The return of the callouses

Today is Wednesday, and as such, there aren't any regularly scheduled group classes.  Today is also halfway though the second week, and I have to say, at this point, my body has gotten pretty tired.  For that, I have decided that today would be a good day to take a day off.  Since we started last Tuesday, I have been doing some sort of physical activity each day (whether it be group classes, coming in for open studio, or going to the Outer Limits gym to work on my cardio).  I felt it'd probably be best for me to give my body a bit of a break from constant movement.  It's definitely much more frequent of exercise than I've gotten since camp last year, so I want to make sure that my body will be able to handle it well.  Also, there's just something about working out and stretching for extended periods each day that somewhat seems like its going to backfire.  Haha.  Maybe it's just my imagination.

Anyway, I used today to go to the Coop and get some food (other than NECCA, it's honestly my favorite place here in Brattleboro :P).  I organized the food and whatnot and have my lunches all set up for approximately the next two weeks.  ^_^  I also signed up to be a working shareholder, in order to get a discount on future purchases.  I only wish it wasn't uphill coming back home from the Coop, though.  >.<

Anyway, yesterday was the supposed "aerial assessment," which as I found out didn't relate to the word "assessment."  However, unlike last week's "conditioning assessment," it did in fact have to do with aerials.  From 9:45 until noon, we all did a group trapeze workshop, which focused on the basics.  In a way, this was good, as I hadn't been on a trapeze for god knows how long.  There were still plenty of good notes regarding technique that I managed to jot down during the course of the class.  However, it definitely made my hands rather red at the end, as all of those callouses I had created after the Aerial Skills Workshop last summer had almost completely gone away, but fortunately I managed to not get any rips yesterday.

That's one of the things that I never really liked about aerial apparati such as as trapeze and lyra.  They both have bars that will really gnaw at your hands after a while and are not always very comfortable.  While things like rope and fabric do have a bit more of an ability to be pinchy, you certainly don't get callouses on your hands from them like you do with bar apparati.  However, seeing that I'm going to be working with these types of apparati for a long time, I'll have plenty of time to develop callouses and such where I need them to ultimately make using them easier in ways they shouldn't be hard.  I hope to get myself better acquainted with them as the year goes on.

During open studio today, I had a half hour private with Jaime, who was also my aerials coach from camp last summer.  It was nice to see her again and talk about what's happened since camp and such.  We spent first 15 minutes doing conditioning exercises and the latter 15 minutes doing some stretching.  She gave me some very helpful exercises for my knees, which are still yet to go completely straight.  :P

I can happily and proudly say that I did another session of Bikram Yoga in my room last night (again with Bikram's CD).  It definitely brought some nice closure to the day.  I'm still working hard on that standing head to knee pose, though!  :P

Tomorrow we have a floor and duo "assessment."  That's likely just to be working on the basics with those, just as we did for trapeze.  In the afternoon, there'll be the first dance class, which will be lead by two people from Pilobolus, which excites me, as I am a fan of theirs.  On Friday we begin our tumbling classes.

That's really all there is for now.  I have been starting to get a bit antsy in terms of "ahh I just want it to all start already" but it'll come.  Next week marks the beginning of general skill development, which is to continue until a little bit after Thanksgiving break.  I'll be sure to keep you guys updated as to how that goes.

Trevor