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. =)