What does the fox say?

Suddendly on my way back from the circus skillshare in the evening I saw somthing with a fluffy tail run over some grass. I first though it was a cat, but then I in some way thought that cats doesn't run like that. When it turned around I saw that it was a fox that was staring at me. It was maybe 20 meters between us. I think this was the firsttime that I have ever seen a wild fox.

Reunion time in London

The main reason I went to London last weekend was to see two of my friends from the time I was studying in South Korea. We met in the night and had the typical English fish and chips. It was so nice to see them both again.

 Then we went to watch Tower bridge and the tower in night time.

The next day, J and I were supposed to see each other at Tate Modern, but there was construction work in the underground so we missed each other. I was already inside the Paul Klee exhibition when he arrived, so he went to look for London Fashion week instead. We had Turkish food together for lunch at very nice restaurant quite near Tate Modern.

Handbalancing for the first time

The subjects for today was equbrilitics and acrobatics.

During the equbrilistics class we could choose whatever we wanted to practise among the different things we have tried: strap on stilts, unicycle, rola bola and tightwire. I really like to do thight wire walking and I felt that I have improved a lot since last week. I could walk both backwards and forwards and do the half turns. We experimented quite lot how we could do different turns, and also watched an educational DVD from Cirque du Soleil on tight wire. I also practiced some other types of walking, and the two feet balance and slide walks.

In the afternoon we had acrobatics focused on handstands and hand balancing. We did more cartwheels and front rolls, and than we practiced handstands in different way for quite a long time, which was really good since I really want to learn the handstand. We also had an introduction on hand balancing which was really fun to try. Even though this photo is a bit blurry I am holding this position. After this acrobatics class I feel that I really need to exercise my core muscles more so I can keep my body straighter in different positions.

Top handbalancing beginner tips:

• Tension your body as much as you can.
• Keep your weight to the front so you don't fall backwards of the canes when balancing. That happen to me and hurt.
• Work on your shoulder flexibility and core strength to be able to do the exercises better.

Juggling and first aid

Today was not a physically day, which was quite nice. One of the first days here, one former CIP-student told me that everyone was just fine the first weeks, but then we would get tired and then recover. I am feeling that a little now. We had manipulation in the morning and i tried cigar boxes for the first time, and I quite liked them actually. I got a bit tired in my legs of bending my knees to try to get more time to catch the boxes.

We also tried some contact juggling and isolation with hoops. 

My main practice was to try to get the drive right with two diabolos, since I tend to drive with the left stick rather than the right. It is so difficult to relearn something but after a while I managed to make the drive about even between the sticks, and now I just have to mess around to learn how to control the different tilts of the cups. 

At the end of the class I was introduced to the art of passing clubs.

My top beginner passing clubs tips:

• Look at your partner and NOT on your hand where you will catch the passed club.
• Don't flick the club - to avoid this, hold with a firm wrist in the middle of the grip of the club.
• Try to throw in a nice crescent so the air patterns gets nice and quite slow. To get this, let your hand dip quite low before you make the passing throw.
• Don't speed it up; keep a fairly slow pace.

In the afternoon we had first aid, which was a nice reminder of all different aid help I have learned. We learned how to check for breathing, bleeding and what can look wrong. I liked how the class was customized for us, so we learned how to check in the eyes and upper lip for redness/paleness, rather than the cheeks which can be very difficult if you have stage makeup on or don't exactly know what their normal color is. We learned about straining injuries, burning injuries and many other things that I found really useful. We also got a book that summed it all up, and it had many good acronyms to help remembering what to look for.

Trapeze beginners class

I am not a natural talent in trapeze, and I have never had the chance to practice, so to try to catch up a little I attend the beginners areal class. This is the first time I had some pictures of me, and trapeze is definitely one of those things that feels good, and then when you look at the pictures you  wonder if that really is how it looks.

I imagine teaching trapeze can be tricky as well. The beginners evening classes starts with a warm up together, and then we split into groups with similar experience to share one trapeze for each group. Each group also have a volunteer teacher who helps, explains and spot for us. After the teacher has explained and demonstrated what we will do, we can the one at time have a go a try it all out. Once up in the trapeze, you are a little bit lost again, so the teacher will stand on the ground and explain what to do again. It is like being in a more three dimensional world hanging in the trapeze, because we cannot normally move in height in our daily lives.

Another tricky thing when learning trapeze is that it can be difficult to remember all the different positions and how to get in and out from them, so I have started to make some drawings and getting into the habit of taking photos and videos of others doing the positions and transitions. It is really helpful to have them when you think back of what you have learned and cant really remember.

If you are not used to doing trapeze, your hands and feet will quite quickly get sore and get blisters. It is also good to wear long tight pants and also a long sleeve shirt to avoid hurting your skin as a beginner. I actually even had to layers to avoid friction that could lead to blisters.

My top beginner tips of the day:

• Point your toes all the time
• If you try to go to jump to pike without touching the bar with your feet, feel like you are pulling down the bar with your arms at the same time as you are jumping up (I still cant do it though).
• Try everything to see what it feels like to see where your current limits are.

My hands are a little bit hurt, but I think I will be fine until Thursday when we have our next aerial class in the CIP course.

London Evening 1

Last weekend I was in London. I got there by bus which took about four hours, and I was sleeping most of the time. There was a guy sitting next to me who must have thought it was strange that I could sleep so deeply, but I am an expert sleeping in cars, airplains, trains and buses. He was nice and even gave me some chocolate. It was so much cheaper to travel to London by bus than train; the bus was only 9 pounds there and 16 on the way back.

When I arrived at Victoria Coach station I managed to find a subway, but I had to wait in a line for a very long time with the other tourist who didn't know how to use the ticket machines. I noticed how cities like London are so super tourist friendly, with signs and arrows everywhere, and I think many other cities can learn from this. I had no problems at all reaching my final destination in London, and a woman even asked me if I needed any help to find the right street.

I lived 10 minuets walk from Shepard's bush, and when I finally reached the accommodation I was so tired from circus, dancing and traveling that I got to bed early to have more time to do things on Saturday.

Believe it or not but this is actually the good and real camera in action, despite the blurriness. I was just too tired to take any nice photos, but walked by this church (St Johns Baptist church).

Here is another night view of the area around Shepherds Bush when I arrived. 

There will soon be a continuation for day 2 and 3.

Pyramid and tightwire

Today when I woke up my shoulders were achy and still after areal and acrobatics. Today we did equibrilistics where I mostly did tightwire walking. I can walk forwards and backwards, and sometimes even turn between them without falling off! 

On the equibrilistic lesson I also tried the rola bola for the very first time. It was hard to get on, but once there it felt ok after some practice, and at the end I managed to hold it for over 1 minute. We also tried to make a jump start on it. 

In the afternoon we had acrobatics where we review some forward and backward rolls, and then we did partner balances and pyramids. It was fun to do the pyramids and this one is not the coolest one we did.

In the evening I went to skill share but I was so tired again that I left before it was over. I don't know why I get so tired so quickly these days. I have also felt that I have started to need to eat and drink a lot more than I did before, and sometimes I wonder if I am a little underhydrated? But at the skillshare, I practiced my four ball exercises and also learnt a new pattern 4-4-1 and the whip catch with diabolo. I remeber that I though whip catch was really hard when I was younger but know I could do it a lot more easy thanks to some tips from the skillshare!