Flying

I was nervous to ask the question, but, like many things in my life, I did it anyway.

"Hey, you still need a bottom for your afternoon classes?"

The first class we attended was Newaza to Fly.

It was a large class. The instructors, the DV8 crew, encouraged people to double up on frames. What they were teaching wouldn't be dynamic. We could get close.

And we did. We found a spot on the large wooden square frame, one of many pairs who chose the rig.

We laid out a sheet. I put my things aside. By the wall. Took off my shoes and jacket. Stretched. Dragon prepped his ropes.

The concept behind the class was simple: start from the floor and gradually ease your bottom into the air. Less risk. More control of tension. And less stress on the bottom (in case of nervousness).

Dragon threw a TK on my frame. As he wrapped his ropes around my torso, my nerves both remained and softened. I didn't know how my body would react to being suspended. I hadn't flown in quite some time. But the last person to lift me into the air was Dragon. I trusted him.

Yet, I didn't completely trust my body. Didn't trust the strength I had shown before. Didn't trust that I would be able to live in rope again.

But as each moment passed by, jute tight against my skin, and more applied still, my body remembered how much I loved rope. Remembered the feel, the comfort. Remembered how soaring made me calm. Centered me. Engulfed me in a love of myself, pulsing in waves out to the world.

As he weaved his TK, I closed my eyes. As the instructor talked, I got lost in rope. I leaned against the floor. Dragon tied my left leg. Then my right, and my hips. He secured his lines. And, applying the central idea behind the class, he slowly lifted me. One section at a time. Checking tension on his lines. Raising me just inches off the ground.

Yet it felt like I soared.

I drifted in a bliss of comforting rope. My eyes closed. My being in my body. Floating high above the world.

When he lowered me, I laid on our sheet. Body pressed against the floor. No longer floating above it all. Still full of joy, and happiness. And I remembered why I loved to fly.

After Newaza to Fly, Dragon and I attended Thinking Rope. Wykd_Dave and Clover taught a class about breaking down your ties, finding the little habits we all have, and improving them to improve your technique and skill.

Dragon, for his tie, chose to put me in a TK, again. Over and over, he untied and tied a TK on my chest. I felt the ropes go on and the ropes come off from half a dozen to a dozen times.

As he worked, it felt like I worked to. I stretched in between ties. I relaxed my shoulders. Felt my hands and wrists. Felt in my body.

By the end of our two classes together, I had regained my courage. My conviction in the strength of my body. I felt like a badass rope bottom again, flying high.