Aerial and silks

This morning when I came to Greentop the rigging ladder was up, and they were rigging up some old new silks for the aerial day. Almost everyone wanted to do aerial, and since there are so many different aerial equipment we had to chose our first choice and second choice. Surprisingly, we are very evenly divided between the equipment: static trapeze, rope, silks, aerial hoop, static cloud swing and straps. I think it will be good with such a variety in the show.

The rigging ladder from another day when they were rigging.

Aerial classes are now turning out a little bit different as time moves closer to the show. The teaches divide their time between the different equipments, and in between we have practice time. I get along well with the other girl who chose silks, and we also listen to the rope instructions since rope and silks have some things in common. 

There was some "new" (at least to us) silks there today to replace the old ones. This new ones where so much springier, thicker so it was difficult to grab all of them at the same time and not slippy at all. My first climb in them was like climbing in sand that just fell down no matter how much I pushed them away to climb upwards. At least I will get stronger by using them. They also told by that doing drops wouldn't hurt as much with the springier ones, but I didn't try it out today.

Aerial class with silks in the foreground and static cloud swing in the background. On the left there is a trapeze and on the right there is a rope.

 We also did some creative exercises to start thinking about our routines for the show. I feel that I need a strong performance and theme since I cannot just rely on technique in silks since I still consider myself as quite a beginner. I still haven't decided what to chose as a theme yet.

The cradle (?)

 I learned some new moves today, and some better techniques to go to positions I already new. As you can see on the photo I wore new leggings that had a more cotton surface to make it less slippery, and I actually didn't fall down as much as last week. Maybe it is placebo effect, an actual effect or just the face that I have gotten stronger. I spent quite a lot of the practice time messing around to see what tricks that went well together and that could be possible combinations for the show.

Split!

After all this aerial I am very tired in my shoulders and arms so I will rest them tonight. In areal, I definitely feel that it was the arm strength that I lacked to be able to do everything, but it feels better every week.

Five balls and tightwire progress

I have been working towards five balls and I can now do six throws and catches, which actually means that it is more than a flash! I am so happy for this and feel that five balls might be within reach, even though I realize that there is much work left. Juggling is a discipline that really takes time a practice to get good at, as everything else.

Since there is only two of us doing equbrilistics, we are doing it together with the manipulation group, which I really like. I was worried that it would be lonely walking the tightwore back and fourth but it has been great. Today I was so sore in my whole body and realized that I had really underestimated how many muscles that are actually used when doing tightwire walking, but is is maybe more of static motions and to keep the body tense than the movements themselves.

I also practices how to get down at sit on the tightwire, and some ways up and down and how they affect the balance. In lunchtime we rigged up the tightwire on some stage pieces so it got a lot higher up in the air, and filled the space under with crash mats. It is so much less scary to walk that high up now that the first time I tried it; then my spotters kept talking about how sweaty my hand were (and they actually were from nervousness of falling down).

During practice I wore my new shoes to protect my feet from the wire. I think it is men's ballet shoes, but they work really well for tightwire walking too.

Together with the jugglers we did some creative exercises that was the best ones so far. I adopted the exercises to tightwire which worked out better than it may sound.

The Guardian Juggling article today

CircusFest: meet the jugglers taking the artform to dizzy heights

Gandini Juggling and Compagnie Jerome Thomas don't just keep multiple balls airborne – they explore ideas and emotion, and play with narrative

In todays internet version of The Guardian there is an article about juggling, where they meet juggler of today and discuss juggling as an art form. I especially liked the paragrapgh about drops as they are unenviable to do at some point. 

"Some jugglers become crippled by the fear of dropping," says Rod Laver, who juggles ping-pong balls with his mouth and who also teaches at the National Centre for Circus Arts. "They just can't take it. One of the things we try and teach students is how to deal with the drop, to work it into their act and even make a virtue of it. Otherwise it can finish careers."

I find it difficult dealing with drops and mistakes, but I have definitely become better at it during the course. I agree that there is a bit of shame dropping a prop and it doesn't really add any excitement or anything. At the moment, I tent to save drops by going into comedy. I still don't know how to save a drop or mistake in a serious routine yet, but I hope I will soon figure out. To me it seems like comedy or just any interaction with the audience can save a lot of mistakes.

"There is a huge level of competiveness among jugglers, and to get any good you have to spend a lot of time on your own, go into the zone and not think about other things. Most girls and women are far too social to want to do that for months, maybe years on end," says Kati Ylä-Hokkala. 

This quote I strongly disagree with, because sure it is true that it takes a lot of time getting good at juggling, I don't think there is an easy answer why women are less likely to do it. "Far too social" doesn't mean that you cannot practice and be social at the same time. I think there are both the type of jugglers who like to practice by their own and those who like to practice together.

Backflip - jump and hope for the best!

This day of CIP was filled with performance class, and now we saw what a progress we have done since the first weeks. We did many exercises with different levels of tension in the body, as well as more work and improvisation on "Obesession" which is the theme for the show.

At the parcour class we all tried to do an assisted back flip which was the first time for me. It was super scary! First, we tried it from a height down to a crash mat and then from the floor to a crash mat, but they where both equally scary. I don't think I tuck in my legs pr anything but just jumped and hoped that the teacher would spin me around and save me, which he did. I am very proud of myself though that I dared to do it and now it fells like I want to do it again!

Top tips for beginners of assisted back flips:

• It is easier to do it from a height down a to a crash mat, but it is scary since you are high up.
• When doing it from the floor, remember to jump up high in the air before you tuck.
• Commit to it! Believe that you can do it! It think fear is the biggest enemy when staring to to back flips, at least it is that for me. 

Slackers in botanical garden

Today I visited Sheffield Botanical Garden together with some friends from the course to do some slack line walking. It was a long time since I last tried slack line so it was fun, and it is very different from tightwire since the slackline can go sideways under you in a way tightwire can not.

Here I am on the slack line!

The slackline stand out quite much in the park and some children also tried it out, and they all looked so happy to do it.

We also juggled and did some other circus things together, and practiced some pass juggling. The weather was very unpredicible; it rained, was sunny as in summer and then it suddendly started to hail big ice marbles from the sky.

The pavillion that was used as a greenhouse. It was free entry.

Before I met everyone we ha a walk around the botanical garden and the pavillion.

No doubt it is spring times.

Specialization phase started

This week has been different to the previous weeks at the course, because we now all have chosen our specialization subjects among manipulation, acrobatics, aerial and equbrilistics. For me, it was quite a hard decision since i like everything and couldn't really decide if I wanted to broaden my skills or be better at the ones I already got.

After a lot of thought I chose equibrilistics and aerial and I will do there even more to progress and develop some kind of act that can be fitted into the final show. I like the idea that we are doing a show together at the end.

During the dance class we have been working on our pieces for the final show, and it is both difficult and interesting to create and choreograph your own things. It can sometimes be difficult to collaborate, communicate ideas and make movement to a beat but I am happy with what we have made so far. 

I have been doing a lot of tightwire lately, and juggling even if I didn't pick manipulation. I really want to learn how to juggle five balls so I am practicing that quite a lot. I also just discovered hat juggling, which was unexpected since I have never had any interest in that before. our juggling teacher said that that is typical for hat juggling; at first people think it is not sp interesting and then suddenly it comes up to you anyway. I did tightwire and juggling together that day since I had to rest my feet from the tightwire sometimes, but now I have bought soft sole shoes to protect my feet.

Today we ha aerial all day and I felt that I have become stronger in my arms. I am still super tired, but at least I did more things today than any other aerial class. I have become even better at climbing and doing different silks positions, even though I have never done any drops yet.

Tomorrow we will have another clown class as we have already had one in the beginning of the week. We used clown clothes for the first time which was fun and made me feel very clowny, which was a good thing.

Newton's architecture - A documentary about Swedish juggling

When I was surfing the internet looking for juggling things I stumbled upon this documentary about the Swedish style juggling:

Newtons Architecure - En film om nutida jonglering i Sverige (A film about contemporary Swedishi Juggling) with subtitles in English

It is a 30 minutes documentary about the Swedsih Juggling. Appearantly there is a special Swedish juggling style that both tries to be high skilled and artistic. The documentary contains interviews with some Swedish Jugglers at DOCH (University of Dance and Circus) and some nice juggling clips.

Quote from Jay Gillian:

And for me, it is also about how the juggling looks, that’s what I like about it, it is not the skill.

I like this idea of artistic juggling. In the documentary that also say that there were really no discussion in Sweden whether juggling is a sport or an art, and most think that it can be both. I like to see juggling as an art or way to express something, almost like dance. Jay Gillian also talked about to be conscious about what type of juggler you want to be and what expression you want to have. 

Om jag gör ett vissts visuellt mönster med min jonglering, att objekten bildar någonting, eller jag håller objekten på ett sätt som bildar nån sorts… ja, en bild på det ena eller andra sättet. Det är ju samma sak som arkitektur till exempel. Det är ju samma sak, det är ju också en bild, som en front av ett hus eller liksom en allé med träd. Det blir ju också en grafisk bild på samma sätt som jonglering kan vara fast det gör ju nödvändigtvis inte att vi måste räkna in det som jonglering.

Free translation by me:

If I make a certain visual pattern with my juggling so the objects makes something, or if Ii hold the objects so the make up some kind of... picture in some way. That is the same thing as architecture for example. That is the same thing, that is also a picture, like a front of a house or an alley with trees. That also makes a graphic picture in the same way that juggling can be, but that doesn't require us to count it as juggling.

There are big contrast between juggling and architecture, but they both is a kind of art focused around patterns, and this could in fact be applied to almost all art forms.

For people interested in juggling I recommend this documentary.