Thea

Thea's greatest strength is her strength. She just turned 8, late August, and I'm hoping she'll get a planche and a v-seat press to handstand within the next 6 months. Just this past Thursday, she did it on the push-up bars with some level of control, including lowering down back through to the v, and stooping through back up to the handstand again. She just needs more consistent control, better understanding of form and bodyshaping.

Sometimes, I don't even think she knows what she is capable of. I remember one day asking her to do an aerial, which she hadn't really done before. She landed it, and shrugged it off, like no big accomplishment. But typical of her, there are days when she can't pull it off; or can't do her kip. I think her physical talent is ahead of her mental capacity to understand what it is that's required of her to execute and perform.

She's started to do multiple handstand pirouettes in a row, including doing them out of straddle-up handstand forward rolls; but again, she has no real sense of body tightness and form. As strong as she is, she is weak in her core hollow-shaping.

I thought I'd chart her progress into a series of continuing movies...an epic story to the theme music from Conan...


"The Riddle of Strength":



"Thealogy":