Weekend games

This weekend really was a mixed bag. I slept in until about 9am on Saturday morning and, for the first time in weeks I woke up feeling vaguely refreshed.

Taking advantage of the sun, I headed out to my veggie garden to clear the second half of the bed of weeds and old plants and to put in my new seedlings and some plants. Two hours later it was looking amazing. I've put in beetroot and spinach seedlings (and some flowers) and also some heritage beetroot seeds plus some swiss chard seeds. The eggplant plants are doing well and looking far more sturdy than they have been. To complete the session, I put down some mulch from the compost heap.

A bunch of my mom's friends had been asking her about having a Doodle afternoon, where I show them the basics of how to doodle. As you'll recall, I got into doodling late last year and seem to have settled into my own rhythm. So, we set up an afternoon and were thrilled to have a good collection of eager doodlers.

We started off with basic patterns and finished by creating our own bookmark-type things, which I laminated for everyone. We got a really super assortment of doodles. This was a wonderful afternoon of creativity, tea, cake and good company.

Bye-bye Saturday.

Sunday started off with the annual orienteering club relays. This is really the only time that clubs get to compete against each other. We had a women's team and a men's team racing in AR Club colours; we placed 2nd and 3rd respectively in our categories. I ran the first leg and then took some photos of our school team runners as well as any other orienteers passing by.

And then, an extra special treat - tea with my dear friend Pam and Lauren and my sweetness, Stella. She's 8.5 months old now and I last saw her on her 6-month birthday day. She's got more teeth, is crawling like champ and is getting far more interactive. Her development month by month is incredible.

And then I was off for a pole play date. Short story is that I met a lass in a race-entry queue a couple of weeks back. Turned out that she recently did a pole instructor course. She's a personal trainer but very new to pole. She has to do her practical exam soon and needed some help with her routine choreography. It was a really fun session because one of the other very new instructors came long too and so the cobwebs of my pole memory got a clean out as I taught them a bunch of basic moves and variations on moves - things I literally haven't done for years!

That was really fun and I'm not as stiff as I thought I would be today. Tonight I have class, which will certainly work me over.

So, a really nice weekend with a bit of this and a bit of that.

Poles Apart (book launch)

Ooohh... what a superb book launch that I attended tonight. It was the launch of Sean Disney and Vaughan de la Harpe's book, "Poles Apart".

I have never met Sean nor Vaughan face-to-face before so this was indeed a treat. I didn't expect Sean to be such a big guy! He must be a good 6' and built strong too. I've known of Sean from more than a decade ago and we've been like ships in the night, often missing each other. I've tried to get him for FEAT a few times now but he's often away on trips in October. Maybe lucky this year? I've known of Vaughan for years so also nice to meet him in person.

It’s about Sean’s second whirl of the Seven Summits – this time with Vaughan, and plus the Poles (and many other things too). But it is not just a book about expeditions and mountains and places.

The pair told tales of trips and people and happenings to journalist David Bristow, who has put their recollections and experiences together. It hasn’t been written as a blow-by-blow account of mountaineering trips. I’m looking forward to reading their story. 

The launch was definitely the SA-Mountaineering-place-to-be. In the crowd were a bunch of Everest summiteers. I recognised Mandy Ramsden (she spoke at the first FEAT in October 2010 – watch her talk) and Robby Kojetin. There were probably many more.

And then there were FOUR Last Degree Explorers Grand Slam (Seven Summits plus both poles – at least the last degree) people present: Sean and Vaughan plus Andy van der Velde and Arthur Marsden. The only person missing was Sibusiso Vilane – he lives in Nelspruit. Remarkably there are only 29 people on the Last Degree Grand Slam list and five of them are South African! (only eight people have gone from a coast to the poles; two non coastal = not a lot of people)

I don’t often hang in serious mountaineering circles so I’m not always with who-is-who but I can say with confidence that many people in the room have climbed one or more of the World’s big mountains – especially as Sean is a guide and has been leading trips for many years (= many mountaineering clients).
Quite a crowd!

 Back to the book… (I bought my copy on site and am delighted to have had it signed) The book is called “POLES APART with some pointy bits in between” by VAUGHAN DE LA HARPE AND SEAN DISNEY as told to David Bristow. It retails for R230 (eBook is R184) and should be available right now (published by Pan Macmillan). It’s 320 pages and it includes central colour plates of captioned photographs from their trips.

An entertaining and fascinating account of the authors’ formidable mountaineering and climbing accomplishments. In 2011 the pair completed the “Grand Slam”, which is summiting the world’s seven highest peaks as well as journeying to the North and South Poles. The book chronicles their achievements in an amusing and modest manner, while still sharing the drama of the various expeditions. 

Poles Apart is highly informative about some of the real nitty gritty encounters and behind-the-scenes information about what exactly it takes to summit some of the world’s highest mountains, delving into the vast and varied challenges of mountaineering and very personal experiences of how the two authors overcame them, finding an inner strength that is just as vital as an outer, physical strength. Although this book delves into the challenges but it does so with a good dose of humour, as both Sean and Vaughan bounce their experiences off each other and reminisce in sometimes hilarious ways with the kind of detail and stories that armchair adventurers (as well as genuine mountaineers) will enjoy. 

‘This book is not just about mountaineering. There is the required physical fitness, the mental strength, the tortuous planning, the extreme patience (waiting in a tent in sub zero temperatures, day after day, for a window in the weather) the science, the careful choice of equipment, friendships formed, the need for tolerant wives and families, the soul searching … and, of course, the need for a good sense of humour.’ – James Clarke 

VAUGHAN DE LA HARPE is the Managing Director of a company based in Johannesburg that specialises in the administration of insurance-related products. He is the first South African, along with Sean Disney, to have completed the Explorers Grand Slam. 

SEAN DISNEY is the Managing Director of Adventure Dynamics International. He lives with his family in Johannesburg. He has climbed Everest from both sides and is a two times 7 summits climber. Sean is a qualified paragliding pilot, private pilot, open water diver, and cyclist.

Eye Gym - visual training

A week ago I started on Dr Sherylle Calder's EyeGym programme. This has come about through the SA Orienteering Federation. Fellow coach, Tania, and I are doing the month-long programme to gauge our gains with orienteering map-reading skills in mind, and whether this is something that we would like our youth, junior and senior orienteers to do.

The basis behind EyeGym is to improve how much and how quickly you see - it isn't about your eyesight, but what you take in. This affects how you respond, decisions you make... "Most people are born with good eyesight but vision, the ability to identify, interpret and understand can be trained and improved," it says on the site.

Orienteering is a very visual sport. From looking at a map while moving to looking at your surrounds and back again. If you can take in more and more and more with just a quick glance at the map - and keep your eye on where you are while running... all the better.

Every day I login for a 15 minute session. There are four skills - eye skipping, track following, eye speed and hand-eye coordination - that I'm training daily. Each has a specific game and there seem to be 30 levels for each. I'm over halfway on all except eye skipping, which I'm finding to be quite challenging (but I did go up another level today). As you go up the levels, the objects move faster and there are more distractions to fox you.

I've found that mid-morning or noon are the best times to do my daily drills. At night I'm too tired to track fast-moving balls and to react fast enough to climb levels.

Tania started the month-long online programme three weeks ahead of me. She only has a few days left and is ranked 4th overall! She finally achieved her one outstanding level yesterday and, as per Sherylle's recommendations, she turned her hand to practising on lower-levels, which she found to be very slow -  a sure sign of advancement. At the moment I find gaining each level to be challenging although I'm climbing up the ranks daily.

It will be interesting to see where I end up in another 25 days.

I am stiff

Now three days after Monday night's pole class I can again wave my arms around... (mostly)

Six year ago, when I first started pole class, I remember having such stiff arms and shoulders after that first class that I was hooked. Tuesday morning reminded me of that first post-class stiffness.

It will take me a few weeks to get back into it. My spins are decent and my balance moves and handstands are better than before (from circus school); but my inverts feel a bit messy. They'll need some tidying up as my body-spatial awareness catches up again.

There are hundreds of amazing pole videos on YouTube and I watch them occasionally. My favourites are from the major pole competitions like Pole Art and World Champs and Australian Champs. Oona Kivela remains my favourite artist. She's an ex-gymnast and ballet dancer and it shows in her strength and movements.

Check out these strength drills, performed by Oona. I'd like to say that I can do a few of these with any level of competency... But I don't think I can. Definitely a level of strength and skill and grace to aspire to.