Our firs full day was upon us, and like every day, it started for me with a trapeze class. We met the rest of the group around 9:15 every day for breakfast, which gave me time to eat and get to the 10:00 advanced class. On Wednesday morning, the rest of the advanced flyers must have been sleeping off their rough pirate nights because I was the only one there! It was a good thing too because I was trying a new trick for the first time, and I'm glad there was no one else there to see the first couple!
Seriously, you have no idea how happy this picture makes me! One of the things I love most about our Turks time is the awesome coaching I get. As great as I have it with my coaching at my home rig, it's always beneficial to get different instruction. This particular crew (well, Brandon and Miguel anyway) were really good coaches. I really understood them, and could make changes based on their tips. I got a lot of one-on-one attention during the week, but these small (or private!) classes were the best.
How about this view? I can't get enough of it.....
This trick, the "lay full" or full twisting layout turned out to be my nemesis from the week. It started out ok, but got worse and worse over the next 3 days. I wasted 3 days on this trick! I'm kicking myself about that now. Here is a video of one of the better ones. It's essentially a summersault with one full twist.
After trapeze each day, we went to the beach. I really didn't take enough pictures on the beach, and it's another thing I kick myself about. The first half of our trip was sunny and beautiful, which makes for the best beach pictures. When the sun isn't shining, this water just isn't as blue and beautiful. We had plans to try a new balancing pose on the beach, but waited too long and never had another sunny day. Bummer. Oh well, here is one of the few beach pictures we took. Note to my 65 year old self (hell, word to my 45 year old self....): remember how good we looked in 2015? We work hard, take care of ourselves, and are certainly getting better with age. It's a good thing!
I have a picture of this same tree from last year. It's right
here. See that sand? It's the most amazing sand in the world. I will forever be spoiled by the awesomeness of this sand and this ocean. I can't imagine ever being satisfied by a beach again. Thanks for ruining all other beaches for me, Grace Bay.
After spending the day at the beach, it was time to head to trapeze again. It was really the routine for the week....wake up, fly, beach, fly, dinner, show, party, sleep...repeat. That is a routine I can get used to. Marifer and I have matching pants. I found them on sale, and decided I'd order a pair for her too. She loved them!
I had so much fun with this girl! I am so sad to think that the chances of us ever meeting again are so very slim. She is headed to Club Med Phuket in Thailand next, and who knows after that. Her boyfriend is from Australia, she's from Mexico City. Seeing her again will definitely require a journey. She's so amazing though...I think I'd plan a vacation to see her. Hell, I kind of already did! I knew I wanted to get back to Turks while she was still there. Thanks for all of your awesome coaching (especially on the Spanish Web and Lyra), and for sharing this experience with us. She told me that while she meets hundreds of GMs through her job, certain people cross the line from GMs to friends, and that I was a friend. I really appreciated that. I also love that she gave me a nickname. If you don't know it about me, I've always wanted a nickname. You'll hear her in some of my videos calling me "Eri." Sure, in English, that isn't much of a nickname, but with her Mexican accent, it sounds like "Edi." I loved it. She's say "bien, Edi!" Love your face, Marifer!
Dave got to learn a new trick on our first full day. It's called a pullover shoot, also known as a hip smasher. He was pretty bruised up from this one! By the end, he had a towel wrapped around his waste for extra protection from the bar. He started the bruise collection with this trick. The bruise collection would mount over the week, but this was clearly the beginning. Nice job on this one Dave!
This was pretty exciting for me too. After the afternoon class, the team was planning to practice, but there were only 2 of them (Brandon had to do something else and Miguel was on safety lines...I think Masa was off that day), so they asked me to work board for Marifer while she practiced her uprise shoot. I think this is possibly against the rules for them to let a GM on the board without lines, but they trusted me to work board. Working board is second nature to someone who's been flying awhile. The duties include setting the rise, clipping lines (threading lines for an uprise trick, which she was doing), feeding flyer the bar, moving the rise after take off, and grabbing the bar after the flyer drops to the net. It was a simple thing that I do all the time at home, but I was super excited to be able to help Marifer...it made me feel like part of the team!
I grabbed this picture of the rig from the stairwell in our building.
I have lost track of what the different shows were every night....this particular night was "45" night. Club Med celebrated a big anniversary when they turned 45, and it just stuck. Now 45 is one of their signature nights, with 45 shirts everywhere. I think it's because it's a nice amount of money they can charge for a shirt--$55 would be too much, so they've stuck with 45. Ha! It worked...the other 4 in our group bought 45 shirts, and I bought one last year. I think this is our only picture from 45 night. I don't remember much about it. I guess it wasn't one of our more memorable nights.
The show that night was Movie Factory, which was a favorite from last year. It's 7 different GOs who act out like 60 movies in 45 minutes. Hilarious. Looks like I deleted the video files, but you can see a couple clips
here,
here, and
here.
Our first full day was over!
