day one with fede and marta

day one of a full day of private lessons with fede kirigami and marta tenshiko...

my biggest request for these lessons was to work on third/finishing rope: how do i pick one, how do i build one, what the heck do i do once i have. instead of giving me a few pre-baked patterns to watch and repeat, fede gave me two tasks. the first, to improvise a finishing rope that could be loaded from the front diagonal of the chest (picture 1!). the second, to improvise a finishing rope on a low hands tk, so that anna's hands would stand anchored downward in an upright position (photos 2 and 3!). this was HARD and i loved every freaking second of it.

later, we worked on deconstructing and improvising the tk structure in its entirety. we worked through a tk for folks who's wrists don't cross in the back, and this sort of reverse prayer, sort of chicken wing-esque, definitely-probably not suspendible box tie-ish (photo 4!)

in the second half of the day, we worked through two shapes that i had requested specifically-- the upright gyaku ebi-ish, and the sideways m-shape hashira.

anna and i treated ourselves to spritz and bruschetta afterwards, in proper italian fashion