Circus School: Week 2

So the weekend didn’t exactly bring recovery! I came back on Monday in the early stages of getting a cold. It’s great that the Hangar where we train is practically the outdoors in terms of temperature – being indoors with a cold always feels a hundred times worse than being outdoors in the fresh air.

Acrobatics this week was opportunistically on the trampolines set out in the studio, which is right up my alley. Although it’s been a while, most of what we covered came back quickly. Apart from doing handstands on the trampoline which I don’t think comes naturally to anyone. Ever. It’s a very unnatural thing to do, and that’s saying quite a bit in circus. But really, handbalancing on the floor is hard enough, doing it on a trampoline is another level of crazy. Useful though, and good for shoulder strength.

I’ve been much better at recording videos this week, which means that I can track progress and hopefully improvement over the duration of the course. And it also means that you can see exactly what I’m up to on my YouTube channel. If you like. There’s no editing so you get mistakes and awkward shapes as well as classmates making comments. Hopefully there will be more to record in future weeks as we get past the basic moves that I’ve mostly covered before and therefore don’t need video reminders of. They should also, in theory, get more interesting!

Flying trapeze brought something new: a half turn before returning to the platform. Turns out it’s to remember all the good things like engaging the shoulders and hitting the right timing whilst worrying about smacking my face into a wooden tower. Rhey had demonstrated this last week, ending up clinging like a monkey to the platform just below the flat take-off board. No wobbling or flailing just a very undramatic stick as though the tower had been covered in velcro. Beautiful, and impressive, if not quite the original aim.

For our self-warm up times in the afternoons, we’ve pinched Hauk’s flexibility warm up and now do planks and push ups or squats in time to the whole of Moby’s Flower. I think this is currently some kind of fitness challenge. We’re using it as part of a warm up. We’ve also introduced foam rollers and massage balls into warm-up after this week’s specialist skills class which was in physiotherapy. We learned how to correctly release tight muscles which is going to be really useful as the weeks progress. 

By the time Friday came around, I had issues with my arms from all the exertion in combination with having a cold. Hayley is the teacher, and is very patient which is great given she gets a raw deal with class timing – right before lunch on a Friday. I think it has to be the lowest energy point of the whole week even at the best of times. I took it relatively easy, but still managed to straighten out the leg I’ve been struggling with in the scissor to hiplock and migrate the mobile which I’ve only ever done on silks before.