Just Malaika's Imagination

This video is from Malaika's birthday party last September 2nd. It was a lot of fun to work, given the number of kids I knew (former SMGC students) who attended but don't get to see anymore.

Lilly, I think, was shocked to see Teri and I, and disoriented by our presence at LASG (I can't remember, but she said some "funny" and "curious" things about the gym switch, and why we left). I seem to recall her expressing some irk and ire, as though holding me accountable to SMGC's closing.




When we were at SMGC, at the end of her class, Malaika used to always ask me to make her a paper airplane. It was kind of a ritual, like when I used to come in and share my breakfast with Anna.

Madison's comment about the haunted maze in the video's closing credits can be better referenced and contextualized by clicking here. I should revisit that updated video, and prefix it with this clip of Madison, talking about it.

It took me 8 months to get around to doing this video. It just kind of happened accidentally while sitting in front of my computer, Friday morning, perusing my music library files as well as going through video files, looking for pictures to send to those who appear in them. Less than 24 hours later and....whalah! Video made, wrapped, printed!

I miss these kids and am grateful for being able to preserve some of the memories!

Malaika's currently been fencing, and loving it!

New Soul Birthday

Kaliray is one of our SMGC kids who migrated over to LASG. Last Sunday was her birthday party, and I was happy to have been asked to work it. Robyn and Heather are also former SMGC coaches who worked the party, along with coach Desiree.

The zipline (which you can see in Malaika and Anna's video) broke on Saturday, so we worked without one of the main attraction party gimmicks at LASG. This was only my 2nd part at LASG, so I'm a bit out of my groove on running parties and learning the LASG format and material.

Kaliray is another kid who I've always loved, but who I don't see enough of. She misses a lot of gymnastics classes (at LASG, she's signed up for my Monday intermediate class along with Malaika and Anna- all originally part of Al and Teri's junior advanced Wednesday). Cute as all heck. Some of that should come through in this raw footage:



I hope to someday use the footage in a future video. One-legged inch worms are what we call one of SMGC's standard warm up passes across the floor where you hold one leg high in the air, then move both arms forward, followed by moving the bottom leg forward. I remember teaching a class of physically fit stuntmen/martial artists and it just about killed them. Most of the kids don't have much love for the exercise either, in spite of the cute name given to the drill.



Anna and Malaika were at Anna's violin recital, so weren't at the party.

I wish I had better footage of my handstand push-ups at the beginning of the video; I did two no problem, with Kaliray on my back without touching the mat (not confident and consistent yet to do it away from the wall) the first go round; but was too muscle-tired to do it in 2 takes for the camera. I'm way past my prime, but think I want to work on this; hopefully before the 40-50 lb kids I work with turn into 60 lbers!