Blog is moving

Alright folks, so blogger is pissing me off big time. It used to be what I need, but blogger seems to think it is smarter than me, and in many cases it is, but it likes to edit my HTML when I'm not looking, and it doesn't work for me, so the blog is moving.
new address is
fenixcobbledick.wordpress.com

So, you have several choices now, you can go and subscribe to a feed of that blog, or you can send me a message with your e-mail address and I'll see if I can put you on an update list like I have been doing here. Everyone who is on the list for this blog will get put on the list for the updated blog.

NECCA day 1

So, we've had a couple days at NECCA to get acquainted with the space, and today we had our first rope lesson, but I'll get to that in a bit.

First, I want to show you where I live, because it is awesome.

The lake outside my house

Yep, that's Lake Pleasant, and it is well named, that's for sure. While I took this picture, I was sitting in a little wooden box on one side of The Bridge of Names

Every single one of those slats of wood has a name on it, everybody from Picasso to V. Van Gogh to Bob Dylan to MLK, JFK, and RFK (those three all on one slat) and a whole bunch of people who I have no idea who they are, but I'm sure they are all fascinating.

That's the whole 360 view from my little box, and I absolutely love it - it's where I go to eat my breakfast. I get to listen to the birds and the bugs and the wind and the water. It's about as serene a scene as one could imagine.

So that's where I live. Yes, it is awesome.
TRAINING
So we are in this big building that used to be a cotton mill, and aside from the circus center, there is a pottery room, a dance company, a toymaker and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Including this particular item.

This guy is up on a wall in the hallway outside of NECCA and his head/body (not including tentacles) are about as big as I am. I just thought he was way cool.

So in the actual studio, there are lots of cool things, like

ALL OF THE APPARATUSES!
Also, they have

German wheels! But I won't get a chance to use them, but still, cool to know they have them. Also, not pictured are Roue Cyr (Cyr Wheel)

So we did a rope class, and we went back to basics, which both Emilie and I needed a lot - anyone can teach you a trick, but only a true professional can point out the flaws in basics. So that went well, we will hopefully have video of us on the rope once we get a little bit more into it and start doing things that are interesting to people other than me.

In the meantime, while Emilie was doing her contortion class (that's what she's doing with Bill, pictured above - it's not a massage, it's contortion class, I promise) I went into the side room and got up to some shenanigans.

First of all, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen, and I need one in my house.

And by need, I mean as soon as I get a house, I am going to build one - looks pretty easy, just some screws in the floor, a couple tiny pulleys and some nice lengths of rope.

Also in that room, I was working on handstands and decided to film them for your pleasure, but also so I can see how I'm doing (it isn't exactly easy to look in a mirror while handstanding)

This is a weird little tuck thing I've been working on, it has a ways to go yet, but I'm well on my way.

I've also been working on a back bend while doing a handstand, and again, I'm well on my way, but still a long way to go.

So that's what's up in terms of what I'm doing, but while I was there, I had the pleasure of seeing some of the other people studying there do some of their things, including Aimee (my handstand teacher) and her flyer doing some duet work.

So that's all the updates and pictures and videos that I have for now, aside from the thunderstorm that we had to run through to get dinner tonight. I've never eaten dinner while literally dripping water before.

Ah well - we have this weekend off, then straps and handstands next week!

Changing House

So this weird thing is happening over the next month and a half - I have no house.
Over the past few days, I've been scurrying about in an effort to pack up all of my stuff.
In case you are curious, the pile of every single thing I own minus my bed looks like this.

Everything. Yeah.

So that's it, the totality of my stuff, and we put it all in the back of a Subaru and we drove that pile of stuff up to Portland. Then we put it in a magical place called Narnia, and there it shall remain until I return at the end of September to retrieve it.

Until then I'll be living in Vermont at school, at my parents' when I am in Tucson, and couch surfing with friends when I am in Eugene (only a week).



So I realized that this was the last of my college houses. Also, the last of my college desk, which I gave away today.

It served me well

'Twas a good desk.









So I managed to pack everything up, and as I did I looked back upon my work, and saw

So that's it. I have an empty room. The last picture taken in my last college house.

Roommates not quite moved out yet

I suppose I'd say I'm happy with the way things in Eugene turned out. It was a tough road, and I'm gonna miss Eugene a lot, that's for sure, but as I sat on my pile of stuff, looking back at the room - my life in Eugene is all packed up, and I'm ready to move myself to Portland and start again, bigger and better.







So now I am arrived in Massachusetts at the house I will be living in for the next three weeks.
It is a gorgeous place in pretty much the country, and not only that, but we are living on a lake.

Yeah, a real lake

So the water is nice and warm and swimmable, the walk around it takes about an hour (I'll do that at some point and let you know how it goes) and the place is just crawling with frogs, which I did not get a picture of yet, because by the time I found one standing still, it was too dark.

So Emilie and I are sharing a room, and it's a pretty tiny one, so it will be a challenge on our part to co-exist in such a small space for three weeks, something we've never had to do before.

What you see there is pretty much it - I am standing with my back up against the wall looking out at the door and window (which has an amazing view of the lake).

It should be an interesting time indeed.

Emilie has her first class tomorrow (contortion) and then we are gonna come back home and try that swimming thing. Our first class together is on friday, and it will be a rope class, and we are both incredibly excited for that.

So that's all the news from the front for day 1 (amazing that all of this happened inside of 24 hours)
I'll be back on friday afternoon most likely with more pictures, maybe some video of walking around the lake, and updates about the school.
Until Friday,
Hobey Ho, and so we go

And The Adventure Begins

So tomorrow I go to Portland, and the morning after, I get on a plane to go to the east coast. I will be living in a house in Massachusetts and attending classes at NECCA (New England Center For Circus Arts) in Vermont.

So, in keeping with my history with this blog, I will be posting travel updates - basically what I've been training on, how I like the city, and because I think it will be more prevalent this time, the country.

So this is my adventure blog, stay tuned over the next three weeks for my training - any pictures I've got will show up in this blog. Any video I've got will show up in this blog. In fact, anything remotely interesting that happens to me over the next three weeks will show up in this blog, because aside from training and exploring, I will quite literally have nothing else to do.

So, won't you please join me?
GERONIMO!
~Fenix

What I do for a living

So I often get the question "dude, so I get that you do 'circus,' but what is it that you do?"

So here, and now, I am going to tell and show what I do for a living.


First of all, I get invited to perform at festivals. I don't get paid, but I do get to go for free, and sometimes, if I am very very lucky, I get to perform with famous people. And sometimes, I get to perform with people like Lindsey Stirling.

And sometimes, they let me do it on silks.

So that's some pretty cool perks of my job. But what is it that I actually do.
Well, basically, I get on stage, I do 5 minutes of work, four times a night, and do stuff like this:

Now that is just one piece. I call it my zombie piece. There is a video of it somewhere, but I don't have it yet.

I also perform my Crystallize piece

Yep, all of that in one place.

I also regularly do a rope piece that I am amazed that we don't have pictures of it yet. I'll work on that.

So yeah, that's my job.