stunting with insufficient sleep is a no-no

was pretty disappointed with my performance on saturday. granted I was very zoned out due to my lack of sleep after orientation camp but looking back I think I could have gathered more energy and strength during that short 2.5 minute performance. didnt really get a good stunt feel while warming up my stunts, it just feels as if I had to use a little bit more strength to toss and stuff, resulting in a pretty huge and unacceptable drop in control. even my toss shoulder with jasmine failed once which was really the low point for me for that day.

tried to fight for my opening cupie but ended up still dropping simin 1 count early, dismount timing for group stunt was late, the 270 was successful due to jasmine, candy, jen and gerard fighting for the stunt. dance was totally flaccid, which made me-the-not-so-good-dancer look even more pathetic.

probably should have expected camp to be this tiring and perhaps opted to sit out of this performance. oh wells, lesson learnt I guess, if I am going to put up such a dismal performance it would be much better if I dont perform at all.

on a better note, managed to get my toss lib during the subsequent stunt fest, still working on my toss cupie. really want to get my left cupie within two weeks if possible. direct right cupie lib feels awesome when I hit it with perle, more practice needed to bring up the hit rate.

recognition

didnt do too much during diy on thursday as there were quite a lot of bases around and they wanted to try a different set of trainin meant for the flyers. apparently it has been very easy for them to do liberties and cupies, so during diy this time we were trying stuff like heel stretches, bow and arrow and scorpions.

tried heel stretch and scorpion with biyi for the first time after president star charity performance and it wasnt too hard to hold her stunt that time, it just feels like a lib just that the flyer's cg moves a little bit more. will keep trying these stunts with other flyers too, helps them with their flexibility and aids my stability a lot too.

was really looking forward to gymnastics on friday actually as I wanted to try my round off back tuck that day and learn how to do a back handspring. managed to hit a toe touch back tuck on saturday after chickening out a few times, seems like I just need to get used to the feeling of connecting stunts, apparently robt feels very similar too.

managed to hit more toss libs and chaang asked me to start trying to get my toss cupie. still havent succeeded at all but I'll just keep trying and trying, hopefully I'll be able to get it by stunt fest. yup that shall be my target.

stunt fest practice

training with simin did pay off in the end, managed to hit the cupies with her on saturday and it really felt quite accomplishing, went on to try toss cupie with biyi subsequently and was quite surprised chaang didnt stop me. have forgotten to ask him if I could try the stunt but he seemed okay, at the end of training eric did say something about "being responsible for our own training curve" which I found quite meaningful. =)) still havent succeeded for toss cupie but it should be coming soon, shall work more on this and my left cupie.

did lots of backtucks too and it was quite fun doing it with jen, weihoe, isaac, though we all did get dizzy really fast after 4 consecutive backtucks or so. my round off feels much higher and controlled, perhaps I'll ask alan about a robt this friday.

learnt and finally managed to get the hang of being the assistant for the assisted full up, i'll have to remember to move more or less together with the flyer, instead of waiting for too long. toe pitching with biyi and gerard for pyramids feel much better and controlled already.

its nice seeing hardwork translating to performance once in a while.

pstunting

really wanted to get my cupie sequence during diy after dropping the stunt 3 times when we tried on saturday. apparently simin was heeling a lot then and I did not have the strength/know how to fight back which resulted in the cupie falling back alot.

simin managed to fix her heeling in 1 session and towards the end the cupies were very very relaxing already. still trying to grip the sides of the shoes but it seems like I'm still having problem with my thumb, need to try to spread my thumb a bit more. the floating in to the stunt feels very comfortable too.

tried a few left libs before trying my left cupie, the float feels the same as my right cupie already but I think I need to hit the gym more as I cant seem to take the weight at all. my toss feels much better already, seem to be able to hit my toss ex-es quite easily. towards the end we tried toss to ex before popping down and tossing to ex again, but we can only go to hands level only. will try again next time.

really want to show my cupie to the team this sat, hope we don't lose the feeling!

trainings and performances

gym training on friday left me really sore for a few days, was simply just backtucking over and over again into the foam pit before trying on the ground. I need to be more conscious about jumping up straight with my heels on the ground so that I dont end up throwing my knees forward and losing power. apparently I started getting the feel at bazgym but I keep reverting to my old ways on cheer mats for some reason, perhaps I'm just afraid cos I'm not used to the new feeling yet.

was quite happy with president star charity performance, felt that the stunts were hit very cleanly so I didnt have to end up using a lot of energy to fight stunts. and tried pstunt heel stretch and scorpion with biyi for the first time and it felt quite good. the photos taken also looked quite impressive even though its basically just a lib for me hahaha.

macs performance was quite fun and a bit confusing too cause it was finalised at the very last minute. was quite happy as my lib went up very comfortably even without warm up before that, think I'm slowly getting used to stunting without having to warm up stunts prior to that. dropped my single take extension with biyi early for the final stunt though, acks.

was doing a lot of btosses during training on tuesday and I'm quite sure I've gotten the feel for btosses already, to the extent that it feels quite relaxing and second nature for almost all the tosses. I'm slowly enjoying watching flyers do their elements in the air instead of fearing injuries like last time. 7 cupies at the end was still not stable, ochi had to help me support my wrist, have to keep gymming to get more strength.

weekend performances

was involved in the BT55 celebrations and *scape opening on saturday and sunday respectively, and we had to wait for a really really long time on both days before getting to perform.

really glad that the pstunt+pyramid segment for the BT55 performance went well but for some reason my shoulderstand with chengyee went up a bit late. felt that what eric said was very true, no one will be interested in the reason why stunts do not go up, all they will remember is that something went wrong. and that particular incident stood out like a sore thumb (at least to me) when we were looking at the video recording after that. surely getting the shoulderstand eventually would be better than not going up at all but this is no consolation, not too sure what I could have done to ensure a higher hit rate.

wasnt supposed to be a involved for the *scape opening but went early instead just to support and to play, in the end gary and I were btossing alan and it was really fun for some reason. the baskets were really really high and alan has amazing body control, just that the landing were a bit heavy cos I think he's not too used to cradling. its the first time I've seen someone do an arabian kickout (??) anyway.

since we had so much time before the performances, we diy-ed as usual. managed to hit my left cupie for the first time with perle, and at the same time stabilising my right. I'm able to hit my right cupie fairly consistently already, but I'm still a little perplex how some of the cupies seem to slip out of my hand. perle said that she doesnt feel like the platform's tilted or she's tipping, perhaps will get someone to take a look and get some pointers soon.

started trying toss to ex with closed legs to try to get the feeling for toss cupies, its still a lot of work in progress hahaha!

gym+more yog

went for gymnastics training at bazgym on friday, and for some reason I had this bad feeling before going for training that I may get injured during training, so was just being extra careful. thankfully everything went fine and I didnt get any injuries at all, besides the fact that my body was aching tremendously all over after that.

alan really emphasized a lot on stretching and I do feel that he has a good balance of when to have fun and when to be strict. any kind of fun will surely end when an injury happens and I'm quite sure he wanted to stay away from that.

spent the first half of the time doing more basic gymnastics like rolls and cartwheels so that he could get a better gauge of our abilities, and it was also a good time to revise and clean up my basics. almost everyone can do a cartwheel, its just who can make it look nicer.

did roundoff before jumping onto a crashmat to get both the height and the feeling of the ride, must try to get this one ingrained before going for all the tucks so that the stunt will be nice and high. have always wanted to do my gymnastics like the thais/taiwanese or even the DECS tumblers, they really make it look so effortless.

sat and tuesday trainings were just more of the yog trainings and the more I practice the more comfortable I feel with the performance. thanks to gary and eric and everyone who have been giving me small pointers about smiling and enjoying myself so that the audience will feel it too. have to stabilise my shoulderstands and pstunts more I think, and work more on the delivery for toepitch.

finally tried being part of a pyramid during training yesterday even thought I'm still pretty raw, but its really a huge sign telling me to keep improving on my personal profficiency.

on a side note, I've reached zhiliang's target of toss ex before the stipulated deadline, next targets: left/right cupies, low/high, tick tock, toss cupie and toss lib! this is pretty exciting.