I Liked It So I Put A Metal Ring On It

This is my circus training blog. I do regular life over at cloudyasometimes.

[juliusfrumble]

[antarcticabysea]

Inside my head, at all times.

[cloudydaysometimes]

I was very glad I went back to beginner lyra instead of jumping back into advanced or even intermediate. I think if I’d jumped into the higher levels, I would’ve ended up feeling discouraged seeing everyone else nail things that I probably would’ve struggled with. This way I was able to get a feel for the new untaped hoops at my own pace. And holy cow, those things are slippery! This one girl was nice enough to let me borrow her liquid chalk. I ordered more as soon as I got home.

I felt very encouraged after my first day back on the hoop. I felt hopeful for the first time in months. It seems like that was kind of the theme for yesterday ha.

After class I had 32 text messages waiting for me, every single one a celebration. I’m cautiously optimistic. It was a pretty good day.

[agirlandalyra]

The difference a year makes.

Also holy cow my back is so much more muscled up! I’m swole!! 👍🏼💪🏼

[cloudydaysometimes]

And after two years of training.

No more jumping!

Next step: straight leg!

[cloudydaysometimes]

First day back post-quarantine.

Back to square frickin one.

It’s cool though. The body will remember. I’m not too stressed.

[ceekbee]

~ By Antoinette Kelly

[agirlandalyra]

I was reading a blog or article the other day (I can’t for the life of me remember where) that was talking about the difference between competitive/fear-based training and training for fun. It was talking about how your body can tell the difference, how you tend to tense up more when you’re stressed. That means you’re more likely to injure yourself when you’re training with a perfectionist attitude, as opposed to being up there and being relaxed and having fun.

I don’t know if this is evidence-based or just a theory, but it makes sense to me. A lot of my training felt like...work. I kept forgetting it was a hobby. I enjoyed it. More than that, I loved it. But I remember being hard on myself. Harder than I think I needed to be.

During my covid-imposed aerial break, I’ve been learning hoop dance. A different kind of hoop. A hula hoop. The community is fantastic! Physically, hooping is less demanding, though it’s definitely demanding in its own ways. But I think the big difference for me is that a lot of hoopers are there to have fun. There’s less of that PUSH YOURSELF HARDER mindset.

I enjoy following a lot of different hoopers on Instagram, but one post in particular has stood out for me. It was a post that talked about embracing mediocrity. If we only pursue what we excel at, and we only pursue it for the purpose of “perfecting,” then we miss out on a world of joy, and isn’t that the whole point? That’s something I need to remember. It’s something that has the potential to change my life for the better.

My aerial studio officially opens next month. Conditioning so that I can get back in the air starts next week for me. I didn’t completely slack off during my aerial break, but I’m not where I used to be. That’s okay, but I want to go up in the air without having to worry about my ability to stay up there. So I’m going to start training again, but I’m going to keep my main goal in mind: joy.

I hereby promise myself that I will remember the joy, and put it first and foremost. I do this for fun. I do this for me. I won’t let this become a source of stress for me. I love it too much to let it hurt me.

Now let’s go get shredded RAWR!

[cloudydaysometimes]

I’ve tried to post this twice now and it hasn’t worked and I don’t know why but third time’s a charm right??

So there are 25 rungs in the ladder up to the platform. I counted because it was the only way to drown out the sound of my brain telling me the ladder was going to snap in half. I got to the top and decided I wasn’t going to do it. My brain said, “GO BACK DOWN!”

So I turned it off. I turned my freaking brain off. I went into auto-pilot and I did the thing. I got it done. TWICE!

Look at the size of my ovaries, you guys! I’m amazed at my own dang self.

[cloudydaysometimes]

WE DID IT!!!

🎪🧜🏼‍♀️💕

[modernizor]

vintage matchbox label –circus performer with long black gloves

via etsy.com

[millerflintstone]

@cloudyasometimes

[agirlandalyra]

😍😍

[cloudydaysometimes]

😬

[cloudydaysometimes]

My spin tolerance is so much better!

No ginger needed and no nausea after. 💁🏻‍♀️💁🏻‍♀️

[agirlandalyra]

[agirlandalyra]

Being a successful aerialist means overriding the self-preservation instinct from time to time. It took me a while to stop grasping for the ropes and stopping myself, but today I finally did it.

[agirlandalyra]

I went to open practice today after half a month of couch surfing and junk fooding. My muscles were so tight and everything hurt, but it felt good to be in the air again.

One of my resolutions this year is to balance myself out. I did a lot of trapeze work on my left side today. It was such a brain teaser! I kept having to go back to the right side to figure things out before trying again on the left side. The left side is definitely my underdeveloped side. Here’s to more balance in 2020!

[agirlandalyra]

A little Xmas sweater hoop. Merry circus, everyone!

[agirlandalyra]

Doubles stuff

[agirlandalyra]

Hoop stuff. Also, ouch!

[cloudydaysometimes]

Departing From Trauma: Reclamation of the Body Through Circus (Part I - A Case Study) — Trainings for helping professionals, corporate setti

This article is the 4th installment in a series that explores the intersection of simplified interpersonal neurobiology, psychology, and cir

“If you’ve experienced trauma, you undoubtedly want to “move past it.”

And yet, the part of our brain that manages subconscious survival-driven functions is not very good at going “off-duty” - especially if it has learned to be vigilant.

These patterns are actually protective and adaptive, but can result in a lot of challenging symptoms, such as sending us into mobilization as soon as our nervous system picks up the slightest hint of danger.

In a crisis situation, having access to these mobilizing stress hormones is great. However, in our daily lives, when our survival brain may be working in hyperdrive, it means we may be responding with a heightened level of activation to situations that don’t actually require that level of response.

As this pattern continues, many people try to disconnect from their bodies, as they have found their physiological response system to be a source of stress, or they fear that their body responses aren’t reliably assessing true risk.”

The article goes on to talk about how circus helps with this by “allowing the body to have experiences that deeply and viscerally contradict the helplessness, rage, or collapse that came as a past result to experienced trauma (which teaches our system resilience and helps us to re-pattern neuroceptive triggers related to survival).”

It was a fascinating article and deeply relevant to my own experience with circus and trauma.