 |
| I see no way in which this could go wrong.... |
So circus school had a new adventure today. The German Wheel. 😂 if you've never heard of this nor seen how it's *supposed* to go, I suggest googling :)
We were told "you need strong core, and the ability to keep your hips over your shoulders" - awesome, I have that and have always wanted to try one of these (I didn't even know they *had* one until last week and I've been coming for a couple months now lol).
It's a beginner class and I've come to trust the instructor to not let us kill ourselves, so that's also promising.
Now, there's usually no phones / cameras allowed in the gym. But A, it's an adult-only class (the rule is really cause mostly their students are kids). B, the coach had been taking pics - with permission - of the group warmup earlier, and C - this was too good to miss, so instantly everyone had their phones out. I filmed more than half the class for them and kindly someone did the same for me.
So - let me tell you about this adventure.
- the very first challenge is getting the 2nd foot strap tight. How do you stop it from rolling while you bend down to fix the strap? ;) Related - it is extremely easy to make the wheel roll.
- those feet straps aren't super tight. Related - even loose, they definitely saved me when upside down ;)
- Did I mention it is extremely easy to make the wheel roll. This is important because it is NOT particularly easy to STOP it rolling. This has some pretty serious hazards and why every one of us had not one but two spotters. One to manage the wheel and one to help the human. The woman you can see in the background is our coach Christine - she is awesome.
So, I'm going to acknowledge right here that I really failed this one. 😂 Most of them I get the general concept of and while there are definitely "complete beginner with neither gymnastic nor dance experience" I can generally make something happen (did I mention last week I did a one-handed cartwheel?!?! 😂 For the first time ever. Ridiculously excited about that even though in the grand scheme of things that's about as basic as it gets).
Anyways - back to my failure. I started to roll it, and then immediately my hips would go the other way to counterbalance it and send it back the other way. 😂 watching on camera I could see exactly what was wrong, but with just the instructions I couldn't figure out how to get it to change directions with just my feet. In the not-very-long we had for this though, I definitely didn't get it properly. However, I was still permitted to try a cartwheel 😂
Each person got reminded before starting to "push away" -- I guess people try to pull up on the bars and that's very much NOT what you should be doing, esp when upside down.
So the cartwheel - most people the biggest issue was either their hips moving sideways OR they collapsed through the middle (hence the hands-on spotting because these ones would've been in trouble if not saved by coach spotter). My issue was more that my response to don't move your hips and "push away" was to lock everything. Overkill much? So it meant I needed the support of the person guiding the wheel to actually get me rolling more, but was okay holding my body in place while it rolled.
However, I didn't push away enough to keep my feet firmly in the feet-squares. I can understand how it should work (v much the same principle as for handstands) but... definitely first try, upside down, survival mode, forgot that minor step, so as a result, my feet were a hundred percent reliant on those feet straps to keep them in cause I was NOT pushing into the feet stands at all, so once upside-down, gravity did its thing.
Lol no harm and very low risk given the double spotters. The entire class managed this without a single issue. But definitely not something I feel the need to take up. Esp as you need to really commit to things, even on the first try when you're just learning. There is no slow mode beyond the things with the wheel straight up that a spotter can hold it.
It occurred to me afterwards that the first 30+ years of my life I was taught to stabilize myself and stay upright on a horse using core muscles to NOT rotate off the side, so potentially that was part of my challenge right at the start ;). Not sure this particularly activity has strongly transferrable skills from riding lol. Strong core, yes, but use it for the extreme opposite purpose - more of a mental game that I was up to after an in-office day ;)
So summary: Fun, I survived due to qualified spotters/coaches, and I don't really feel the need to do it again. Although I would love to try rocking it once more to see if I could get my brain around that coordination (properly) not the way I was doing it 😂 but beyond that, I'm happy to leave this apparatus to others. I am glad I got to try it though!
Posts
