August 18, 2010 - Stair Climb, Rock Climbing, Flying Trapeze Day

Whenever Mike Castrogiovanni and I meet up, the day usually turns into a crazy play day. Wednesday was no exception. This time he drove up to my neck of the woods and met me in Oakland. We started the day with a quick climb up the stairs at Joaquin Miller Park, one of my favorite places to train.

From there we cruised around several of the bouldering areas in the Berkeley Hills, including Indian Rock, Mortar Rock, Cragmont and Remillard Park. This is one of the great things about rock climbing in the Berkeley Hills; there are several spots with good variety, all within about 5 minutes of each other (and the sweeping views of the San Francisco Bay area aren't too shabby either). Two of the problems we climbed were a V3 which required balance, and core and grip strength, and a V0 which was a relatively easy climb with plenty of holds, but was mentally difficult in that it was 20' off of the ground.

Later that day we faced another mentally difficult challenge. We took a flying trapeze class at Trapeze arts in Oakland. This was the first time either of us had tried this. A video of what we learned to do in the class can be seen here on there website.

www.trapezearts.com

The trapeze platform for the trapeze was about 30' in the air. At the start of the class the instructors told us that on the platform once we had the trapeze, they would tell us "ready," which was the cue to bend our knees, and then "hep," which was our cue to jump off of the platform and swing through the air. They also told us that neither of these were questions. Something about that made it easier for me to not over think the movements, and to find my "flow" quicker than usual. The instructors would call out each step of the evolution. Our job was simply to do what they told us to do, when they told us to do it. Simple, but not necessarily easy. This gave me a great opportunity to work on staying in the moment and reacting to verbal cues. All in all it was a great class and ultimately felt like a giant jungle gym, making it feel both physically and mentally invigorating.