Day 21: Stunt School Blues

Ah, Sunday. The day we all had to leave and go back to our respective states/countries, except those who were staying the extra week for the aerial intensive master class. Maya woke me up sometime in the early morning when she left to go back to NYC. A few of us gathered for one last breakfast in the Alderwood Room. I accidently blew a fuse when I tried to toast a bagel, so half the meal was spent in the dark.... oops. Our shuttle to the airport left at 8:30 in the morning, and we waved goodbye to the small crowd that had gathered to see us off. Most people were still sleeping in after a late night, or had already left. After finally getting through security (which seemed a bit TOO intense, and it took a long time to get clear), Lyndsay, Johnathon, and I met up to say our last goodbyes. We walked Lyndsay to her gate, since she was leaving first, and watched her get on the plane, then Johnathon walked me to my gate, since my flight took off at 11:25.

Lyndsay and I found this whale on our way to her gate, and had Johnathon take our picture:



Goofing off in the airport:



The rest of my day was spent flying, sleeping through most of the trip. I went from Seattle to Philadelphia, and after an hour delay, got on the plane to Richmond. I got into town around midnight, and my wonderful parents picked me up from the airport and drove me back to my apartment. It's a bit lonely here, since my roommate is on vacation, but I've got a lot of things to unpack and I need to organize my life. So for now, faithful readers, I shall say I am done with the blog. Until next time, that is. When is the next workshop? Oh yeah, November....

Day 20: Last day of class.... going out in style!

My neck felt much better on Saturday, largely thanks to Lyndsay Brown rubbing my back whenever she had a moment. As a result, I got to go twice on the air ram in the morning, and got to focus more on how I flew through the air as opposed to how much I didn't want to hurt myself. I did land wrong on the second go, which didn't feel all that great (yeah, chin plant!), but otherwise it was good.

That afternoon, just like on Friday, we migrated to the high falls. I was bound and determined to do at least one, since I hadn't been able to do them yet. Like with the air ram, I found myself able to do two, though they had to be spaced out so I could get my neck fixed in between falls. I didn't go very high up because I wanted to keep it as low-impact as I could, but it was still 19 feet. This time, I went into the air bag, which was much more forgiving than the crash pad we used in practice. Kyle has the video of my better fall (the second), and Johnathon got one of my first, which I have on my computer but I'm having issues uploading it at the moment. It wasn't too high up, but again, there's another workshop coming up in a few months that involves high falls. I should be completely healed by then....

That night, we had our final party at a restaurant called Amante. We had pizza, pasta, and salad for dinner, and (of course) some celebratory drinks. We then migrated to O'Houlie's, the bar we went to the night before our first day off, and spent the rest of the night singing karaoke and hanging out. Luckily, none of us are criers, so we didn't get weepy as we said our goodbyes at the end of the evening. Not everyone would be taking the shuttle in the morning to the airport. It was a great night, and I already miss everyone.



Me, Mr. Boushey, Maya, and Danielle at Amante

Day 19: Air ram and (for some) more high falls

Our day today was divided into two parts: we could either do air ram or high falls, one in the morning and one after lunch. Essentially, the air ram is a small mechanized catapult that is designed to shoot a person through the air. Because my neck is still healing, I knew I had one good turn in me, so I opted for the air ram group in the morning. The first run through (after several practice runs, of course) ended with no satisfactory launches for me. I kept placing my foot too high on the machine, which prevented it from going off. It's a very precise device, and if you don't use it in a very specific manner, it either won't go off or it could potentially cause injury. I was very focused on trying to not injure my back, so I was admittedly a bit nervous in my approach. However, the second time through, I told myself I would get it, no matter what. After maybe two more unsuccessful attempts, the instructor gave me permission to look at the pad where the trigger was as I ran up to it. As soon as he said that, I landed perfectly and was launched high into the air. After all the times it hadn't gone off, I was so shocked I'd actually done it I almost forgot to complete the move. The end result was a bit sloppy, but I was still glad I'd done one. And it ended up being my only turn on that, since my back got aggravated again when I landed on the pads. Not enough to hurt it further, it was just my body's way of telling me it was done for the day. Again. I'm very glad this has only been a trend in the last few days, and not so bad that I have to sit out of everything. Even though the landing was a bit rough, I definitely want to get on an air ram again- it may be somewhat dangerous, but it sure is fun!

The second half of the day was spent in high falls. Since I like having a task to do, I volunteered to be a safety most of the time, and filmed my fellow students with their various cameras when I was simply a bystander. One of these days, I'll get to do a high fall. Maybe if I go to that week long workshop in Atlanta this November....





On another note, here are some wire videos from yesterday!

Flips:





Jumping up onto a barrel:



Spinning:

Day 18: Flying through the air with the greatest of ease

Wire work! Yay!

First of all, I could take part in this all day without hurting my back, which was back to being stiff again this morning. The combination of having narrow shoulders as well as a bit of a dance background definitely helped make me look more graceful up there. And.... get ready to be surprised.... it was SO MUCH FUN.

But really, it is actually one more thing that felt fairly natural. I really wish I was able to stay for the intensive master class next week. There's always next year....

All of that fancy work you see in fight scenes of The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were done with wires. We jumped straight up, forward, and back, and we did front and back flips all over the place. Definitely felt like a super hero.

We also pulled the rope to make the stunt happen, and make our fellow performers look good. Hard work at times, when we had to raise and lower them quickly, but our group was awesome and we all worked together quite well.

I don't have the videos quite yet, but I'll post them when I do!

Also, we went out to dinner at a local Greek restaurant for one of the girl's birthday. A large number of us went, and it was a very fun time, though kind of bittersweet. We're already starting to miss each other, with only a few days of classes left. But it was a blast!

Day 17: High fall

Yes, that's right. Only one. Except it wasn't that high.

Today was supposed to revolve solely around high falls, and I was very excited to start doing them. When I woke up, however, that old, familiar feeling in my shoulder/spine was back. Discomfort, and just enough of it so it mildly interferes with my day when I try to move too quickly. I did one simple sit fall at the very start of the class, and realized the moment I landed that I would not physically be capable of doing any more falls for the rest of the day. I didn't land wrong, and (not that it's actually a factor) it wasn't high up at all. We were going into a foam pad for that one, which was stiffer than the big air bag, which might have been my first mistake. Fighting through the frustration of knowing I had to sit out, I wanted to at least be an active participant. I know the limits of my own body, but it is still very hard for me to admit to anyone, much less myself, that I am incapable of completing a task or participating in something. To keep myself feeling useful, I decided to be a safety for everyone throughout the whole day, and help make sure no one got injured. That wasn't so bad, but I'm still pretty disappointed, especially since we have the opportunity to do more this weekend, but I know I won't be 100% by then. So, yes. I'll be a safety for those, too. Still, it was a valuable experience to help out on the sidelines, and I'd gladly do it again. Though next time, I hope it's entirely by choice, and not out of necessity.

Day 16: Harness work

We did three different things Tuesday: rappelling, ratchet, and snare. As trite as it is for me to say "everything we did today was so much fun," well.... it was. Our half of the class was split into three groups of 10, based on our body type. I was in the small group. This made things a little easier for the riggers who set up the stunts, since everyone in each group weighed roughly the same amount. Each of us headed off to start the day doing one of the three disciplines. Group "Napoleon Complex" started off rappelling. This was the kind of rappelling that is typical of someone, such as a thief, to enter a building through the ceiling. We did it right side up, inverted, and fast. Then I personally decided to mix the last two, since the instructors told us we could go as fast as we were comfortable with.



Next, we headed off to ratchet, which pulled us backward (and sometimes forward) in a special harness to make us go flying through the air. This video shows my last turn, in which we could get creative. I had a fellow student sneeze, but it was so forceful I went flying back. As you can see, I decided to keep flailing about at the end, since it was so much fun.



The third and last discipline of the day was the snare. You know when you're running through a jungle, and a trap has been set where a rope will grab you by the ankle and haul you, screaming, upwards, until you're dangling helplessly from the branches of a tree? Well, you might not know the feeling first hand, but you've probably seen it in a movie or on TV (think Rousseau's trap that ensnared Sayid in the first season of LOST). That's what we did. I was a little more nervous about this one, since my back has continued to bother me a bit for the past week or so. Nothing serious, just enough to make me cautious. Surprisingly, it did not hurt my back at all, and ended up being a lot of fun. There were three variations: walking into it, running, and jumping up from standing still. Other than keeping my leg straight on those first two, I like to think I did pretty well. And as a side note, it's harder than you might think to run with that rope strapped to your leg.



That night at the hotel we had a second (albeit more brief) business meeting about the industry. Very informative, and we all took a lot of notes. That ended pretty late, so I went to bed shortly thereafter.

Day 15: Burnin' for you

The song was stuck in my head all day long. Want to know why?

That's right.

It was finally fire day.

A highly anticipated moment for me, I felt surprisingly calm going into the experience. As soon as I stepped up to be prepped, I went into a very zen state and felt completely prepared for what I was about to do. A little nervous, yes, since I definitely have a very, very healthy respect for fire, but the instructors helped us all feel prepared and comfortable. I was clothed in special long-john style undergarments, which were freezing after being soaked in a special gel, then stuffed (with a great squelching sound, I might add) into the four items I had purchased from Value Village last week. After that, I was walked outside to the special area that had been roped off for our burns. Every remaining speck of my skin and hair were covered in fire gel/goop for protective purposes. Think Ghostbusters II.... the gel was a lot like that, but clear in color and not as angry. Anyway, they wrapped my head in a gel-soaked bandana and hat (lots of layers of protection), "painted me" with accelerant, and lit me up. I moved around until I started feeling the heat from the flames, and then dropped to the ground to be extinguished. Watch me burn here:



Being on fire is a lot more fun than I even realized, and I had high expectations. I didn't stop grinning like an idiot for at least an hour after I had washed the remnants of the gel off in the makeshift shower that had been set up on site. I did get some slight singeing on my eyelashes (sorry, family), but I didn't even notice it happen. What's kind of strange is I felt like I'd done it before, sort of like deja vu but not quite. Go figure. All I know is I'd love to do it again sometime.

At about 8:30 a group of us went out to the bowling alley that's a short walk away from the hotel. My bowling game was terrible, as predicted. I'm much better at Wii bowling. But it was a lot of fun and it was nice to unwind. There was a skating rink inside, too, and I briefly had roller skates on (it was free) before I remembered the disaster of having wheels strapped to my feet. For those of you who might not know, the last time I had done something like this, I was wearing my rollerblades in my hilly, sharp-rock infested college town, and I ended up scarring my right knee up. That was over two and a half years ago, so it's not like I've been working to hone my skills as a skater. I didn't fall or anything, but I do have a rugburn on my right elbow from running into the carpeted wall to stop myself when I didn't feel like gliding to a halt. Glad I'm here for stunts, and not to train as an aspiring roller derby girl!