Okay, I'll try this again...

FLOREIO ART


This is a video of Ido Portal, my friend from Isreal who we (Ramman and I) met in May when he came through Portland on a U.S. circuit. He held a hand balancing workshop as well as an acrobatics conditioning workshop at CrossFit Portland and taught us lots of valuable training tools for achieving perfect handstands, among other things. He is now developing and posting (for free!) a training program for Floreio Art, the style of movement that he practices and teaches. I started his workouts today and was very satisfied with the difficulty of the beginner movements. I want to do this right, starting with the easiest versions and progressing through the levels as I get better. Floreio combined with Parkour and acrobatic training is going to keep me busy with incredible skill and strength development for a long time. And it is something that I am fired up about.

For the last two years I have lacked a true passion for my training. I have been training just for the sake of training. Ever since I quit playing Frisbee, I have been an independent athlete. Being on a team my entire life, I had goals, personal goals and more importantly a common goal. Now, I am by myself in this sense. And I think for the past two years I have felt a little lost… so I just trained. I have very much enjoyed getting stronger (exponentially!), learning some basic gymnastics skills, dabbling in rock climbing, diving into CrossFit, and experimenting with Parkour, but I have not focused on any one of these because I have not felt a burning desire to. The closest to passionate I have been has been for Parkour, but I have not dedicated myself to training hard for it because it HURTS. These knees can only take so much pounding now. Florieo is much the same kind of discipline as Parkour, and I think it will help develop the fluidity needed to be a good traceuse. But I also want to do Floreio for itself, not as a means to become better at something else. Floreio requires flexibility, controlled breathing, strength, balance, flow, dance, focus, and stamina, many of these things I neglect to train but wish to be good at. Now is the time to practice and become a master of movement.

Finally, I have a focus for my training. Seeing this kind of movement (Floreio and Parkour) is inspiring me to connect with a different kind of athlete inside of me. Not the power athlete, or the teammate, or the play-all-types-of-running-sports athlete, but an athlete who has a way of moving through space that is graceful, strong, meditative, controlled, and beautiful; an athlete who has complete control over and connectedness with her movements. It is just me and my body. Weaknesses are revealed and I am faced with challenges that I have avoided in the past. Strengths are made stronger but are also unable to cover up shortcomings. I am very excited to explore myself in these new ways; on physical, mental, and emotional levels. It is time to evolve as an athlete, person, and movement artist.

And the master plan includes training...

I just spent an hour writing a very meaningful and important (to ME) blog post.. and then I fucking lost it.

Thinking of a master plan...

I got to go home and eat my snack and take my nap last Friday. I never went on that 5k run... What I did on Saturday more than made up for it though. It was such an awesome weekend..

Friday night was spent master planning our adventure to Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala. We have the route all planned out and we're even going to buy our one-way tickets to Mexico soon! For a three month expedition we figured out that we need $4000 each. This is a GENEROUS estimation, but better to have more than enough than not! We are going to find an organic farm in Belize to work on for free lodging and food through an organization called WWOOF. My friend Melissa is in her seventh month of travels in Central America and spent a few of them working on a farm in Mexico. I read about one farm in Belize that takes care of abused, neglected, and abandoned children. They grow food and have animals and the children go to school and live there. I would love to do something like that. We're planning on spending the first 2-3 weeks travelling around the Yucatan Peninsula seeing the Mayan ruins and caves there and then taking a bus into Belize. If I have extra money before or after the farm stay in Belize I want to get scuba certified. And after we've spent a couple of months in Belize, we will trek across Guatemala and flight back home from Chiapas, Mexico. All of this planning has motivated both of us- big time- to make it happen. It's going to be amazing. And I truly believe that it will change our lives for good.

Saturday we went to the Farmer's Market and loaded up on fresh veggies and even a whole salmon! We have an abundance of food:) After that we went to a 5 1/2 hour Parkour workshop put on by Rafe Kelley from Parkour Visions in Seattle at CrossFit Portland. It was super fun. And SUPER hard. I was glad I didn't do that run on Friday and even took the day off on Sunday too. We practiced a lot of the basics of Parkour: quadrupedal movement, going under things, vaulting over things, rolls and break falls, flying under bars, traversing across and climbing around on bars, and - oh yeah- running. We were so exhausted afterwards. It was well worth the $60 and is something I think everyone should do! After that we treated ourselves to an evening out with sweet potato fries, IPAs, and chicken nachos.. again- worth it. I hadn't had a gluten-filled beer in about a month.. delicious. We watched "The Octogon" with Chuck Norris and I slept incredibly well that night.

Sunday we went to our new favorite organic farm on Sauvie Island, Bella Organic, and picked close to 30 pounds of blueberries. Woah. Freezer is FULL. We will have blueberries and strawberries (from our last trip) for months. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and eating more (homemade this time) nachos and creating our master plan...

I'm feeling pretty good about my life. I have faith that Ramman and I can figure this shit out together and we'll look back on our crazy life when we are old and smile. Now that we have made a decision to go to Central America, we're going.. the journey starts now. After this adventure there will be many more, in all forms that life presents to us.. We are ready to focus our energy and follow our path, side by side:)

Shifting Energy

I need a snack and a nap. I'm at work until 5:30pm. It's 90+ degrees outside. I'm supposed to do a 5k run today. All I want to do is go home, eat a treat, and fall asleep with the fan blowing on me. Mmmmm.. sounds so nice.

Last night we celebrated the end of our first session of Ninja Boot Camp by inviting all of the participants and their SFs over for some food and a Kung-Fu movie. Lewis, Matt, and Bonnie were the only people who came, but we had quite a wonderful time with them. I love having people over. All of the thought and preparation that I put into making it a comfortable evening for everyone brings me joy. I made some delicious gluten-free brownies from Elana's Pantry and they were devoured. I love it when I bake something without flour, sugar, or dairy and people can't believe how good it is; that it's better than the "real thing".

After our lovely evening with friends and good food, I just had to go ahead and have a "freak out" (as Ramman likes to put it). Usually when I freak out it's related to money. I hate that. When I am stressed about money I have this constant pit-in-my-stomach feeling until I feel more in control of my financial destiny. But the thing is, I still have yet to REALLY be in control. And then there's the question how much control one should be trying to gain over whatever situation is causing distress. At what point does trying to gain control become completely detrimental to the very aspect of your life that you are trying so hard to control? This is what I feel is happening with me and money. And it's been happening my entire life. Was I born into this financial karma? Can I escape it? Ramman thinks there is some deeply rooted issue with my perspective on not only how to acquire money, but also the thought (and emotion!) that none of my dreams or goals can be accomplished without a great amount of it. In my mind one has to work work work and save save save to make things happen. To go on the adventure, to start the gym, to be comfortable... But the thing is, IT DOESN'T HAVE TO WORK THAT WAY.

Last winter we both read a book called "The Four-Hour Workweek" by Timothy Ferriss. Here is a guy, in his early thirties, who GETS IT. He has mastered the game of life by first recognizing that he didn't have to buy into to the norms, and then refusing to play in it. He teaches people about how create an automated income so that you can dramatically decrease the hours per week you work, while dramatically increasing the amount of money you make. This liberation allows you to experience life the way it should be experienced- all over the world, learning languages and unique hobbies and helping people in whatever way you want to. He is THE example of what people should be doing with their lives. Read it. I'm reading it again. And I will read it again until I GET IT.

VagaNation!

Who knew brown could look so good.

Last weekend was Potlatch. It's Wednesday now and I think I have finally recovered. What an amazing weekend. For three years (at least) I have wanted to play for Vagabonds; I wanted to wear brown, so after last year when my Vaga friends were wondering why I wasn't on the team I decided to just invite myself onto it. And I'm soooooo glad I did. This is an incredible group of people, not to mention damn good ultimate players as well. We finished the weekend 8-1 losing to Team Canada in the semifinals, and if it had not been a worlds year, it's quite possible that we would have won.

Potlatch is such a unique experience. What other sport would you spend an entire 3 days at one location, with over 100 other teams, camping out, playing games (other than ultimate), hugging opponents, jumping in lakes, "showering" in spigots, and completely forgetting about any other reality..? NONE. When you are at Potlatch, you are no where else. It feels so good to be surrounded by all of your friends, laughing for 3 days straight, and making new friends while you are at it.

I started this post on Wednesday morning but this week has been such a whirlwind that I am just now trying to get it out on Friday. The past two weekends quantify my ultimate season for the summer. Potlatch and then the beach tournament. Today I am leaving for Seaside, OR where some crazy fun beach ultimate and hanging out with friends is going to happen. Two years ago I went with the same crew (a bunch of friends from Seattle and a few Portland representatives) and this year with the addition of Jill and a few others, this weekend promises to be EPIC.

Last weekend I managed to stay away from gluten (with the very small exception of two bites of Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream, which was honestly a space out and a complete accident). With all the beer and crappy food around I was quite proud of myself, not because I didn't have any, but because I didn't WANT any (except for, obviously, the cookie dough ice cream). Often, when I go to these frisbee tournaments I come back with a massive carb hangover that lasts for like two days. This week i have definitely had a difficult time recovery from Potlatch, but I think it was more the running around in the hot sun all day for three days than it was the carbs. I managed to keep my intake pretty low and ate mostly protein. Same plan for this weekend. I get wrecked enough just playing frisbee now, I don't need to make it worse by drinking and eating too many carbs! It's crazy how sensitive my body is to carbs and processed foods now.. it feels good to not be desensitized to it; to actually know what it feels like to have an insulin spike and drop (it doesn't feel good).

Ramman and I are cruising with Rip City Fitness as much as we can. We just completed our first Ninja Boot Camp and next week we will start another. I've been training Schwa and a couple of other clients, so we're bringing in some extra cash, trying not to find reasons to spend it. My goal is to save all my money from what we are doing with RCF, and hopefully this fall and winter we will get a lot of people enrolled in boot camps and Ramman's acrobatic training course. As far as saving money goes, it has been easier to do than in the past now that I have an ACTUAL GOAL, not just a dream. The most current update of our travelling goal for next year is to leave in February/March for the Yucatan Peninsula and explore all of the Mayan ruins there and hike/chicken truck it into Belize. A 3 month adventure. Then we will come back to Portland, work and train for the spring, summer, and fall and then leave again in the winter for Southeast Asia for 3 months.. etc, etc, until we have satisfied our travel and adventure bug (which may be never..?) But then again, Belize... When we get there, we may not leave..