Aussielicious

Tonight was the first class of the new term of silks and it was my first in the advanced class. A little like when I went from beginners to intermediate, I am a little out of my depth. That is, if it is possible to be out of your depth six metres of the ground.

At one point at the end of the class I got a little stuck and because I have lost some conditioning after nearly two months without class, I was getting really tired. That meant I panicked a little because I could feel the strength draining from my arms and then a foot got tangled. But you know what? I had a freaking blast. I’m now in a class with teachers learning alongside me and it was fantastic fun.

The teacher for the term is Ari who has just come back from nearly 2 years overseas performing through Europe and learning from other performers around the globe. I can’t wait to see how far I can progress this term. Check out Ari’s video below!

It seems that I haven’t been doing what I need to, to maintain my conditioning for aerial silks lately. That’s really no surprise, for four weeks over the holidays I didn’t set foot in the gym once and have barely climbed a set of silks more than twice in that time either. So needless to say I arrived at open training tonight with grand visions of doing my new routine a couple of times from start to finish, but didn’t even do it in it’s entirety once.

I broke it down in to a few pieces and did various combinations a few times each. It wasn’t entirely a wasted session, I have things to focus on and work on and I think I know the timing pretty well.

With Mardi Gras looming, there is a party happening the week before the parade that the lifesavers may be involved with. It’s been brought up that I might do my silks routine again if the venue has the capabilites to be rigged for it. We’ll wait and see, it’s several weeks off yet.

I’ve just got this video from another friend who took it from a different angle to the last video. Looking at it again I’m picking up a few different areas to be worked on for next time.

This little piece from Rufskin caught my eye. Now I’m not normally one for fetish wear like harnesses but I think this would compliment my pole routine outfit really well. What do we think? I’m not sure what size I’d be so I’ll have to do some research for it. There’s also an idea I had for a headpiece kinda thing that I really want to get made as it will go well with the pole outfit and the routine I want to put together for silks. I’m trying to get a bit of a theme going.

Last night saw the final two shows for us in the annual show. I went to bed at 3 after a few drinks with the cast and crew. We had a great night and a lot of fun. For some reason I woke up at 8am instead of getting a good sleep in. I went to the nude beach with some frieends but after a couple of hours I felt like I was going to pass out and throw up from exhaustion, so I made my way home and passed out for two hours. Much Better.

In two hours I’ll be getting on a train to go and see Kylie’s X2008 tour. I’m so excited. I haven’t seen Kylie for a couple of years on her Showgirl Homecoming tour. This show is supposed to be spectacular. I’ll keep you posted!

Yesterday I raced from work to Aerialize to get ready for the first show. All in all I’d say it went pretty smoothly. The crowd ooh’d and aah’d in the right spots and there were no dramas. Well one of our class never showed up but we actually don’t care. Let’s call her Ms L. Ms L has been a bone of contention for all in the class including the teacher this term.

She’s always late by about half an hour, and when it came time to start putting our act together she was pushing for all the big tricks and more tricks and more time in the spotlight. Then she announces at the final rehearsal, the first one she hasn’t been late for, that she’ll be up the coast until 5pm yesterday. Where she was going is a good 2 hours away and on a stormy Friday night in traffic there was no way she was going to make it.

Our routine didn’t look too strange without her, we’d never pandered to her hunger for the spotlight. It just pissed a lot of people off and she’s being called today to be told not to bother turning up for the two shows today.

I’m on my first coffee this morning, soon to be followed by another one. Then it’s back to Aerialize at 12 to prepare for a 2pm and 8pm show. I promise I’ll post a bit tomorrow.

Working off the ground brings with it some inherent risks, and I guess adding dramatic drops and tricks adds to that danger. In the show I performed last week and in the upcoming show for my aerials school, I did/am doing a trick that is absolutely brutal on the ankles and I think to make sure they don’t actually snap, I’ll cheat it in the rehearsals and give my right ankle a break before it breaks.

Basically you wrap the fabric around both ankles in a figure 8 and around the first ankle again for a second time, then dramatically dive backwards so you end up dangling by your feet. Having done it in rehearsals now for two weeks, my right ankle really does feel like it’s at breaking point.

I’ve just walked in from my first public paid aerials gig. I had to take half a day off work to go to the technical rehearsal and then sit around for hours for the actual performance, both of which were later than planned, but that’s to be expected at these kind of functions.

The rehearsal was a bit of a disaster. One trick requires us to separate the two strands of fabric which I couldn’t separate at the time. The silks are new and sometimes they are even more easily tangled. So I had to skip a trick and just catch up at the next one. Thankfully the actual performance went off pretty smoothly.

We finished the routine with some spinning. That means we both had one hand in a hand loop and end up letting go of the actual silks and someone down the bottom spins the silks around and around. I didn’t quite do what I should have right at the end and my hand loop ended up tightly wound around the silks and I was almost stuck up there.

The funniest part of the show was our outfits. It was a corporate gig for a product launch. The product packaging is lime green and black, so we were in flourescent LIME GREEN Unitards. Look at the pictures above and picture those ensembles in lime green. Not cool in the slightest.

It’s the end of a very long and both frustrating and enjoyable day. I barely slept last night going over and over in my head, the routine that I’m performing with another girl on Thursday night at a corporate function. Add to that, the fact that during a drop trick I feel like I’ve torn something in my calf.

We were really busy today at work with a major client preparing for their conference which starts tomorrow. One of my work colleagues tends to conveniently find reasons that he can’t stay back and help the rest of us out when we have too much to do.

I’ve just got home from my silks class and a final run through thursday’s routine. I hope to get a video of the performance which of course will be put up here if I can get a hold of it.

I thought the photo above might add a nice finishing touch to the day. God knows it put a smile on my face.

This term at aerials class we are working towards a group performance at the annual show in a month’s time. There are a couple of people hell bent on their own glory. One of them is a 14 year old boy who is full of boundless energy and totally fearless, so I’m willing to let him go.

The other however is a royal pain in the arse. The rest of the class doesn’t like her one little bit. She’s always off doing her own thing and then when she can’t get it, she interupts the teacher explaining things to us to get help. We are doing a routine based around a rivalry between old school circus carnies versus the cirque du soleil style of performance and she’s off posing like some gansta rapper.

In related news, I may have a paid gig at a corporate function next week, I’m just waiting on confirmation, which should come tomorrow.

As we all know, the idea of being nude is a good one in my books, and nude sport, or at least watching nude sportsmen has always been an even better idea. Last night at aerials I may have proven to myself that it’s not at all a smart idea, no matter how visually appealing it might be.

We were learning a new trick that has to have been invented by a woman. There are many of these tricks in the reportoires of aerialists I’ve discovered but this one was the worst yet. If I’d been asked to try and father a child last night, I highly doubt it would have been at all possible.

There is a young guy in the class who is only 14 and is at a performing arts school. He’s a lovely kid but definitely a quirky kid. If he weren’t at an arts based school, I hazard a guess that he might be bullied. BUT, either the kid is wearing very un-supportive underwear or he’s doing rather well for himself at such a young age. Either way, a couple of us have noted that unless he is careful, it’s so “out there” that it is in danger of just being ripped off and it would be a shame to lose something obviously so large that I’m guessing has never been used by anyone else.

Our silks teacher is getting us to play around with doubles tricks and the girl I’m working with is so much fun, but it got me looking around youtube. I found this gorgeous routine with Nick Beyeler and another hottie at Les Farfadais. It’s simple (looking) but stunning.

I’m getting increasingly frustrated with myself and my lack of motivation at the gym. Granted I had a very restless sleep last night but I really should have gone to the gym this morning yet, once more, I didn’t. Having said that, if silks class was every day, I’d be there religiously. It might be the motivation of knowing that I’m capable of performing or just that it’s a great challenge, but I’m loving class this term. I’ve always really enjoyed it but both classes this term have been great fun. My teacher told me last week that I’m nearly ready to go up to the advanced class and then this week she said she’d finally watched the video of my performance and she was proud of me. Yay!

Today has been a much better day. I had a good workout this morning at the gym with my training partner before work. Work wasn’t particularly exciting but it wasn’t stressful like yesterday, although I think tomorrow is going to be a LONG day in the office.

I’ve just got home from a really fun first class of the new term of silks class. We were all laughing and having a great time as well as learning new stuff. I had a couple of attempts at the finball, which is a faster version of the last trick in my performance video. Instead of being opened in a star shape, you keep your body straight like a pin and you spin much faster. SO cool, but a little brutal on the end.

It’s now after ten and I think I need to head to bed, so enjoy the pretty nude guys in black & white!

Within minutes of me finishing my aerials routine last week, the manager of the venue said to me “Now that I know you can do it, you need to get a routine ready for El Circo for when Ari isn’t around.”
Ari is the aerialist at El Circo dinner and show on Sunday nights. So the hunt began again for another piece of suitable music. El Circo is a bit of a mix of circus and burlesque tending to the darker side of the scale at times.
I found this Lenny Kravitz song which I think will work really well, it’s rock, it’s sexy, it’s masculine but still slow enough to do a routine to.