This sequence was part of my trapeze act with Big Teeth’s show Ordinary Creatures, and I always strived to perform the beginning dragonfly-beat section with enough power and energy to make it exciting and dynamic, but enough relaxation and release so it didn’t look like effortful. Such a fine balance!
The initial dynamic dragonfly beat sequence, btw, was largely inspired by Dan Saab on lyra (from a post he later removed from his Instagram).
- 0:00 Dragonfly, layback to a gazelle-type thing
- 0:04 Sit up, dragonfly beat, lay back and straddle, bringing the left leg through the ropes
- 0:07 Rebound to lion in tree beat, sort of (this isn’t technically lion-in-tree position but some people will call it that anyway because I don’t know of another name)
- 0:10 Rebound and drop/slide to one-hip hang, climb up the opposite rope
- 0:13 Thread through (left hand is high on the rope, right arm reaches between rope and body to duck head under left arm) to a legit lion in tree (I love this thread-through move!)
- 0:14 Clamp that left knee on the rope, regrip hands, knee spin around the rope
- 0:18 Tip to the same one-hip hang as before
- 0:22 Grab ankles for compass pose
- 0:29 Slide right foot up the rope for leverage, roll up/back to a back balance
You may also be interested in these related videos… (OK at the moment they’re just random blog post placeholders, but I have plans!)
