2014 Flying Trapeze Goals

Today is my birthday and my original plan of flying in the morning has been foiled by the rain so since I can't actually do trapeze, I might as well just talk about it. (and then go treat myself to a mani/pedi)

Before I dive into my 2015 flying trapeze goals, I might as well review my 2014 goals (or somewhat lack there of).

I never really laid out my flying goals for 2014. It was difficult to really pin point what I wanted to accomplish because in reality I just wanted to do it all. I started off this year in a plateau, I was working on back end tricks but my swing was atrocious and it felt like I was just going through the motions but never really improving. I suppose my subconscious goal was really just to breakthrough the plateau and become a more advanced flyer. 

Looking back, this year was for improving my technique and ultimately locking down my return to the board. I drilled my half turn and turn around swing for so many months just to properly understand the mechanics of the return from hands. The half turn may not have been a very flashy trick to have worked on FOR MONTHS but it was certainly an important one and critical to my skills development. 

Goal #1 - RETURNS TO THE BOARD

Being someone who prefers flying without lines, I never really worked on the return in lines. So the first time I actually returned to the board, it was unassisted by the lines puller and was a result of the many hours dedicated to learning proper technique and at hands of my amazing catcher.

I had my first round trip to the board on July 7th when I was out in California, flying in the mountains. And just in case you're wondering, it was just as picturesque as it sounds:

It was the final day of my vacation and we squeezed in some morning flying before breakfast (if you know these guys, you'd be surprised they were awake, let alone flying by 8am). It was a really special moment and the pinnacle of months of blood, sweat and tears (literally and figuratively). As I took the trip across, I was surrounded by the three people who had coached, supported and pushed me along on the journey to catch and return back to the board: Rob was catching, Efe dropped my bar and scooped me along with Alex (trapeze Alex, not hubby Alex). I managed to catch and return a few more times that day. I don't have video, but here is photo from another catch that week.

So now that I am retuning (fairly) consistently, one of my goals for the remainder of the year is to really polish up my return. I would love to have the goal of no missed bars, but I know that is just unrealistic. I will be focusing on the three following items: nail down the timing in-hands so I pop and turn high and on time, staying tight at the turn without twisting at the waist and remounting the board with ease and grace. I love being in-hands, it's one of my favorite parts of flying trapeze, I will rarely turn down the opportunity to catch. So I'm looking forward to making improvements on how I work in-hands so catching can be as smooth and seamless to both myself and my catcher. Catching and returning to the board out of lines is really when things start getting next level in my opinion. I may never be a flyer in a show, but I would love to look as beautiful and as flawless as a professional flyer.

In general I need to continue focusing on staying tight and cleaning up my flying, which brings me to my next goal, the swing.

Goal #2 - The Swing

They say the swing is the hardest thing you'll learn in trapeze. While I'm sure triples and double twisting layouts are indeed VERY difficult, the swing is tied to just about every trick and we're always on the hunt to make it stronger, higher and more powerful. My swing is ever-evolving, as I fix one thing I then have to work to fix something else that needs readjusting as a result. I hear the swing is a lifelong journey and so be it. 

I recently had a breakthrough on my force out, which is improving the front end of my swing and gaining me height but now I need to adjust what is happening on the back end. I still need to work on timing, forcing out faster and sweeping longer.

I really want my swing to be long, powerful and beautiful by the end of the year. Even if it's not perfect (not that there is such a thing), I am committed to having straight legs that are zipped up from toes to torso, feet that are pointed all the way through the toes. I need to SQUEEZE EVERYTHING TIGHT.

The two above goals will be on-going until I get to a point where muscle memory can take over and the above items just happen naturally.

Goal #3 - Tricks: Cutaway and Layout

This year I worked on my nemesis, the layout, and caught it, but that trick is still very inconsistent. I want to learn to love throwing layouts, but all they do is cause me endless amounts of frustration at the moment. Right now, even if it has to remain in safety lines, I just want to be able to throw it smoothly without traveling by the end of the year.

Since the layout has been a thorn in my side, I had decided to give that trick some rest for a bit and start working on a cutaway. My goal is to ultimately work up to a cutaway half. (hello 2015 goal!) I may never be able to throw a double cutaway half (two back flips with a half twist) like my trapeze idol, Terry Cavaretta, but if I can make the cutaway half "my trick", I'll be pretty damn happy. We are starting me on working the cutaway so I can understand the mechanics and gain a strong foundation before adding in the half twist. My goal is to catch my cutaway by the end of the year. So far progress is slow, but I feel pretty confident I'll get there within the next few weeks. I just received motivation on this goal via a birthday gift in the form of a cutaway stick handmade by my catcher best friend Boston Rob.

Thank you Roberto, we will catch my cutaway when I visit you after the new year. I also want to play around with a reverse gazelle and anything else fun we an think of to do. Anyone have any suggestions for other novelty tricks please leave me a comment below. :)

So there you have it, my 2014 goals...

Hop, Float and Flying in 2014

Well, as the year comes to an end (and another birthday quickly approaches), I thought why not start off this shiny new blog with a little year-in recap of Hop Float Fly fitness-related adventures. As I say every year, where the heck did it go? It's almost December and the past 11 months have flown by once again. 2014. 

After months of deliberation, I finally decided to move forward with training to become a certified yoga instructor. I was accepted into the Full Circle Yoga teacher training program with 28 other eager yogis. After our first weekend together, I knew I had made the right decision and I knew I was embarking on a life-changing journey. We spent one weekend a month together from January - September and though the long days were both physically and mentally exhausting, I always found myself leaving on Sunday feeling so happy and energized. The experience was something I have difficulty even putting into words, but I've grown so much as a person as a result of this experience and if I could go back in time, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I posted this on Facebook in August:
We just wrapped up yoga teacher training weekend #8 of 9 at Full Circle Yoga. I will never forget this beautiful, intense and special weekend. I had the opportunity to lead my fellow yoga TT's through a 60-minute class. I was so nervous and excited to finally share what I've learned with the sweet yogis whom I've been sharing this magical journey with for the past 8 months. So much love, laughter and support amongst this amazing group of people, I cannot wait until next training weekend. We've all come so far in such a short period of time. It's an incredible reminder that nothing is impossible if we dive deep into the fabric of our own being and really believe in ourselves.





YTT graduation | photo cred: Full Circle Yoga

I've been teaching a bit on the side recently and I'm excited to continue exploring yoga and teaching yoga in the coming months.

2014 was a big for me on the flying trapeze as well. In the fall of 2013 I started working at Trapeze Federation, working board and trying to learn as much as I could about anything trapeze-related. This hobby I had picked up the year before had slowly started becoming a burning obsession. March 25th was my flyer-versary (flyer anniversary) and I ran up to the rig immediately after work to celebrate my first year of flying up in the air.

I spent the majority of the spring at the rig working on half turns, turn around swings and backend tricks. I worked my half turn tirelessly until Rob, my coach and catcher, deemed it ready for catches. We took that trick straight to catch out of lines. I had taken it down to the net so many times OOL and picked up a pretty decent face off to the net, so we were pretty confident everything would go smoothly. Even though the first two catches were misses (and I scored some nice net burn on my elbow), we ended up finally making the connection and May 10th was the day I finally caught my half turn.

Net burn shared between trapeze catcher and flyer best friends

Since then, I have gone on a few flying trapeze adventures, which have brought me to a pretty pink rig out in California (Cotton Candy Club), flying in the Cali mountains with my trapeze family from Florida, a few trips north to Jacksonville to fly with Trapeze High Florida and an unforgettable fly session with the legendary Tony Steele.

Now that Trapeze Federation is back and operating in Orlando for the new season, I'm really excited to continue expanding on everything I've learned this year. I can't even describe how incredible it feels to be back flying regularly again. During the week it's been a bit more difficult to train because of my full-time job, but I'm managing to get in at least one night practice a week, in addition to at least one weekend day. This year I also starting training on trampoline, silks and hoop more regularly. I'm hoping to continue working on those three apparatuses, in addition to flying. Tramp has been really interesting from a cross-training perspective. It's teaching me a great deal about body awareness and staying tight. A few weeks ago on the trampoline I learned how to do a suicide (probably could use a nicer name), which is basically a swan dive that stalls out into front flip. Today I had the opportunity to take it to the fly bar. After working the skill repeatedly, purposely falling towards my face from just about 5' above the trampoline bed, I felt pretty confident dropping down from the bar and executed the dismount without any hesitation on the first try. It still needs some polishing up, but I'm excited to now have another flashy way to leave the bar that isn't another backend trick.

This week coming up should be pretty great. I'm celebrating the anniversary of my birth with a couple flying practices and also with leading a yoga class at the end of the week. There will also be family dinners, friend hang sessions, puppy cuddles and husband beard-snuggles as well. And I will continue the tradition of buying a Christmas tree on my birthday too!

This year has been pretty busy and exhausting and challenging but it's setting itself up for a pretty exciting 2015. I knew this year was going to be hard, but it ended up being even more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. I'm looking forward to making the most out of the final few weeks of the year, both on my mat and in the air, as well as on the ground (and everywhere else) with the people I love. =)