ABOUT
Academic start
I moved from Salamanca, Spain, to London in 2000. I studied at UCL SSEES and got a First Class in Czech, Slovak and Hungarian studies in 2005.
As much as I love languages I did not want to continue down the academic path. So I stopped the usual academic route and started to look elsewhere…
Interview in Czech for @handstands.cz
Movement begins
Right before turning thirty I came across yoga and, soon enough, I was practising almost daily. It was a bit hard in the beginning as I had never been the sporty kid in school but I was hooked from the start.
Eventually, after becoming a qualified yoga teacher and teaching others for a couple of years I was ready to expand the horizons of my movement practice.
I was interested in Breakdance, Parkour and Handbalancing; and since Handbalancing was the only thing I could practice in my room at the time so the choice was made (I was already aware that, whatever I chose, I would need to practice almost daily). At the age of 30 I was set to learn to handbalance. As such, handbalancing continues to be my main discipline.
Side projects
Besides having had a stint at professional ceramics a few years back I am still an avid language practitioner, having added Swahili, Greek and Turkish to the list I am currently seriously devoted to (besides Czech and Hungarian, which I still continue to improve).
Coding (processing/p5js) is one of my latest passions which I use to create training and teaching tools usually on display on my Instagram feed.
On top of that I am passionate about complexity science; taking the odd online course from the Santa Fe Institute whenever I have the time between teaching, training and life.
(Underneath is a code of mine on p5.js to plot the logistic map interactively in 3d (cabinet projection) with r on the Z axis.)
Current physical projects
Backflipping
It's been one of my long-standing dreams (literally as I have dreamt I could backflip for as long as I can remember) to learn this skill. Thanks to the crew of Overgravity gymnastics (especially Mattia), this dream is becoming materialised. It's taken longer than expected, but as such it's teaching me so much about myself and learning on so many levels.
A blog post about this will be written soon!
Head neutral OAHS
A skill that looks much easier than it is. There is so much that attracts me to looking behind while OAHstanding. Mainly the fact that I know physically there is practically no difference between this variation and the standard one (looking down). As such, the challenge is 99.9% mental. Pure skill at its finest. Focus and exploration of such a space proves to be a joy even during the 'worst performances'.
5x Stalder set
3x is the maximum I've ever done in my life. So, even though going 3x to 5x doesn't seem like much this challenge is proving hard. I also find it rewarding in terms of working out what seems to work for me and what doesn’t.
For this I decided to code a little program to help me keep track of the data in a clear and visual way. Pattern recognition at its finest that has indeed proved so useful when making decisions regarding training, both on an everyday basis and on bigger picture level. (See at bottom.)
Performing 2.5x reps. Half of my goal but not half the difficulty