Ups and downs

Short post, I'm in a pissy mood, but didn't want to stop blogging just because I'm not too thrilled with all that's gone down.

So the highlight (and relatively early in the night): planche round trip out of lines, following three other returns off of the planche. I think I've finally nailed it, or come close at least.

Now here's the kicker: I didn't return picture perfectly, laid out, like I was taught that I needed to, but the bar was dropped for me anyway (by consensus). This was after weeks of trying to lay it out, and it getting progressively worse (negative feedback certainly didn't help, either). Oh, yeah, and I caught it, and returned and even made it back. To me that says, to some degree, that there might be things that I need to figure out sans lines, since my body is tighter and I think differently in that mode. I'll also say that this doesn't work for everyone, and also that this is after many, many returns in lines.

So the down: my mod, yes, the mod I've been working on for a year and a half. The uprise is close to brilliant out of lines; the mod pretty darn lovely in, but I can't uprise in, at least not well, and thus don't mod until the second time out. To me, logic would dictate that if I'm releasing safely in, repeatedly, and that there's no question about my landings, that in order for this trick to progress to where it needs to go, I need to take it out. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe I'm missing a step. After all, several students throw their uprise in, and get on the bar fine. But people are not made in a cookie-cutter way. Some learn visually, some auditorially (is that even a word?)and anywhere in between, or by a different method.

For me, in this, I feel like going to the next level requires a leap, not of faith, but of trust: that I am a careful flyer, that I will err on the side of caution if the lines come off, that I am tighter, and more precise, because I know exactly what is at stake, and that if I ever feel shakey about what I'm doing, I'll be the first to say that it needs to go back in.

So, as much as I'd prefer not to rock the boat, at least most of the time, I apparently and inadvertantly opened a can of worms tonight. I hope the backlash for all of us isn't too painful. It certainly wasn't my intention, in expressing my frusturation to go back to the old ways. (Which would be more frusturating still after seeing what's possible.)

I know that for me, being allowed out has helped my flying tremendously, and I feel like I'm on the brink of some huge growth as a result, and would hate to see that curtailed.

But the thing that sucks most is that when I fly, it's the most uplifting, inspiring experience, even when I'm struggling, or flat out failing. Today was one of less than a handful of days that it wasn't in the four years that I've been flying.

Damm!