Grit.

Throughout the course of my experiment, I often have the following recurring thought:

I respect people who survive the process of base learning. How do they get through this, anyways??
A huge amount of grit. Obviously.

Not only does one need to feed the physical body, but one must cultivate a mental attitude of "yes I can do this even if all the flyers say my feet hurt and avoid me like the plague because I'm stressed that everyone else around me is better, and the only flyer that works with me uses my pointy feet for fascial release around her hips -.- ..."

Furthermore, those bird squats, tic tocs, one-leg presses and long holds require a fairly patient flyer who is ok with hanging out in a position for a loooog time. We won't get into the fact that I've been chasing appropriately-sized flyers who are generally women: as a beginner base, a significant part of my energy is spent finding tiny people I can base safely with minimal long-term consequences on my body.

Here is where we come to the concept of intentional regression. This means when something hurts or stops working multiple times, I must back off. Recently, this means that in order to learn how to base, I am NOT basing (much) while I take time off to discover exactly why my left psoas is Particularly hepful when it comes to being SO much a pain in the ASs. 

Apparently, grit means being ok with doing no acro for a while. :(

This means I spend "acro" time studying topics like pain management, foam rolling (noooo not again!!), and reflecting on my Feldenkrais training experiences.

What's that? Keep posted for the next article on sensitivity and technique in superbasing!