I did make it off the ground!  Ok, not by myself… Will had to help me get into the Roll-Up, but I at least got off the ground.  While Cirque du Soleil may not be dialing my number any time soon, I at least have a shot at Funniest Home Videos!  I will be bravely (and I do mean bravely, given that I am very body conscious and not at all happy with the way I look at the moment) posting the video at the end of this post (yeah…I’ll make you wait for it…).

The reason I am going to bother posting the clip is not because I am some fabulous budding aerial artist, but because I am daring to try something I never thought I’d ever even get the chance to do.  I am working hard to make real changes in my life, and allowing myself to take risks in spite of fear and self-doubt is one thing I want to be able to look back on in my old age and say, “Yup… I tried that.”

I am very excited that I WAS able to complete the Froggie hang!  For the past three weeks, I have been trying to hang upside down from the silks.  I am not yet able to do so by hanging on and using my arms to pull myself up (a la the rings in high school), but having the support of the silk hammock on my lower back allowed me to finally get into an inverted position.  I think if I keep practicing the feeling of flipping backward on the hammock, I will eventually get to where I can flip my feet up when hanging by my hands.  That’s the theory, anyway!  And believe it or not, it really felt good on my back.  The hanging relieved any compression, and I didn’t even get dizzy or light-headed.  I think I will make this part of my warm-up every time now.  And I also think that the Aerial Yoga might be up my alley. That is something I am definitely going to look into.

I DID get my feet off the floor while hanging from the trapeze for about a whole 15 seconds!  They are only about 6 inches off the floor (actually an improvement in itself), but keeping them up for more than a split second actually surprised me!

I also managed to get myself into a hip key all by myself tonight for the first time!  I was only able to do it once (because every time I tried after that, I kept rolling out of it), but I DID do it alone!

AND I managed to get myself into a foot wrap (maybe not by using only my leg for the double rond de jambe because the fabric keeps slipping on the second swirl of the leg…so I used my hands to help wrap), and then pull myself up into a standing position.  I started to do the roll up, and I even managed to push the fabric down around my ankle without it catching on my calf muscle (like in the video), but I lost it when I tried to roll myself around.  I was not standing flat on my foot in the wrap, and it was tilting sideways… and that hurts!  So I had to come back down… BUT I did manage to get up there solo!

Hey Patty!   Those are my three successes for this week’s challenge!  A solo hip key, a solo foot wrap/stand, and a solo Froggie…key word SOLO!  🙂   So I hope that means you’ll cut me a bit of slack when we have to report about the greens for the week… I’ll do better with next week’s protein challenge, I promise!

Ok… here’s the video.  Bear with me… it was my first attempt at the move, and I really needed help!