Bruised by silk

I did it!  All by myself! 

posted by Melissa Baumgart
After too much "Holiday Cheer" and a nightcap of karaoke on Thanksgiving, I spent most of my Black Friday not wanting to go to the aerial class that Amy and I were signed up for.  It was getting closer to 6:30pm and it was getting very dark outside, all I wanted to do was curl up on the couch and watch a movie.  As I ate my turkey leftovers with gravy so amazing I ate a small bowl of it late night while my family all had bowls of ice cream, I knew class was going to suck.  I would be full, and I had to take Tallulah with me.  She was tired and whiney, and possibly hungry...bad combination.

The three of us got into the van, and drove to Emerald City Trapeze.  Amy and I both realized we had left our smart phones at home when we also realized we forgot exactly where the trapeze place was.  (Resisting the urge for a "I guess we're not so smart" joke right now.)  We drove around SODO for a bit, knowing we were going to be late, and not really caring too much about it.  We knew what we were missing: a stretching session so physically challenging that Amy and I often glance at each other with silent expressions of pain that want to turn into fits of giggles because we can't believe how non-flexible we are.

Warm up twisting.

We found the place and still with a good twenty minutes of crucial stretching to spare.  After which we headed to the silks.  I thought that this class wold involve other aerial equipment, like the hoops and the static trapeze.  It did not.  Our teacher did inform us though, that it is best to start with the silks due to their soft, stretchy nature...it is less painful than metal.  Made sense to me.

Our teacher was great at teasing out all the details of where to place hand, how to lean your body certain beneficial ways and what not to do to make the tricks easier.  Due to her thorough descriptions (and maybe the sticky rosin I put on my feet as well as my hands this time), I was able to achieve getting my foot hold on the silks in the L-sit Climb.  Basically, you have to wrap the silk around one foot and hold it in place with the other foot from the top.  The last class I went to, I could not get a good grip and the silk kept slipping right through my feet, leaving me no option for any sort of climbing.  Now, I am not saying I did any climbing this class either, but I did get my feet to hold tightly together without the silk slipping through from between them.  One small step closer to the task of climbing those damn silks.

A culprit of the bruise.

One of the fun parts of class for the beginner is that even if you cannot climb very high, or at all, you can still do some upside-down tricks.  The teacher ties a knot into the silks, from which you get to contort your body into various forms and shapes that give you the feeling you must look like you're a Cirqu de Soleil preformer.  And actually, you look like what you are, an out of shape nearly 40-yr old stuck between two pieces of silk...and in pain.

The silk, while soft to the touch when it is hanging, becomes taut and digs into your skin with the force of your weight behind it.  So, if you weigh more, the silk is probably breaking more capillaries, creating beautiful bruising along your inner thigh or upper arm.

This morning I interrupted Jamie's conversation about yoga when I realized I was very tender on my thigh.  "Ouch, I  think I got a bruise" I said, cutting into his dream of our future he had been discussing.

"What?  What did you get bruised by?" He asked.

"Silk!"  I replied.

He started laughing, "You got bruised my silk?" he said sarcastically and with disbelief.

Totally, I did.  And the funniest part about it, with all the dread about going and all the attempts of jumping into the knotted silks with both knees landing in the silks left unattained,  even with the tired muscles and bruises the next day...I kinda loved it.

-Melissa