Day 229 - Love the Process/REVERSE THREE BEAT WEAVE!

I'm a little excited about this, hence the title being in caps.  It's not that I didn't think I'd ever get the reverse three beat weave, I just didn't know when.  It seemed so elusive, I couldn't quite work out how to do it and I hadn't really found a good tutorial for it either.  I remember when I was trying to work out how to do the forwards three beat weave, I looked for tutorials and then finally saw one from Emma Kenna that really broke it down and made it somewhat easy to understand.  After watching it I went outside and got to work, and it seemed like I was never going to get it.  My brain actually started to hurt from trying to figure out what to do with my hands, but I stuck with it and kept working it out until finally it clicked.  I remember the feeling of elation when I finally got it once, and then again, and again and again until I was doing it fluidly without having to focus too hard on what my hands were doing.  The whole process after watching Emma's tutorial took maybe 15 minutes.

I just went through the exact same process trying to figure out the reverse three beat weave.  It's fascinating for me to think back to what the entire process entailed.

First I looked for a tutorial, something that broke it down as easily as Emma's forwards one did.  I didn't have much luck finding one that made sense, so I tried to work it out myself with little success.  When a hooper on Facebook posted that she finally got it, I asked her if she had any tips or tutorials that had helped, but she didn't have anything to offer me, simply saying she kept at it until she got it.  That was somewhat useless information at the time but now makes perfect sense to me.

So I tried to break it down for myself, step by step.  The first logical step was to work on my reverse two beat weave and get comfortable with that.  That move in and of itself was a bit tricky as I find reverse weaves in general to be a bit of a challenge.  Once I felt somewhat comfortable doing the two beat weave in reverse (practicing leading with both hands of course), I took the same approach I learned from Emma's tutorial and worked on the timing with each hand individually.  I used one hand and one hoop to practice the one-two-three beat, with the hoop spinning two rotations on one side and one on the other.

Last week at In Flow a fellow hooper saw me trying to drill this one hand movement and suggested I practice moving the other hand with it as well to get the motion down.  This made total sense as I had learned to use the same approach from Emma's tutorial.  So I started trying to do that as well.

Today I decided once again to give it a go, and once again I could feel my brain starting to hurt as I tried to work it all out.  I had the reverse two beat weave, I had the one-two-three timing down with each hand individually, but I was still running into a problem somewhere.  I kept going back to the forwards three beat weave to see if there were any clues as to when I should be changing my hands from over to under.  That's when I finally realized it:  During the forwards three beat weave, the hand that is on top spins two rotations while the hand that is underneath comes up and over.  With the reverse three beat weave, it is the other way; the hand on the bottom spins two rotations while the hand on top moves to underneath.  Duh.

Once I had that revelation it was just a matter to getting the timing and pattern down, and with each time I tried it I got better and better.  Soon I was getting the hand switches down though I still needed time in between them to recover and get the reverse weave going smoothly again.  But after that it was only a matter of minutes before I was switching back and forth in a proper three beat time.  At first it was kind of wonky, with the hoops flying all over the place and the weave not going quite as smooth, but it didn't take long at all before I had cleaned it up some more into a presentable, proper, reverse three beat weave.  I still need to practice and work on those wrists, but man does it feel good to have that move down.

Just like with the forwards three beat weave, the whole process today from starting to work it out (but still having little clue as to how to actually do it), to actually nailing it took maybe 15 minutes.

I am thrilled about this breakthrough today.  Next up, moving through a forwards three beat weave, to a windmill, to a reverse three beat weave.  I've seen combination referred to as The Fountain. 

Progress is sweet.

(ps I do have an epic In Flow post in the works, but there was a lot of information to process and I'd like to add pictures as well, so it's taking some time.  But just so you know In Flow itself was epic.  Just epic.)

I'm going to leave you with Safire's Love the Process Video, something I go back to when I'm feeling discouraged and also a video that I thought about a lot today, as I have enjoyed the process unfolding.