Who’s ready to watch the Oscars???? I’m more of a Tony Awards kind of gal since theater is my true love, but I’m looking forward to watching the awards tonight with my friend Annica since I’ve actually seen a handful of the movies nominated. I think my favorite of all the movies I’ve seen this year would have to be Frozen (DUH), Saving Mr. Banks and Her. But let’s be honest, the real reason I care about the Oscars is the ridiculous dresses + my love of Ellen Degeneres.
I kicked off my weekend with some flying trapeze as a treat for enduring a full week of school + work :). There was only 3 people signed up total instead of the usual 10 so that meant LOTS of flying. By the end of class I was one sore but happy Kayla.
During a typical trapeze class I usually do 1 round of super light swinging as a warm up for my shoulders, 2 rounds real swinging (the beginning part of more advanced tricks. It’s something you are ALWAYS working on and fine tuning), 3-4 rounds working on one trick… and then it’s time for catching. A tiny class meant I could work on a few different tricks and dust off some super old tricks I haven’t tried in 2+ years.
I was curious about my backend split which was the first backend trick I ever tried. Backend means you add a “position” (in this case a split) at the back end of a swing. The whole point of swinging is to build height.
First ever backend split, January 2010:
Pitiful attempt at a backend split, February 2014:
It’s funny comparing the two videos because in the first one my swing is a hot shaky mess- my body isn’t tight, my legs are doing some weird things… yet I was able to muscle into the trick like the stubborn gal I am. My swing in the video from yesterday is pretty solid, but that final moment I just couldn’t commit to the trick. It was my first time attempting the backend split since hurting my shoulder and something about this trick freaked me out. Even though my shoulder feels fine on a daily I still deal with this residual fear from that incident.
After feeling a bit defeated by a trick I used to throw all the time 4 years ago, I decided to bring out my layout as a confidence booster. The layout is actually a more advanced trick than the BE split so it felt good to throw some awesome layouts after meh rounds of splits.
Since I’ve only caught my layout maybe 4 times since the big bad injury it’s always super exciting when I not only get the okay to catch it, but also catch successfully.
At the end of class the head instructor said that it was the best flying he’s seen me do. Considering the amount of classes I’ve taken with him over the years, I take that as a pretty huge compliment!
When people say “Oh I could never do trapeze, I don’t have any upper body strength” I assure them that I had close to no upper body strength when I started flying (hellooooo dancer!) and that it’s really more of a mental sport, especially in the beginning. Sounds a lot like running if you ask me… I think this “trapeze is a mental challenge” concept is a lot of the reason I’ve stuck with flying for all these years. As someone plagued with a good deal of fears and anxieties in real life, trapeze forces me to go out of my comfort zone. It’s not natural to jump off a platform 25 feet up in the air and there’s always that second of “oh my god, why is this my bobby?” before I take my first leap, but then I realize it’s okay. I get the awesome adrenaline rush, hop off the net and get ready to do it all again.
The rest of my weekend was not as much fun as flying trapeze unfortunately. I did get to hit up another kickass class with Keoni at CYC though.
I really love that the classes there are nothing like no other cycling class I’ve ever experienced. The format is 4 or so songs for warmup, 4 songs of “strength” with the weights and then the final few songs are hills. Breaking the class down into these sections makes the time FLY by, which isn’t always the case in some spin classes. One of the awesome things about the fitness scene in Manhattan is that there’s such a huge variety of options– even within indoor cycling. I like to think that there’s something for everyone and it’s just a matter of finding the right fitness soulmate for your personality.
Since this week is the first round of midterms (WOMP WOMP) I realized that I have to take advantage of my free time this weekend for some food prepping. To those of you that can meal plan for an entire week and prep all that food in one day I ENVY your organization and meal planning skillz. The fact that I went food shopping this weekend is a miracle in itself let alone the fact that I made the effort to cook something I can enjoy all week.
Okay, I wasn’t overly ambitious in my meal planning attempt for this week, but I did do my food shopping for the essentials (english muffins, smoothie ingredients…) and made my favorite crockpot chicken taco chili plus cooked enough rice to last me the week.
Bonus: it’s also something me and my friend Annica can both enjoy tonight while watching the Oscars. She’s gluten-free and allergic to most nuts and fruits… I’m dairy-free and don’t eat red meat. Flavorful chicken chili for the win!
My dad came over to pick some stuff up while the chili was cooking and agreed that my apartment smelt AMAZING. I split the final product into individual serving sizes for easy reheating all week long.
I already know I’m going out to dinner twice this week with friends so between this chili, picking up a salad for lunch at work, my usual english muffin breakfast and my lazy go to lunch, matzoh brie, I’m good to go with meals for the week. Better than getting takeout every day, eh?
Question of the day: Do you meal plan over the weekends?
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