely surprised that Caty worked with the circus; they were more surprised, however, that she was an acrobat. How could she perform with her… disability?

But she put up with their stares, with their ogling, because once she got on stage everything changed. Suspended, she was as graceful as a prima ballerina standing on the tips of her toes. She floated in silks, and twined with rope; even cold chains lifted her up rather than keeping her down. Freed of gravity, her freakishness was turned to beauty.

After all, who needs feet when they can’t touch the ground?

The aerial fabrics class will be offered again next quarter, which is excellent, and I do not think it clashes with any of my classes, which is also excellent. I will keep my fingers crossed!

Bulwark!

Inspired by the word of the day, Bulwark, and the fact that I saw people practicing for what I hope is a pirate-themed acrobatics act to be performed on Saturday. One which involves back flips onto bulwarks. These people were amazing. It made me want to take a tumbling class. But I could never get that good; I do not have the spring. However, I do have two classes to make up, from missing in Galapagos and Election Day. *intruigued* Tumbling class, or stretching class? Or perhaps one of each? (I've narrowed it down from "Oh my gosh classes!" to those. I'm glad I have only three options.)

“I’m just a simple sailor,” he claimed, glancing warily at his interlocutor. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

His interlocutor, from the shadows, laughed. “It’s no use hiding anymore,” the gravelly voice came. “I might have believed you once, but now? Your performance on the rigging was not that of a simple sailor.”

“I’ve been at sea all my life.”

“All the other sailors were hiding from the storm; you were climbing like a monkey. And the back flip onto the bulwark? It was a little excessive.”

He winced. The back flip had been his favorite part.

In other news, I think I totally freaked out a couple on the MUNI. I was riding home with Chris (from Silks), debating quarter versus semester, and lauding the joys and despairs of a liberal education. The funny thing was that I had forgotten my water bottle, and so had water in a cup without a lid, with which I jogged to the MUNI, spilling water all over my front while Chris held the bus for me. His reaction upon seeing me: "Are you okay?!"

Yes, they stared at us for the rest of the time on the MUNI. I think it helped that the first thing we talked about was dedication, and how it is easier if your friends know you have a strange habit and support it -- this morning, to my "Ugh I only got four hours of sleep last night. Maybe at six I'll take a nap instead of going to the city" the biochemists (Ruth and the Rooses, to be particular) responded instantly "No! You have to do your circus stuff!"

Maybe they just wanted to avoid me, but I'd like to pretend that they had my best interests at heart. And since I learned this really nifty new trick that looks like you're sitting on the silks (without, mind you, tying up your foot), I have them to thank. (It's one of those deceptively easy-looking tricks: where, if someone can do it well, it looks so simple and restful -- you're just sitting there with your legs crossed -- and then you realize that the only reason they're not slipping down the fabrics is because they are pinching it for dear life between their knees.) Also because my roll-down (a trick in which you wrap the fabrics around your waist and roll down them; you control your speed by how fast you feed the fabric through the loop, and you can spin as many times as you want until you hit the ground, but it's easy to lose the silks and get tangled, and body-position is supersuper important and supersuper difficult: it is, in fact, remarkably difficult to hold a hollow position while suspended from your waist, feeling the pinch of fabric and gravity on your lungs, kidneys, liver, etc) is making progress; I can almost sort of do it! w00!

Virtue is a painful, painful thing

As is the aftermath of intense exercise. Inspired by the word "surly", which is what I will be tomorrow.

As she fell asleep, Sarah felt the stiffness in her joints. By the time she woke up, all she was fit for was a hot bath and breakfast in bed. Every muscle in her body hurt. She could barely move for the pain.

Of course, pampering was not on her schedule, and so Sarah winced through every step of her long day.

“Buck up. It’s your own fault, you know,” Dan commented mildly over lunch. “You pushed yourself too hard with all those reps.”

“Next week won’t hurt as bad this way,” she answered. “This is the pain of virtue.”

My first silks lesson in San Francisco was today. The teacher knew Shayna! Which was how she greeted me -- "You trained with Shayna?" "Yeah." "She's awesome." "Definitely."

The class is fairly small, six or seven of us in total, all young women. And it's intense enough that I don't think I'll be able to move my arms tomorrow so much, which is awesome. And everyone is very, very, very friendly, which is also awesome. Then again, one of the things I like about "circus people" is that they're welcoming and friendly to newcomers in a way other intense athletes I have interacted with don't seem to be.

The transit situation, of course, is as bad as I thought it would be if not worse. But... but it was so much fun, and the silks hanging over my bed have even more meaning to me now, and my arms will be a delightful reminder tomorrow that as I go to start my new life as a Stanford Genetics Graduate Student (TM), something has already started for me. Just like meeting up with Amy yesterday made me feel like I already had half of a community at Stanford.

But, I have a resolution, to do a small amount of conditioning and a relatively larger amount of stretching each day, so as to be more flexible. I was stronger than most of the other people in my class, and had better endurance, but my flexibility is for shit and I would still really like to be able to go for the whole hour and a half without feeling completely dead afterward.

Also, on the train, I saw advertisements for Spring Awakening, which is now showing in San Francisco. Which is super cool. But tickets are hideously, hideously expensive. Which is less than cool. And I think I want to replace my camera more than I want to see Spring Awakening, as much as seeing "Totally Fucked" performed by really good singers on stage would be, well, totally awesome. I tried to see if they have rush tickets for somewhat less hideously expensive prices, but they had no information on such things, which I take to be a bad sign.

If I don't squee about circus events,

who will?

This looks amazing. I hope I hope I hope it comes to San Francisco. I will be checking. You can expect another gleeful yelp if it does. It's in Chicago now. By which I mean, if you want to see it, go to Aloft tonight (August 30) at 8pm. Tickets at the door.

You know you want to. Just don't go home by way of Damen + Lake.

I miss silks. Having them hung up is a constant reminder, which is awesome in some ways and bittersweet in others (as in, every night I am reminded that I haven't climbed anything recently enough, or hung upside down). I just have to wait until I get back from Galapagos, though. Not long. Also, possibly, climb a tree tomorrow. I have a long list of things to do tomorrow. Oh well.

One foot in front of the other

My jaw clenched. One foot in front of the other. As if it was easy. I teetered, slid my foot forward, waving my arms to balance. One foot in front of the other. That was all she said, and now she was gone. I shouted her name; silence. I took a wobbling step.

One foot in front of the other. Oh, and don’t look down.

The wire swayed beneath me. I breathed deeply. I couldn’t see the end, but I couldn’t see the beginning and I had just begun.

I took another step. One foot in front of the other.