The Assassin's Path

[@mu]

I'm a 40yo Assassin who came looking for new ventures on NF about 2 years ago. I've gone through a fair amount of challenges and I am now looking for a different pace to get on with my usual goals. Time for a Battle Log!

 

So what are my usual goals?

 

Persian

 

I spent the last 4 years of my life very close to the infamous Assassin's castle Alamut, and I want to keep up with my Persian.

My spoken Persian is holding well as I speak it with my other half, but my spelling is quite poor. My mother tongue is French and I don't always spell the different types of aa and rrr correctly (because French doesn't know those subtleties). The way to go is therefore to read MOAR and on a regular basis. I have kinda been failing at that the past 2 weeks erm...

 

Hand balancing

 

 

These days my main focus is on honing my press to HS. I get it, sometimes, but very inconsistently and it's not always very pretty either.

The second focus is to make my HS foundation as solid as I can (consistency, endurance, starting to get some kind of shape and transitions vocabulary). I train primarily on parallettes but I'm starting to integrate exercises on blocks and/or my hands.

 

Why did I not start with the obvious, i.e. on my hands? Well because I love parallettes and many body weight progressions were impossible for me to do from the floor. I went through GMB P1 and P2. I covered about 3/4 of P2 until raw strength became quite limiting (I could not press to HS from bent arms). This is why I moved onto straight arm press to HS. I did Garage Gym Girl's programme and managed my first press to HS in September or so (after about  6 months of training).

 

All this to explain that I still have a bit of “must complete P2” thread hanging about in my brain. It's not high priority but I still try to include some bent arm work in my training (elbow levers, crows, HSPU progressions).

 

Aerial

 

In September I started going to 2 circus classes, one is cross-disciplinary (acrobatics, juggling, handstands...) and mostly for fun and discovery. The second one is aerial, which I used to do before I moved next to Alamut (where they don't have aerial studios really). I have a home rig that allowed me to maintain some level of conditioning but of course I have lost some. So here is to starting again.

I'm mostly into rope and silks.

And I like to do aerial with a ball, why keep it simple when you can make it super complicated

This thread will be about progressing on aerial skills with that ball again, including throws and rolls.

 

And that's it for now. I have other interests that might pop up every so often: drawing, DIY attempts (I recently started a giant tree for our cat), poetry, science-fiction and I have some moderate druid tendencies (spirituality / gardening). My daily job is tech wizardry. (Like every wizard throwing spells for a living, I have my up and down days).

 

[@mu]

Monday

 

Flexibility session (hips / pancake / camel / bridge / elbow stand) + a play session with HS blocks.

 

I did 5x5 straddle kick up sets on those but did not measure 5s+ consistency because it would have been a bit too depressing and it was already Monday morning  

I'd guess about 2-3/25? (my parallettes consistency score is usually within 15-21).

 

Here is an interesting video by Yuri Marmerstein about blocks:

 

 

Some notes: I kinda like a grip with 2 fingers at the front and 2 fingers on the outer side. And I'm definitely feeling the slightly more forward lean.

 

 

[@mu]

Tuesday

 

Press to HS session

+ during warm-up: ball flex extensions, sitting in cocoon, throw from foot to hand and Glaswegian roll (arm roll with a head butt)

+ straddle jumps and negatives on parallettes (to L-sit => okayish with bent legs, to stalder => butt fail)

+ leg movement on parallettes : straight to bent knees hold and back, 3 reps in a row but not very confident ones (went banana on the last)

+ press from bench, books, down to 2-3cm, still cheating the lift a wee bit with my left leg going up first, so I stayed @2-3cm to work on that

+ 5s+ HS consistency on blocks: 0/5 1/5 2/5 2/5 1/5 = 6/25 better than I thought, I mean it's pretty low compared to parallettes but I can get a hang of it! The good thing with all those fails is that my consistency session went very fast

 

I strained (maybe torn a wee bit) my upper left ab 2 weeks ago, so I skipped leg raises and straddle lifts. It needs a bit more time to recover.

There is a student holiday here so no Circus class for 2 weeks, except 1 aerial class this Thursday. Tomorrow is REST. And I need to get on with some Persian!

[raptron]

Hi hi hi! I'm not the best at poking around BLogs just because of where they are in the forums and my own browsing habits, but I OBVIOUSLY want to keep following your classes and balancing journeys.  

[Mad Hatter]

Here for handstand gooooddnnnnesss! I'll be trying very hard to catch up.  

 

On 10/22/2019 at 8:41 AM, @mu said:

sitting in cocoon,

?

 

On 10/22/2019 at 8:41 AM, @mu said:

Glaswegian roll (arm roll with a head butt)

I feel like this needs a video.  

 

Also your recent toy purchases makes me want a toy too! Maybe canes...  Easier than blocks.  

[@mu]

On 10/22/2019 at 4:30 PM, raptron said:

Hi hi hi! I'm not the best at poking around BLogs just because of where they are in the forums and my own browsing habits, but I OBVIOUSLY want to keep following your classes and balancing journeys.  

 

No worry I will still be hanging about at the Den

[@mu]

14 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Here for handstand gooooddnnnnesss! I'll be trying very hard to catch up.  

 

?

 

I feel like this needs a video.  

 

Also your recent toy purchases makes me want a toy too! Maybe canes...  Easier than blocks.  

 

Yaaah!

 

Cocoon is like hammock. I have silks that I rigged as a hammock. But usually I simply make a knot at the bottom of my regular silks, that works too. In a real setting, I would be doing it from  "chair" which is a figure you get into on plain silks (or rope) and you end up sitting. But it's too much energy to spend on each time the ball falls and I have to do it again. So cocoon it is 

 

Glaswegian roll, wait I probably have some gif from my archives when I was experimenting with my video editor for a ball-related challenge, yep here it is. It's not as violent as it may sound:

 

 

I'm relatively fluent with that one. But doing it on silks makes it a bit harder, even sitting, I just can't move as much to recover the ball when it goes its funny way.

 

Haa canes! That would be a great reward for consistency work!

I have thought about it sometimes but coming from parallettes, I feel that I need some block xp first. Also many of the moves on canes can be done on parallettes I think, except for the turning ones. This is why I tentatively got those rotative PU grips but I'm not ready to HS on a regular basis on those yet (it's a bit scary).

 

I heard canes are easier to balance indeed, I don't know, if they are a bit flexy like PVC parallettes, I suppose it helps, but the first challenge would be kicking up there I think! and then bail properly

Do you know this website: https://circusprops.net/

They have a variety of sets, including shorter versions, like blocks on springs, and canes from 30cm I think. 30 is still quite a step

Do you know other websites with HS gadgets?

 

 

[@mu]

Tuesday I tried starting a new little book in Persian, but I fell asleep on the first page... Yesterday I did manage a long news article. I might go for that sort of reading for a while.

[Mad Hatter]

1 hour ago, @mu said:

 

Ah I remember, cute!  

 

1 hour ago, @mu said:

Haa canes! That would be a great reward for consistency work!

I have thought about it sometimes but coming from parallettes, I feel that I need some block xp first. Also many of the moves on canes can be done on parallettes I think, except for the turning ones. This is why I tentatively got those rotative PU grips but I'm not ready to HS on a regular basis on those yet (it's a bit scary).

Maybe a christmas present to myself I manage to stick with it for that long....  

Parallettes and canes are definitely more similar than say blocks and canes, so it makes sense to work on blocks first. 

 

1 hour ago, @mu said:

I heard canes are easier to balance indeed, I don't know, if they are a bit flexy like PVC parallettes, I suppose it helps, but the first challenge would be kicking up there I think! and then bail properly

They do move quite a lot, of course depending on the height and the thickness. It's interesting, because you think that you're wobbling all over without any control, yet you still manage to stay on.  If I get them I think I'd start with walking into position using a wall, with a crash mat in front of me, and when I'm ok with bailing, put the crashpad behind me as a platform to not have to kick as much. I did find it quite scary, the few minutes I played on them. I think those were about knee height and the floor felt very far away haha. But I suspect (hope!) it'd go away quickly. 

 

1 hour ago, @mu said:

 Do you know this website: https://circusprops.net/

 They have a variety of sets, including shorter versions, like blocks on springs, and canes from 30cm I think. 30 is still quite a step

Do you know other websites with HS gadgets?

Cool, I did not! I got my hoop from firetoys but they hardly have anything for handstands. Haven't looked around for HS gadgets though.

[@mu]

Thursday

 

Aerial class. My ab is much better!

 

As usual warm-up with dance-related moves. This time it looked more like “animal movement” with some synchronization steps that were not easy to get at first.

 

Then climbs + conditioning on apparatus.

 

Hip lock and foot-lock for the group, and I got a move to work on that I don't recall having done before, new stuff! Hip lock → wrap upper leg and turn backward and down to vertical → silks slips from the hips and is caught at the knees → knee hang → get up and unfold.

I have Mediterranean hips and it was hard to get the silks to slip out even when I am fully vertical head down it still works but it loses the little drop/slide effect.

 

With the ball I practiced straddle in front of silks → chair → throw → roll → unwind. It's getting cold and my grip was very poor.

And without the ball I practiced catcher to angel to chair but I have forgotten some bit in the middle, I will have to figure it out again.

And at end the teacher asked me to work on half catcher → back balance → roll to front balance. Which is hard, I fell a lot between. I have lost a stable 1-arm back balance so the transition to front balance was HAIRY.

 

And in between I did some HS on wooden little pbarz (they found the second one what was missing) and blocks + ball chest rolls which are getting there more consistently!

I also shared a tip for hip lock with classmates who were struggling. In French it makes for a funny, somewhat catchy, phrase: “cul au tissu” meaning “butt to silks” because that helps getting the start of the move (little twist). Then you pick up the tail and draw a high circle with the legs. Basically fancy leg raises. But the slight upward hip turn helps breaking it down a little. The teacher liked the tip and I had to demonstrate this in slow-mo several times (not exactly an incentive to share tips ).

 

And then a lot of abs on the floor, which I was very lazy about.

 

Quite a full-on class but I did not overdo it, I think? I hope

 

We had a drink afterwards to unwind because most are on holidays now. Not me though! I'm quite tired this morning.

 

[Mad Hatter]

Fun!! Awesome that you're getting social with your class mates.  

[@mu]

22 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Fun!! Awesome that you're getting social with your class mates.  

 

Yes,  interesting people too from various backgrounds. One is a med student and going to Japan for the holidays, another is a professional actor/dancer, another is doing a PhD on mushrooms (that's the one I found the most interesting to be honest ) Our teacher is from Chili and we talked about the hot potato going on there, as well as more mundane things.

 

Friday was REST. I did not manage Persian, only read through some news headlines and nothing picked my interest that much. My evening read is no longer working, I'm just too tired these days. I could make one session up at work, after lunch - and our usual table football matches, but I forgot this week. I need to set a regular time and build the habit again!

 

Saturday

 

Note to self: buy single plant pots for this winter and maybe a shelf for plants. We have a large window sill box that I moved inside because it's getting colder, but the cat is now considering that's her new fancy bio soil-based toilets! She never did that when the box was outside. Not sure what's up in her cat's brains.

 

Practice: I'm re-introducing leg raises and compression conditioning since ab is no longer grumpy. Not overdoing it though – just in case, so quite a bit of leg bending in there but I mostly got quad cramps, no ab pain. I was expecting some DOMs from class but I'm actually good!

 

I love this workout and being Saturday I can take my time, it's just great!

However I noticed very quickly I had too much coffee these past few days and I had the shakes   those are just super annoying (today was a combo of arm + leg shakes).

 

Warm-up / Cirque Physio / ball stuff / leg raises / flexibility (splits progression)

Press to HS prep including leg movements and negatives

Press to HS skill: bench, books @8cm, books@3cm, pbarz, I managed 2 on pbarz! not super pretty but hey

Press to HS conditioning (more leg raises and some compression work)

HS 5s+ consistency on blocks: 8/25

Aerial alignment work (neutral candle ↔ straddle)

More Cirque Physio for the back

 

On blocks, I'm starting to understand the kick a bit better. It is a very light and gentle hop compared to parallettes. I tend to put too much power into it, or the reverse, not enough at all because I'm afraid I'll kick too hard (I'm falling over a lot more). I need to learn to calibrate that a wee bit. I also don't elevate enough at all, not sure why but it looks more obvious than on parallettes.

 

Here is a progress video with a mix of negatives, leg movements, press bits and a full set on blocks.

 

 

Thanks YouTube auto-thumbnail for reminding me that I should point my effin toes

 

[Mad Hatter]

20 hours ago, @mu said:

Thanks YouTube auto-thumbnail for reminding me that I should point my effin toes

Who would've thunk YT would be a good coach?  

 

Toe pointing aside haha, that vid is amazing! I'm so impressed. One day I'll be like youuuuu  

Except for the bails - those really made me cringe today, especially from the blocks.

[@mu]

Quick update before I have to bike away to work

 

Saturday evening I did some Persian, searched through headlines to see if I could see any opinion pieces. I picked a random one and started reading and I was mhm what's wrong with me, I don't understand anything at all. I gave it to E. to read and he started translating in French, and again, I was like wait it still doesn't make any sense. He said yeaaah it's one of those pseudo-intellectual opinion pieces made of lots of fancy words but carrying basically absolutely no meaning at all. He said that style actually came from some French influence apparently. I see what he means, there is a tendency to meaningless fancy verbosity at times in some French circles too

But excuse aside, I need to read more. This is just not enough.

 

22 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Who would've thunk YT would be a good coach?  

 

Toe pointing aside haha, that vid is amazing! I'm so impressed. One day I'll be like youuuuu  

Except for the bails - those really made me cringe today, especially from the blocks.

 

Haha thanks. Does that mean you're going to start parallettes ? I'm spreading the “tubes”, I nearly convinced an aerial classmate last week

I still haven't gotten around practising the side bail on its own. Interestingly, the teacher at the HS workshop did not comment on it at all (be it on hands, blocks or parallettes). Classmates did though, until they realised it was my regular bail, no hurt involve

 

On Sunday I was planning to do some bent arm work but it did not happen, my shoulders were feeling a bit too tired. And these days I try to listen. It was annoying enough to injure an ab. Shoulders are SACRED. Hopefully I will manage this week because I don't have any circus class at all.

 

Monday

 

Flexibility (hips, pancakes, shoulders, back)

I'm back to doing elbow stand free standing. The fear had come back for a while, I'm still not super at ease but not so fearful that I have to use a wall.

HS block consistency: 7/25

I did blocks before back-bends to get really warm and because if I do HS after back-bends, I will tend to go all banana (not on purpose).

 

I want to make up a couple of regular routines that I will practice as HS warm-up before press skills. It won't be main focus stuff so I expect it to take a while to build up. I tested those in headstand:

Straight → bent knees (not a tuck, thighs should be vertical) → straddle → pike straddle → seven → full tuck → open tuck → straight

Straight → stag to the back L → stag to the side L → diamond → stag to the side R → stag to the back R → straight

 

[Mad Hatter]

1 hour ago, @mu said:

Haha thanks. Does that mean you're going to start parallettes ? I'm spreading the “tubes”, I nearly convinced an aerial classmate last week

Haha maybe not tubes, but I do like the look of canes! Especially the really tall really scary ones. 

 

1 hour ago, @mu said:

 I still haven't gotten around practising the side bail on its own. Interestingly, the teacher at the HS workshop did not comment on it at all (be it on hands, blocks or parallettes). Classmates did though, until they realised it was my regular bail, no hurt involve

I mean you do you.  As long as you don't get hurt it's fine, it's just uncomfortable to watch haha.  

 

1 hour ago, @mu said:

Shoulders are SACRED.

TRUTH!

[@mu]

A tad bit of Persian at lunch time yesterday, but I did not manage to read the whole article. I'll keep at it today.

 

This morning, press to HS with my usual Cirque Physio warmup, ball throw and rolls and some back balance practice on silks.

 

I did one of my HS routines, the first one and I managed it on the second rep. It's a bit too fast, not pausing enough on each shape, especially from 7 on, but it's a start!

I did not do the second one nor practiced some more because I just don't have the time, it's not the main focus and I didn't want to get burnt for press.

 

First couple of reps on press to HS were good and then I lost it! Struggle bus it was. At the end, I went back from @3cm to @8cm to get at least one good final rep.

 

5s+ consistency on block: 9/25 – this is exciting! I was getting a bit bored with consistency on parallettes because I started hitting more or less the same range all the time. The last consistency reps are very hard to get. But on blocks, there is definitely room for improvement and it's exciting again!

After parallettes, it does feel like I'm a bulldozer entering a China shop though. It takes a few reps to adjust. And vice versa. On press prep, it took me a few reps to push high enough again.

 

Here is a vid to log my HS routine work and to show the struggle bus on press after an ok rep. Not sure how/why it was such a struggle. The fixed setup with parallettes is a bit annoying because I can't adjust my feet, I have to adjust my hands and I'm still not sure what the optimal distance is. It seems that I also started pushing more forward than up, and it just does not work that way. But why can't I push UP like in the first rep? I don't know. Maybe not enough compression. Hips are lower and harder to get up, legs are not active enough? Bah... will see next time...

 

 

[Mad Hatter]

Nice control! 

 

1 hour ago, @mu said:

But why can't I push UP like in the first rep?

Daily form, tired shoulders? Dunno, but clearly you are capable of doing the move so I wouldn't worry too much about why it didn't work this workout!

[@mu]

On 10/29/2019 at 10:04 AM, Mad Hatter said:

Nice control! 

 

Daily form, tired shoulders? Dunno, but clearly you are capable of doing the move so I wouldn't worry too much about why it didn't work this workout!

 

Could be! Maybe a synch issue as well and brains not being up for it

 

No Persian to report... No excuse really except a busy week. Fortunately today is a holiday. Maybe I'll catch up over the extended week-end.

 

I rested Wed and Thur. I'm still biking from and to work. It's not too cold but in the evening it's now very dark, with Halloween yesterday I half expected a daemon to jump across the road in the park It felt a bit better when I reached the city centre.

 

Today bent arms at last!

 

@RG means rotative PU handles/grips, otherwise I worked on parallettes

 

Warm-up / Cirque Physio glute activation / PU / low frog holds

Double elbow lever to straddle hold to double elbow lever @RG

Crow to straddle hold trying to come back up to crow @RG – butt is too heavy seriously!

1-leg crow full extension

crow trying to lift in a tuck – so not happening! It feels a bit like press to HS when you push like a donkey and nothing is happening...

PU crow ↔ crane, locking at the top is still hard work as the knees slide down little by little...

High frog hold to elbow lever to elbow lever spin - not full ones but okayish

L-sit & V-sit progression @RG => those are super hard with rotative handles, my wrists kept turning inside and my arms would unlock

1-arm lever progression @RG - still too much flop to balance

HS to crow => did not manage, I kept cheating the end.

 

I can tell I haven't done bent arms very regularly! Even on PUs, I was dolphin-ing a little bit oops.

 

I couldn't resist doing some blocks as well. Although it wasn't initially planned.

5x5 5s+ HS consistency => 9/25

As usual I pushed like a dinosaur at first and then started settling a little bit. I'm getting better at balancing in straddle but I don't count those because I need to reach up legs together for a rep to count. Maybe it's silly but I did it that way on parallettes, keeping the same rules allows for some comparison. So far progress rate looks similar. If it is so, it will take about 6-7 months until I reach about the same fluency I have on parallettes. To be honest I'm hoping there will be some carry over between the 2 and that I can benefit from some shortcuts! Having done press to HS work seems to help a lot. But otherwise so be it hey, the HS path is a long one anyway.

 

Here is a progress vid and that should be it for the video spam until next cycle. I should be deloading next week. Classes are starting again so it won't be a proper deload but I'll downgrade a notch the intensity on my personal sessions.

 

 

Tomorrow we should receive a desk with upper shelves + a dressing thingy for coats and shoes. DIY time. I'll probably do press to HS on Sunday.

 

[Mad Hatter]

The elbow lever on the rotating thingy looks so hard! 

[JuiceeTarget]

Thank you so much for sharing your progress videos. I feel like all the YouTube things I see are people that hold a perfect pose each time. Seeing you shake and wobble makes me appreciate more the strength and control that you have, and it makes me feel like I could get there someday with a lot of hard work.

[DoubleTrouble]

A one arm elbow lever on a rotating thing! WHAT

[@mu]

On 11/1/2019 at 5:36 PM, GoodDoug said:

Thank you so much for sharing your progress videos. I feel like all the YouTube things I see are people that hold a perfect pose each time. Seeing you shake and wobble makes me appreciate more the strength and control that you have, and it makes me feel like I could get there someday with a lot of hard work.

 

Thanks! And I totally see what you mean! I also tend to come across a lot of curated/polished social media content. It can be inspiring for sure! But it can twist expectations a wee bit

 

To give you some more wobble material, here is a video from last year when I started learning the elbow lever spin sequence (1:26 in the video above).

And here is the final GMB P2 routine at the highest progressions (e.g. planche instead of crane)

I'm a very long way from that but I was super excited to see a woman do it for a change (and I highly recommend her as an on-line coach by the way). She also has a compilation video of her training for it and while we are definitely not struggling at the same level at all, I could at least “identify” a little bit. That lever spin is truly mean!

 

I need to check your thread, curious as to whether you got started on those DIY parallettes yet or not

 

On 11/1/2019 at 10:03 AM, Mad Hatter said:

The elbow lever on the rotating thingy looks so hard! 

 

On 11/2/2019 at 12:56 AM, DoubleTrouble said:

A one arm elbow lever on a rotating thing! WHAT

 

Ah ah yes why do simple when you can make it super complicated Those rotating grips are great for stabilization work though. Oddly it's also nicer for any elbow lever work because wrists are free to move to the angle they like best, and I find it easier to hold that way. This is NOT true for other moves though, e.g in L-sit, wrist freedom is definitely not helping ¯\_( ツ)_/¯

 

[@mu]

A bit of Persian yesterday (small news article).

 

Press to HS + flexibility

I woke up to a sore wrist (left), not sure why, it felt like I slept with the hand in an odd position.

Then I had a funky bail and banged a knee against the window.

So I did press but it was minimalist, it was one of those days anyway...

HS 5s+ consistency on blocks: 8/25

And called it a day!

[Mad Hatter]

3 hours ago, @mu said:

Oddly it's also nicer for any elbow lever work because wrists are free to move to the angle they like best, and I find it easier to hold that way.

Huh, interesting, to me it looked like you'd start to rotate whenever you lifted your hand off and that it was throwing you off balance. Looks can be deceiving!

 

51 minutes ago, @mu said:

 Then I had a funky bail and banged a knee against the window.

Ouch!

 

3 hours ago, @mu said:

Thanks! And I totally see what you mean! I also tend to come across a lot of curated/polished social media content. It can be inspiring for sure! But it can twist expectations a wee bit

Couldn't agree more, it's awesome to see you posting everything including the grunts and fails! I wish there was more content like that to balance out the highlight reels. Actually, parkour folks are great to follow in that respect, they tend to post a lot of fails, or you know, the actual process of nailing a challenge.

[@mu]

Just a quick post to share THIS: