Flying Trapeze: Seat roll from whip

Another weekend, another trapeze class. #addicted.

I liked my trick from last week, the seat roll, so we did it again this week. This week from a whip position instead of a knee hang. I think I was doing it wrong because it was much harder. 

I haven't done this whip position since May or so, so the first time I was wary.

Whip position. (Wearing dragon crops :)

The trick is jump off the board, hang, on the way back tuck in, then pike, feet toward the board, butt towards the bar and look at your knees. At the call, you pull your arms closer to the bar, hook your knees, and then pull up towards the cables (not the lines.) It's almost one movement. Then you sit on the trapeze, pull the bar close to the bottom of your butt, lower your hands on the cables and lean back (the trapeze is under the bottom of your butt, your body is arched, toes pointed). On the call, you release your hands for the catch. 

And once again, I struggled with this one.

1) I feel like I've lost strength, because it's hard to hold all of your weight in the whip position. 

2) On the first one, I didn't keep my feet together.

Feet apart, hands in fists. Double fail. What am I doing?

3) On the second try, I missed the call. Was I supposed to sit?

4) And I was trying to muscle up onto the trapeze (which is hard) when I think I was supposed to yank the trapeze pulling my body toward it and then reach.

After a few tries of that, I tried cutaway for the first time. 

I knew I'd be a hot mess. This is a difficult trick that takes several classes to get. 

It's like single reverse. You jump off the board with hands crossed, you untangle yourself as soon as possible (keeping your feet together). Kick forward, backward, forward, and then bring your toes to the bar, so your whole body is piked. From there you, kick your feet like going to handstand, and then release your hands and you should do a layout towards the catcher.

That is not what I did.

I let go with my hands first and did a dolphin dive toward the net.

I knew when it was happening that it didn't feel right. I just let myself fall—because that's all you can do. And honestly it was fun.

Kaz joked that I set a distance record for that dive (which he's seen many times before.) And we all laughed for several minutes about it. 

And it almost makes sense. When I do handstands, I lunge, put my hands down and then kick my feet. So hands first, then feet. I need to kick my feet first. 

After that it was time for catches. (Seat roll off course.) The timing was off for my first catch. I did touch Alex's thumb. And then I had my hands too narrow for the second catch. (I make all kinds of stupid mistakes). Class was over 10 minutes early so I tried my luck and asked for one more turn (I always feel like a need a try or two more than anyone else. And it was much better.

The catch was better than last week too (it was all the catcher last week). This week, he definitely had my wrists (Afterwards I could see the outlines of his fingers in chalk on my wrists). And I tried not to pike. I did the slightest and pulled myself in. Victory.

This trick has a lot of moving parts and it's hard to remember all of it: feet together, hands shoulder width (no fists!), look at your knees, pull, bar under your butt. It gets better with practice, when you're muscles remember what to do—so you don't have to think. Overthinking is my enemy is trapeze. I overthink the directions and take too long and miss the timing.

Now I'll just have to work on my cutaway. I think the blooper reel for this one will be pretty good ;)