Week 3: Happily Exhausted

 It's proving quite difficult to listen to my body. On Monday I was exhausted after a totally restful Sunday; on Tuesday I was bouncing and decided to stay late, which then hit me on Thursday. It's really difficult to know how to time rests vs extra training and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to my current energy swings. It's probably because my body is still screaming 'What are you DOING?!' and 'You're doing it some MORE. Really?' at me. I've heard week three is the hardest. And I'm hoping it's the hump we need to get over before settling in to better communication with our bodies.

As it was also my 30^th this week (best birthday ever! thanks for all the messages and love :) ) I'm even more aware I need to respect what it's telling me. But I'm so happy to be using it so fully, and I *think* if I wasn't so tired I'd definitely be noticing a difference (and I mean apart from the bruises!) It's incredible to contemplate what the body can actually put up with, go through, and keep going through. Clearly the course is not designed to break us, but to push us to our limits and make us as strong as possible. As long as our muscles have just enough time to recover - not fully, but enough - before we push them again, then we'll keep on an upward trajectory. But if not, we'll crash down. (Early nights and protein shakes are totally keeping me together!)

Yet this tiredness doesn't seem to matter, because it's part and parcel of our passion. It's not the tiredness you get from a day's commuting across London, that you resent: it's a satisfying, deep tiredness that makes you smile because of where it came from.

I've been impressed (and sometimes daunted) by the pace of the syllabus. We're quickly reaching the limits of (what I thought!) was my reasonable trapeze knowledge (and in Acro we're already standing on each other's shoulders - terrifying!). In three weeks. Just think how much there would be to learn in a year, or two. How much work needs to be put in to really cut it in the performance world. As our director has said, as circus becomes more 'known' and part of everyday culture (think about No Fit State, Psy, Occam's Razor, Circus Oz), it gets harder and harder to impress. Performers need to be ever more daring and impressive. Slightly daunting and I'm already sad I'm only on the three month course but intend to soak up everything I can!

Week 1: Professionalism not Escapism

  

As I glanced up at the clock from a press-up position at 8.52 on Tuesday morning it really came home to me what the school director had said to all of us at the induction: he doesn't like the phrase 'running away to join the circus' (oops!) because it evokes a sense of haphazardness, and a lack of discipline – which are entirely contrary to the ethos of the both the school and the profession. He told us this would be the hardest, most committed thing we would ever do. And realising as I did on Tuesday morning that I had already done more exercise on Monday than I usually do in a whole week, had more training time on one day than I ever had face-time with tutors in a week at University, and spent more hours in the day there than I ever usually would in my old job at work – I saw that he was definitely right.

Week 1 has been tough. Incredibly demanding on the body: a serious mid-week slump on Wednesday that I somehow got over; muscles aching that I wasn't expecting to; the resurgence of old injuries and serious tiredness – no more deciding I can get away with a small lie-in! - if we are more than 3 minutes late we are excluded from class.

But at the same time it has been and is completely liberating. I feel fantastic. It feels more than ever like the right decision – and a decision that really came from me and belongs to me. Every now and again I step back and can't believe that I'm really here. That I am supposed to be hanging upside down at midday on a Wednesday. That that is what I do now. The luxury of it. The week has introduced us (a wonderful motley crew of jugglers, dancers, actors, acrobats and aerialists) to Aerial (Trapeze), Juggling, Performance, Acrobatics, Tumbling, Conditioning and Movement. In 6 weeks we choose two to specialise in...I won't commit myself now to saying what my second choice might be (Aerial, of course, being my first), as I know there will be plenty of time to fall in and out of love with the disciplines, and may have to let my body decide what it can cope with! For now, on with Week 2....