Pretty Hoops

These are from Saturday.

Pretty popsicle...and some hooping

Intermediate, baby

First official intermediate lyra class last night. Technically, I took the first class of the last unit in April, when the fundamentals teacher had an emergency, and the studio combined the fundamentals and intermediate classes. Since the teacher knows my skills, she just had me follow along with everything the intermediate students were doing. But I wasn't official. In fact, I had already been told I promoted...but not for that unit. I had to wait for this unit.

Yes, last night's class was all review. I'm totally OK with that. Popsicle is a fun move to practice. My wine glass looks so splitty. My momentum to ball could use some work. And my favorite dismount.

Silks Conditioning

I am a genius! I want to continue cross-training silks, it's a fabulous conditioning workout, but I'm tired of paying extra for classes, when classes are the exact same format for about the first hour. I've been attending silks classes long enough to have the conditioning part of class down. Straight arm hang/knee tucks, shoulder lockoff/L sits, hipkeys, ball inversions, straddle work, climbs, footlocks from the air (both basic and single). My private track subscription is valid for all apparatus that I'm trained on. So yesterday, I went to silks practice time. It felt exactly the same as class, only on my own. Boom! It was perfect.

I finished up the hour with a couple rounds of leg wrap. This is upper body intensive, which is why I like working on it. And with my improvement on footlocks in the air, I can get much higher off the ground. I look so cool up here.

straddle on top

Fantastic lyra lesson today! Of course, both run throughs of warmup, I had to catch my foot on the pullover. Darnit. I'm still very miss with this hit or miss mount.

Then this gem. I requested to learn it. When she was demo'ing it, I admit, I had my doubts. I was like, wait, I take it back, I don't want to learn this. We ran through it twice, both times I got into straddle from standing. It's an easier way to get into it, just fine. With the idea to work up to getting into straddle without my feet on the lower bar. Getting out of it is also scary. When I did it, she said she even had some intermediate 2 students unable to do that on the first try.

When she asked at the end if I wanted any pictures or videos, I thought about this, but getting video would require doing it again. Kinda funny how that works, to get a video, I had to brave the move again. But this time, I got into straddle without standing. Wahoo! And all the praise from the best teacher. I've had lots of dance, skating coaches. This gal is by far the best, most patient, most supportive. She never makes me feel like I'm wasting her time or annoying her.

Circles

Happy 4th! I've taken a few extra days off work, nice 5-day weekend. I can think of no better way to spend it than inside a circle.

Yesterday was lyra followed by flexibility private lesson. Flexibility is tough, y'all. I can see why it's ignored mostly. I can see why even weight training would be more appealing. Flexibility is a discouraging, slow, painful process. I just hope it's worth it.

I played around with this lyra sequence, on the low hoop.

And then today, I went hooping for a nice, long session. I tapped into some creativity to come up with choreography. I always feel more polished when I know what moves come next. Flow is an elusive bitch.

New Hoop

Learned a bit of a flow session and tried to make it my own. Yea, it's a bit clumsy. But I was having fun. Isn't mah new hoop so purty?!

Silks, again

I'm back with cross-training silks. I've been three times in the last few weeks. It really is a fabulous aerials conditioning workout. I don't have any aspirations of looking graceful up there. But I hope it helps with lyra. I am seeing progress with ball, less jumping, more control. I can finally hold my straddle (I mean, jumping up into it, spiderman pose, squeeze thighs together until I'm sure I have it, then spread 'em). Of course, now my teacher wants me to focus on stack. I'm not sure I'll ever get a good stack. I just feel there's too much body in my boobage/tummy area for my arms to properly pull and stack. I'd need too much bend at the elbows, which requires even more strength than straight arm. Show me a plus size aerialist doing a proper stacked straddle, and maybe I'll think differently.

But I can finally do a single foot lock from the air. This was elusive for so long because you have to hang on from each silks, without a wrist wrap. Thus my grip is extra tight and needs to be super strong. I didn't have the strength until now. It's not graceful. But I was able to do the full single foot lock series from a single foot lock in the air, so I'm higher up. And considering I haven't done this since Feb 1, I'd say not too shabby.

And then a basic foot lock from the air into my favorite simple pose.

Intermediate lyra classes start soon. I've been promoted, but I still don't believe I should have been. I plan to continue training silks, maybe on the weeks I don't have a private lesson for lyra.