Strength progression

Going to class week in, week out, it can sometimes feel like you're stagnating rather than progressing.  Even though I was learning new moves, I wasn't really feeling like I was actually getting better, or stronger.  Every week I dutifully went through all the conditioning set by the teacher without it feeling like it was getting any easier.  Sure, some conditioning is a breeze (front balance raises are great when you have a naturally bendy back!), and some was showing some slow improvement (my beats have gone from jerking backwards and forwards a few inches to strong enough that I can actually adjust my hand position on the back beat), but most of the key exercises weren't getting any better.  In particular, my two nemesis exercises...

Pull ups and leg lifts.

Yup, two of the most important strength exercises for trapeze and I a) hate them, and b) am crap at them.  I could just about drag through five assisted pull ups, and can get my legs halfway up from hanging, but full leg lifts were out of the question.  This has knock on effects - it makes getting up to pike under the bar harder, and going from hang to front balance almost impossible.

But now...something has changed.  I'm still nowhere near good at either of them, but I'm starting to feel the improvement.  With pull ups this is because I've actually started working on them.  Instead of just doing the minimum required for conditioning, I'm doing them at home.  My poor pull up bar has been sitting in the door frame for months almost unused, and now there's daily use.  Admittedly, I can only get through two with (almost) proper technique before I can't get myself back up without leaping off the floor, but that's two more decent pull ups than I could do even three weeks ago!

I don't look like this doing pull ups.  Yet.
Photo found here

Leg lifts are still a lot harder, but we seem to have isolated the issue with them.  I have a naturally bendy lower back - it doesn't go straight unless I really focus and put it there.  Turns out this is a bugger for leg lifts and makes them even bloody harder.  However, now that I'm aware of this I can now get two lifts past the horizontal before my technique goes to pot and I collapse in a heap.

The best part of all this, of course, is the noticeable improvement in my actual trapeze!  We were given a couple of moves at class on Thursday that my instinctive reaction to was "lolnope".  First up was going from hang to pike under the bar without beating.

OK, so I cheated a tiny bit and pulled my legs into a teensy back beat, but I was very close to getting through without needing to kick off the bar :D  Considering I usually go for a full beat (forward, back, up) to get into pike, getting there with just the mini-cheat-beat was an amazing moment.

We were then given two transitions out of crucifix - through to angel, and over to front balance.  Going to angel is the easier of the two as you don't have to move from the crucifix position.  It's a similar transition to going to star, and once I'd figured out the hand/leg placements it was a lot easier than I'd anticipated.  Crucifix to front balance is something I'd tried before, and failed miserably at.  I couldn't get my feet near the bar, let along over it!  Then on Thursday...voila!  I pushed my feet off the ropes on the way through, but even as I was doing it I was very aware that I didn't need to be - it was a comfort rather than a necessity.  Definitely a safety blanket I need to give up...



It's definitely an amazing feeling when you realise that you are actually progressing, and only makes me want to work harder.

Show time!

And a mere month later...I'm finally back!

It's been a completely frantic few weeks getting the show together, but we finally pulled it all together at the tech rehearsal.  Admittedly the day before the show, but still better than the day after!

Cast shot by Christopher Reynolds (@chrisreyn59 on Instragram)

The whole process was completely mental.  Devised theatre is like nothing I've ever done before, and goes completely against how I work.  I'm a geneticist, I like logical processes and knowing exactly what's happening and where I'm going.  A devised ensemble circus show involves not having a bloody clue what's going on at any point until the absolute last minute, working things out as you go, and essentially a lot of chaos.  Rehearsals were less what I think of as a traditional rehearsal and more playing with new techniques to see what works and who works together.

I spent a lot of my time doing things like this:

Lots of back-bending and chest stands.  When I'm asked what I'm good at, this is what I end up doing...

Initially my character was a bookish student, in the first scene I was meant to be having coffee with a friend but kept going back to my book, with lots of acro.  For various reasons though, I ended up spending most of my time onstage as a Buff Grrl - a take on the stereotypical circus strongman.  This involved a lot of posing, a lot of posturing, and some amazing costumes.  Red and white striped, skintight body suits.

Three of us acting as Buff Grrls, holding up the teeny tiny director

As exhausting as the whole thing was, it was still a brilliant experience.  I've got a whole list of new skills - chest stands (which I discovered I could do a week before the show and then wouldn't stop doing), various assisted walkovers, better handstands than I've done in well over a decade - and I've pushed my flexibility even further with splits, backbends and chest stands.  Most impressively, I based a two-high for the first time in my life (literally basing the flier for the first time at the tech rehearsal...), but haven't found any pictures of that yet.

Hopefully more pictures with me in will appear over the next few weeks, but I've pretty much exhausted my stock now.

The show may have gone well this time, but that doesn't mean the fun stops here!  Next up is a scratch night on June 6th when I'll be performing solo on the trapeze.  I've got a routine ready, but it needs a lot of work and I have no ideas for a costume yet.  Then Circ:Us is getting a second showing at the Merchant Festival in Glasgow at the end of July.  We might have the bare bones of the show from the first time round, but the plan is to make it bigger and better.  My original character is being scrapped in favour of my Buff Grrl.  Which means I am going to end up doing a whole load of work through the whole show, and really need to work on looking a bit more, well, buff...

By @chrisreyn59