dynamic elf

Well then!

Aerial silks class tonight was the most interesting thing that's happened to me in a while. The class is being run by FireFlyDance -- they seem to be starting a monthly workshop in the area at CasaNia in Porter Square. And, hey, if you're at all interested in climbing around on ropes, I'd highly recommend trying out their workshop when they next come around. But, nice though that is, it's not what was interesting. For that, I have to rewind a bit.

( Body musings: what I can and can't do. )

So, here I am. I trust my body! We're pretty good to each other. I try to take care of it, and it, in turn, can carry me for hours and hours and hours without stopping. It's pretty stable. I have discovered my strengths: I'm not fast, but I have great endurance. I don't have good hand-eye coordination, I do have decent balance.

( But I'm sure as hell not graceful. )

So, yeah. I actually DID cry, and laugh, and I even flipped upside-down a little bit. Not a lot, since being upside-down still feels completely wrong. I've never done a handstand or a cartwheel, so I've never gotten used to gravity going the wrong way (on land). I managed to properly lock the fabric behind my back, the second time I tried, but I couldn't finish off the move because my hindbrain was busy yelling "HOLY FUCKING SHIT YOU ARE UP THE FUCKING SIDE DOWN". I did manage to say, "okay, okay, I'm actually really nervous and flipping out and so I'm too tense to do anything and I need to get down" and then perform a calm and proper dismount.

But, you know what? It still seems like a good idea, this workshop. I'm still kinda bad, but how could I possibly give up the feeling of tackling an entirely new class of body problem? And being good or bad isn't the point! I'm learning to do new things, so that I can come home and write about them in livejournal. Ha ha ha.

When we did the 200k this year, we hung out at the finish line for a while, and then drove home go to bed. srl stuck around, though, and saw the very last man pull into the finish line, two minutes before the time limit was up. We were already asleep by that point: safe, in bed, full of peanut butter and gatorade. He was still finishing his ride. That man had more guts than me, that day: he just barely had it in him to complete the course, and there I was, worrying about my time. Today, I was la lanterne rouge: I wobbled and lurched up the silks, and I got it all wrong, and the exhaustion kept bringing tears to my face, but I was smiling. At the end of it all, I was smiling.