Entertaining the neighbours

Today was the kind of day that demonstrates why adults don’t learn new skills.   Not cause they can’t but because it’s horribly frustrating when to fail over and over and over when your brain says “this should be easy”.

Today was the first day I really tried practicing without a fence.   Last time I learned how to “bail” but was so sore I didn’t even attempt to actually do a handstand.  After today…. Well suffice to say I am 100% comfortable w bailing lol.  I did it many, many, many, MANY, times.

Some things I learned:

• video is KEY.  It’s all new, and generally happening in a second, so being able to replay each one and see what should I have done differently sets the next one up for improvement
• When there are 8000 things to fix, the “next one” is unlikely to be any better.  Nor the one after that.  Nor…. Well you get the idea ;)
• Without the fence, if I’m not paying attention, my hands will default to WAY farther apart than they should be - which is an extra challenge I 100 do not need rn.
• Practicing the form standing actually dramatically increases chances of success of the next try
• Part of what the fence allowed was time.  I realized I was setting it up in stages:  kick up, straighten shoulders, tighten core, tighten legs, find balance.   Without the fence you have to do all those skills together. That’s…. A bit much for my little brain  atm ;-P.  
• If I forget the core engagement, a - it fails super fast, and b - omg does my lower back ever hurt instantly.  Like talk about instant correction!
• What I did do, just to make sure I wasn’t fully entrenching BAD habits, was every once in a while throw in a fence hold to re-establish how it’s supposed to work (theoretically- let’s acknowledge my fence holds aren’t great either lol)
• I’m playing a little w keeping my second leg bent - it’s a bit like keeping an arm out for balance.  I’m hopeful it’ll help me get said balance and then I can straighten it.

Also, the street behind us was having work done - you better believe the flag guy stopping traffic at the corner of our lot was highly entertained by this insanity.  Fortunately most of the cars couldn’t see, but he had just the right view.   As did my elderly Nepalese neighbour who doesn’t speak a word of English and is often very confused by what I’m doing lol (last time he got his grandson to ask it was spreading cold campfire ashes over the grass); this time he just finished his smoke, shook his head, and went back inside lol.  So yeah, I’m def hitting the crazy old lady buttons younger than expected, but I think as long as it stays away from my work persona, I might be okay w that ;)

Anyways - in the end there were 21 videos today.   Each of which had between 3 and 10 tries.   Of ALL of those - 2 resembled something that might one day be a handstand.  The first one that felt “right”, I quit.   And it took ALL of my adulting abilities to do so.  I’ve studied enough about how we learn to know first and last things you do are what gets embedded (so first was fence, last was as good as it could get) and I’ve been both a coach and a learner for long enough to know that “one more time” esp on a new skill, is *never* one more time.  And a coach I had when I was very young once told me “once us luck, twice is a fluke, three times means you’ve got it” — this has always stuck w me and generally played out to be accurate.  But today might be the first time ever that I’ve convinced myself to accept the fluke and call it a win lol.   Also, since it’s a “fresh day” (aka after rest day) I felt good - it was *super* hard to acknowledge that I’m not strong enough yet to do “just a few more” after dinner.  Here’s hoping it all pays off tomorrow ;)