yog routine

spent the whole training on tuesday practising for the yog routine on 19 jun and for some reason I was thoroughly tired after the end of training. I was trying to be sincere every time we ran routine, and even though most of the stunts went up I felt that there were still quite a lot of room for improvements.

opening partner stunt segment feels quite shaky, even for the initial extension, not too sure if this is due to me or biyi or perhaps just due to us having to do with timing. still need to work a little on the transition to shoulder stand and the moment back into pyramids.

apparently my shoulder stand is done with my back arcing back quite a lot, which results in the midtier tipping quite a bit. this leaves a dull ache at my lower back after training which hopefully is not a strain. the tips given to me were not to tilt my head up so much just to look at the stunt (rather just rolling my eyes upwards to see), and to hunch and roll my shoulders inwards to keep my upper body compact. shall keep trying to improve the next session.

feeling quite confident of my full up and btoss already, and its a nice time to catch my breath during the routine.

toe pitched for the first time yesterday in a really long time, the last time I did that was perhaps during ACES camp. was glad I didnt lose the feeling at all, just that the first time I tried it I overestimated the strength required and ended up almost throwing biyi over nellie =P. subsequent tosses were more controlled and much better.

inspired

Eric from Vancouver came down for saturday's training and even though we didnt have a place to train cause of some admin miscommunication, I must admit that I probably learnt the most in one single session. its even quite awe-inspiring just watching him do stunts and I thought he was a little limited by the standard of our flyers!

shall just list out the things eric taught me in one single day:

1) all the power from tossing comes from the legs, keep your back straight and try to jump off the ground when tossing

2) visualise every single stunt and control my strength to just hit it, not too much not too little

3) try to toss extension every single time and your toss will improve. this really worked as I was able to toss nellie and huishan almost to an extension towards the end of the session.

4) relax, before and during the stunt

5) full ups are just mega tosses with a small flick at the end.

6) press upwards with the balls of my palms, I should be able to counter any flyer tipping forward

7) pop down and catch my own flyer as if there are no spotters at all, not being able to do so is simply wimpy

yup that's almost everything, and I am still very very inspired.

diy

I'm slowly hitting and holding my cupies more consistently now and it feels like my training has been paying off. even though I must admit that I am pleased with myself, there is still a lot of room for improvement. as ochi says, I have no stunt feel at all so its either a nice hit or a spectacular fall, which will put flyers in unnecessary danger too.

seems like the trick I have to work on now is opening my thumb and pressing it upwards during the cupie. realised that when I'm doing that the entire platform feels very flat and stable. most of the times when the stunts fail, its due to my keeping my fingers closed together. much more confident of popping already and there was one particular time yesterday when I managed to catch the stunt even though I overpopped.

toss extensions are getting more consistent too already, seems like I'll be able to hit zhiliang's target early! need to concentrate before the tosses though cause sometimes it feels like all the force disintegrates halfway up the toss. my legs and back are aching from all the tosses but I guess that is a good thing haha.

backtuck

apparently I'm not jumping straight up first before going for the tuck resulting in me jumping straight back into the tuck. not enough height.


keep practising.

diy

diy at smu was shifted to yesterday as jayson's enlistment is this coming thursday, and we wanted to give him a chance to hit a toss ex before going to ns. ken and kahau's ite cheerleaders came down too to play.

was just experimenting and trying my toss ex with carmen for most of the session and it's slowly getting there. still feels like I'm pressing the last 10-20% up but there were a few tosses which I manage to catch at a full extension height. not too sure what I did differently but with more practices I should be able to get the feel. much more confident about catching the flyer at extension height already, almost feels like second nature, which is surely a good thing.

ochi challenged me and carmen to hold a 5 sec cupie, the reward being an ice lemon tea but sadly we didnt manage to hit that all night. felt that I managed to catch her cg and get my hand in the sweetspot but somehow there'll be a tipping action which I wasnt able/strong enough to counter. apparently if I use the gripping method I should be able to control the tipping but ultimately cupies are supposed to be held with a flat palm, not too sure if I should learn both methods.

ended the night hitting a few very stable cupies with huishan and was feeling quite happy about it for the rest of the journey home. I think I get satisfied quite easily hahaha. hopefully we'll be able to do more pstunts later during training =)

trainings

went to the gym on wednesday and did some light exercises as I was a little tired.

bench press: 1x8 (40kg), 1x8 (50kg), 3x8 (60kg)

wrist: 3x10 (15kg)

shoulder press: 3x8 (40kg)

snatch: 1x8 (35kg), 2x8 (40kg)

leg press: single leg 3x8 (full rack)

calf raises: 3x30 (both legs), 3x30 (single leg)

went for diy on thursday and my cupie feels much much better already, I'm slowly getting used to the feel of the stunt and can even fight to keep up some of the cupies. ochi says that I'm not stepping forward to use my entire core to support the weight which means I'm just using my shoulder strength to take the weight, shall work on that later during diy. injured my left knee when huishan landed on it, its much better already thankfully.

did nearly 70 toss throws on saturday at the start of training which resulted in my thighs hurting for the rest of the session and even today. didnt know that we had to do so many initially so I really used most of my strength on the first set of 15, had to grit my way through the rest of the sets. it was fun doing shoulder stands once again for pyramids, its really becoming my comfort zone, but I'm not too sure if I'll get to be shoulder stand for long anyway, think I'm a bit too tall. quite confident of my toss to shoulder stands already.

got back my feeling for btosses, really hope that I dont lose it once again. I just have to remind myself not to wait for the flyer's weight to start sinking in before throwing, the trick is just to follow the timing and move up. did a few btosses with xuewei, she really trusts the bases a lot to catch her, and despite not btossing for nearly 2 years, she's still pretty good at it. huishan was trying her layout and got the first half of the stunt, the landing is a bit awkward which resulted in bruises and scratches, acks.

zhiliang challenged me to get my toss to extension by july during thursday's diy session so I started trying just that during saturday's pstunting with biyi. really happy that I managed to throw to a comfortable extension (without pressing up) towards the last few throws. tried toss to hands pop down toss to hands a few times too. thanks biyi once again for your patience and willingness to keep trying until we can hit stunts.

stunt endurance

yesterday's training was mainly focused on practising for the yog performance and I'm learning a lot during the entire process. pstunts to shoulder stand sounded easy but I was trying to get my stability and sharpness which makes things quite challenging. not to mention that I have to hold the stunt for quite some time, which gets pretty tiring after 2 or 3 consecutive runs. thankfully biyi's such a nice flyer who's always so obliging when I want to practice a few more times.

had some time to try walk to glad shoulder stand, and I seem to be able to hit it quite easily. however I think my left right imbalance extends even to my back muscles, my left back seems to be working way harder for shoulder stands for some reason.

tried rewind for a while at the end of training, looks and sounds interesting but I'm only at the theory stage only haha.