----------------------------------- Two Clowns in a Closet - Episode 09 https://circusfreaks.org/podcast Recorded on 2022-11-21 ----------------------------------- *door closes* Russ: Hello old friend. Liam: Hello! R: I know, give me a second while I slide my way down in this very cold closet! Woah! L: We said we were gonna wait until it cooled down- R: -and we weren't thinking about the other- L: -and it cooled down quite a bit. R: All at once once! L: All at once. R: It's a wintry mess in here full of pants *Liam laughs* R: It is a closet. L: It is a closet, quite right R: As you know it is the costume closet, we have a- We've returned. We've once again gone up the stairs around the corner down the hall and in to where I keep the costumes, closed the door, sat down to talk with our friends in another episode in another season of L: "Two Clowns in a Closet" R: Nailed it! We sound so professional when we do- L: I know right! R: It's so good. L: We even remembered it! R: We did, because I was a little worried it has been months and months since season one L: Yes I think, I think season one wrapped in April. R: It did L: Just before my birthday. R: Right before your birthday in fact. L: Yes. R: Right, we released the last episode. So ah, what we decided we're going to do this time; we have some questions in the queue but it has been a number of months and a lot of interesting and, and big story things have happened and so I wanted to, we wanted to use this episode to kind of bring everybody up to date. L: Yeah. To answer, answer the question of "What's been happening?". R: Right so we're gonna do that and then we'll be back to something closer to our usual format starting next episode L: Yes R: So if you been curious where we've been, auditorially speaking, you are in the right place. L: Tadah! R: The other thing that is worthy of mention because this episode takes us a little behind the- we were already behind the curtain so I guess we're behind the behind the curtain? L: Yeah it's like, it's like last season we were very much behind the curtain and this time we're- R: Straight up personal. L: -out of the theater and back and like, in our homes. R: Yeah pretty much, pretty much L: *Affirmative Noise* R: And for that reason we're covering, we're covering some personal stuff. L: Yup today is gonna be some personal- R: Personal stuff and I do, I do think it's worthy of note, ah to do a little, to do a little content warning. L: Yes. R: We should do a content warning. This episode contains mentions of personal injury, L: *Affirmative Noise* R: Personal stuff, and COVID. L: Yes. R: Please understand that we're talking about stories from the last few months and I can sit here as the storyteller and my friend the storyteller can tell you that everything works out really well. However on the way it is a little stressful and we do talk about things that hurt L: Yes. R: Please come to this episode when you feel like you're ready for it. L: Yup and there are transcripts available if it's easier for you to read that kind of content than to listen to it. R: Well thank you for pointing that out and thank you for doing all that work L: You're welcome. R: It's a lot of work. L: It's worth it. R: It is. We've gotten a lot of wonderful feedback from people who've actually said that that was super helpful for them whether they had internet issues, hearing issues, whatever the reason I'm so glad we decide to take that on. L: Yeah R: And I'm doubly glad that you do all the work and I get to just sit here and look pretty. L: Well, you're doing all of the, the audio work so thank you! R: Are going to slap each other on the back real quick? *Sounds of slapping each other on the back repeatedly* L: *elongated, punctuated by the back slaps* Congrats! R: Okay. With that in mind I guess our imaginary card has the question "So what's been going on since season one?" L: Actually we do have a piece of paper right over there that says "What's been happening?" R: You really want to take the air out of my sails right out of the gate? L: *laughs* R: Ok. L: I wrote it down! I did what I do. I wrote it down. R: With your beautiful handwriting with, with your beautiful fountain pens that we spent so much time talking about L: Talking about last season! R: Back before we were very personable and when when this was awkward for us. Now we're so comfortable. So here's the thing. I was looking over the show notes while we were getting ready to film L: *Affirmative Noise* R: -and I noticed that in the first episode of season one -like we have his back catalogue that goes on years- eight episodes! But- but, but far back in the reaches of time I told a story about Stanley Allen Sherman and Stanley Sherman is an incredible clown director, he's very well known as a mask maker and a teacher of theater mask and is someone that I had an unusual connection with which I talked about in the past which led me to being on a very long phone conversation with him and in that conversation one of the things that came up with he told me that sometimes we return to things over and over because they're important to us. And I love that I'm kicking off of this by returning to that idea because I realized in talking about what was if we go back in time the next few months of storytelling L: *Affirmative Noise* R: We need to, we need to realize that we're going to have to go back through the few times to fill in details because otherwise narratively it stops making sense. We tried it L: Yeah. Yeah, we're going to do one theme at a time- R: Yes L: Go through that chronologically- R: Yes and then double back. L: And than double back. R: Don't worry it won't be confusing but it was if we don't do that. So I'm glad we talked about the thing we're not gonna do. L: Yes R: Right, so imagine we're time travelers taking you back now...to the end of season one? L: Yeah pretty much -to the end. So, we released the final episode of season one on- R: The day before- L: On April ninth R: Okay. L: April tenth is my birthday and I had a very chill birthday of doing not very much but April eleventh was a gym day R: And this is where our saga Both: Begins L: So it was a gym day, one of the- one of the things that we have been training and that I have been training for many years is hand balance and handstands and as one does you continually push to try to do more more complicated things and to push your body to bigger extremes and I was doing an exercise R: That was at the limits of what you could do. L: It was. It was really at my top edge and it was pretty early in the night, it was one of the first exercise I went into and I probably hadn't warmed up enough. R: Let that be a moral to everyone. L: Yes please warm up. But I got up into the handstand from this exercise and very quickly realized something was very wrong and I came down. R: And at first we thought "Okay, not a big deal" L: I knew it was a big deal. I didn't know how big of a deal it was or wasn't. R: Really? L: Yeah. R: Because the thing I remember, being on the outside L: *Affirmative Noise* R: -and I'm not, I'm not jumping on you at all. I asked you, as we often do, "Do need a spot for that? Do you want someone to spot you on this difficult thing? And you're like "Nah, I got it." L: *sighs* R: and I was like "Okay" So I'm going to step back and watch and I watched you blow it and hit the ground and I was ready and I'd like pulled back the mocking finger you know, ready to just mock you and then you looked at me and I knew Okay, maybe it's not quite mocking time. Are you okay? L: Yeah there, there wasn't really a good way to spot that particular exercise. R: Sure. L: Which is why I told you no. But I, I hit the ground and I was- I feel like I came down to my feet and then I rolled up into a ball R: Thus beginning that content warning we just gave. L: Yes, because my wrists, both of them, but particularly my right hand, really hurt and I knew I was done for the night. R: We put you on ice L: Yeah we immediately put me on ice. I knew I was done. You continued doing the things that you could do- R: My job. L: For the rest of the night and I just sat there and chatted with everybody with my wrist on ice. But we've had, we've had moments where things go wrong before where it was a little bit wrong. Where it was exactly- R: Yeah. L: You stop for the night. R: And you come back L: You come back. Sometimes you stop for a couple of hours and then you go "Oh I'm actually feeling much better and I can come back at that point." I rested the next day, didn't use my hands very much. Wednesday came around, I knew I wasn't up for doing any handstands. I knew I wasn't up for doing anything that put my full body weight in my hands and in my wrists but I was up for doing so the other acrobatic tricks that we do. The stuff that, where I'm held in with my legs or- or flying in like, a bird. Stuff where hand stuff is just sort of light- light support and so we did that. Had an actually decent night R: Yeah L: That night R: Yeah people said wow a couple times. L: *Affirmative Noise* R: That was weird. L: And then Thursday my wrists felt really bad. Once again, rested them, iced them. Friday we went in 'cause I was like "You know what? I'll do the same thing we did on Wednesday. We'll be very chill" and there's a trick that where I jump up to sit on your legs R: And you use your hands for balance. L: And I use my hands for a little bit of balance R: no weight, almost no weight. L: And a little bit of, a little bit of security and I got up into that and immediately knew my wrists were done. I, I could not do anything. R: And we knew, we got you down safely of course. L: *Affirmative Noise* R: -and it was one of those things where you know, from the ground you're like "Okay this isn't working" and you just have to immediately get over your adrenaline and- and check in on that. L: *Affirmative Noise* R: Of course we ended up- we ended up deciding it was, we iced you off. We ended up saying "Let's see how you feel when you get up." because again there's that difference between "I've pulled a muscle" or "I've really damaged something" and you don't know at first. Nothing we did made it worse, but it was very clear that you were not okay. L: It was very clear I wasn't okay. So the next day was "All right, time to go get x-rays" R: I have pictures of your hands L: You do! And so, and so through, through a series of x-rays and splints and staying off my hands for for a couple of weeks, seeing a few different doctors the conclusion was I had managed to sprain both of my wrists. There was no breaks, luckily R: Yeah L: Luckily no bone breaks, but they were- they were pretty badly sprained and I ended up having, I think a full- it was a least a full month of just nothing. R: There was- L: Nothing on my hands. R: And we'll, and we'll loop back to that month but there was a month where you had two splints which you only came out of to go on ice, which was happening on a regular basis or anti-inflammatory stuff where we just had to all but feed you. We had to make food that you could do with your fingers. L: That I could hold with the splints and barely, like between the fingers on each hand, yeah. It was- R: It was it was a lot. L: It was a lot. So, that was very rough. R: And I was glad we could all be there to take care of you, that I could be there to take care of you, because you were- you were done and the whole the whole mission became "Okay our job has obviously changed" and what was interesting in that was "Okay, what is the job?" and it sort of became our job is to get you back to where you could start- L: Start re-training. R: Because one of the things that they don't talk about in this work very often is injury is only part of the problem. For- for me, in the experiences I've had, it's not just if you injure yourself and have to stop it's all that time you spend healing and they call it de-conditioning, which is- I have problems with the term but it's the idea is that you've trained your body to a point where can do all these things reliably and you lose some of that and you have to get it back after the healing has done. So we're we're talking about the next- first there's this whole, we just get you through the initial healing, then there's physical therapy, then there's the beginning of retraining L: Yeah, R: So this is months and months and months. L: Yeah, so this started with solid month of just not doing anything and- and I want to have to take and a small sideways turn on- on talking about my recovery, for a second and talk about what we were doing with that time because I was stuck sitting there alternating between having an ice pack on or just wearing splints but we were still running the gym three times- three nights a week R: Circus in place continued and, and you became my coach during that time. L: As you doubled down on working on handstands. R: So, the backing up and moving forward. The beginning of the- the little bit of time travel begins is that many years before now I trained handstands with a Russian coach, same one you trained with. L: *Affirmative Noise* R: And I got there and it was "Wow I got there" and almost immediately after I got injured and while I got into partner acrobatics I didn't really go back after my handstand until years later L: Yeah, R: It took years- L: Until actually about, about that year. We- this, this past couple of years. R: Right. So the- the point was, is that I was just beginning to train this and I- and it is important to say something because of the victory that comes, there is a golden lining. You became my coach and we said "Well, you're stuck and on the couch, we've agreed to run this, this very emotionally important social event. Why don't I just keep training and see how far I can go while you're, while you're there" and that way also at any moment I could stop and help you with something, L: Yes. R: -take care of you. So, you know the convenience of training in your own house is you're right next to your own kitchen. L: Which is fantastic. R: So I'm sitting there and I decided double down and train my handstand like I never real- the truth is, like I never really did even back in the day. L: Yes. So you started doubling down on really training your handstand and I got to do a very interesting experiment when it comes to being a coach because one of the things that you'll see a lot of in -I think it's honestly pretty much any physical discipline, is that there is a assumed consent that a student is comfortable or will allow a teacher to physically touch them to help them with stretches or to show them the correct position in a thing R: Or to spot them on something dangerous. L: Or to spot them on something dangerous and I don't think there's anything about that that is inherently wrong. R: There is a contract of consent which personally from working both on the theater side and working on the circus arts side I will say I love it when that is very clearly spelled out L: And that's the thing, a lot of the time it isn't very clearly spelled out. R: And we try to do better L: And I'm very interested in trying to do better R: Of course L: And figuring out how to navigate that and one of the things that I also have noticed though, is that even in the spaces where people are really good about asking for consent for these sorts of things, there's a certain level where okay, the instructor asks the student "Do I have consent to touch you for whatever this drill is?" but there's a sense that if the student were to say "no" R: Then the training would be over L: That the training would be over, the teacher would have no idea what to do in that situation and everything would just sort of fall apart and I think that sort of- Sometimes that's one hundred percent necessary. Like when you are spotting for something complicated and dangerous. R: As a base who has taught bases and flyers I will say that there will come a point in my training with that person that they will be grabbed in the name of saving their neck. They will be grabbed in some hand on butt, "Gosh I'm sorry that happened but you're still alive" way L: Yes. So, so to be very clear I'm not shaming anybody. R: No. L: but, but I had the opportunity where my hands were tied R: Literally L: So I- R: Technically, they were Velcro-ed. L: They were Velcro-ed. But I did, I couldn't- I couldn't touch you without really risking damage to me R: So the question was could you be an effective coach in a completely Both: Hands off L: way R: Yeah. L: And so I got to really look at what things worked and what things didn't work and where the limits of what you can reasonably do if a student is not comfortable being touched on a given day R: Yeah. L: How you can work around that and how you can make somebody comfortable and how you can still help them progress. R: I was, I was fascinated because I've- and I agreed to this experiment because I've had very hands on coaches. Coaches that would literally grab me by the ankles and pull you into the air. L: It's a very useful technique R: If you've got the strength, yeah. But if you're not one hundred percent, don't do that. Also again, grabbing someone by the ankles and hanging them in the air like a fish implies a certain amount of consent needs to be there. L: Yes. R: I want to stress that. But having the opportunity to both have that extreme and the extreme of "There is no circumstance where this coach is going to step in and spot, correct or do anything other than guide" gave me one- one weird thing on the inside which was I had to take full ownership of this thing in a way that I don't think happens until much later in a physical training process. Usually, you learn to do something with safety belts and with spotters and everything else and at a certain point you do it and you move away from the safety and I'm not- I'm not suggesting I'm in any way- I'm in a way good at a thing that we're now talking about but it is fascinating to realize that my progress became "This is my handstand" I have a coach who is a smarter version of me conceptually L: *Affirmative Noise* R: in my ear shouting things other than- not just "squeeze your butt" but other useful things. That's also useful, but also to have somebody there who, you are a much better hand balancer than I am and being able to say "Adjust this" and trying to find a way to- to communicate that because you can tell my brain a hundred times and my brain gets it but my body doesn't. L: We- there's a phrase that I've heard bandied about that "The body doesn't speak English" and I think that could equally be applied to any other verbal language. R: No. Body speaks Body and until it- L: Body speaks Body R: And until it gets it, it doesn't- it won't play. L: And it makes, it makes for some very bizarre things that you end up using as queuing because if- particularly when you can't physically put somebody in a position and go "Okay, no, this is what I'm looking for." You end up *laughs* you end up suggesting things that are nonsense. R: And the thing that I remember most is you shouted and instruction at me, So I'm, I'm in a handstand, my feet are on the wall and you're trying to get me to properly it on my own and you shouted an instruction that my brain short circuited on but my body followed your directions and a thing happened and you told me to sit in a chair. I'm upside down, my hands are on the floor, my feet are on a wall, they're dangling in the air and you say "Sit in the chair!" and I bent my body and my hips followed your directions in a way that I don't understand, like I can't make sense of it now but you gave me this note and things started happening. And of course that note, and this is important, was relevant to the way my butt sits in chairs and way my body fails to do handstands and may not apply to everyone else. I get that. L: Oh yeah, the queuing is very much an individual thing, and sometimes it can be applied to many- many people but, but you have to really be watching what's going on in the moment with with the student in question and I'm not, I mean I am not a practiced coach. This is me coaching somebody for the first time as well, so is the first person I've coached. R: (stage whisper) Spoilers; you did a really good job. L: Thank you. R: We'll get there. L: I appreciate that. R: Okay L: But yes, so that was, it was fascinating, it was fascinating to do that. It was also very, very difficult for me in in one respect, which is that historically when I have helped people through doing acrobatics or hand balance, because I don't know what's going on in your head and I don't know what's going on in your body, while my body's not going to be the same as everybody else's body that's just not how human beings work, one of the things I will do is; I will watch what someone is doing, I will look for the angles at which they're holding themselves and then I will try to reproduce that myself. R: I have seen you do some very bad, intentionally bad tricks to try to demonstrate how to correct them and it's amazing to watch. L: One- one is to demonstrate how to correct them but- but more than just demonstration, it's so that I can understand what- what has been done. R: Oh, oh yeah. L: Because I have to be able to feel, with my body, what had to relax or what had to tense in order to put somebody into the position that they have found themselves. R: So without that toolbox- I feel like I'm reading off a card- without that toolbox, what did you discover? Other than shouting weird phrases at people. L: Um, that it was- it was a huge limit it for me. It was very very hard. It made it much more difficult for me to help you and I didn't- I can't say that I really got past that. I think that it made it so that you got less effective coaching. R: I will- I will agree that certain things where it would have been great if you could have just pushed me into something- I mean physically- L: *Affirmative Noise* R: Put your hand on something, while that might be true and it probably slowed some things, there were some other things that once I got there I think the- the energy I got from the victories pushed me to the point where you're able to coach me further because I was willing to try because I was doing it. It wasn't just the magic trick of it's working because the coach is there making it work. I think that's one of those things that I remember so vividly when I was studying with the previous coach and we- I would throw myself at the wall or I would throw myself in the air and he would- he could catch me. And I would barely try it when he wasn't in the room. Which is what slowed me down, because ultimately I felt like the only way I was quote unquote "safe" L: Was with the coach being there. R: Was with the coach. When you have the additional truth that after that, like I said, after that coaching, on my own I got injured. L: Yeah R: I have a trauma about being upside down L: *Affirmative Noise* R: -that relates to that and getting- I had to work through that on my own terms and there were moments where that meant I went up, there was a panic attack, I came down and you were there for me supportively, but ultimately I had to get off the floor and try again or this process was going to stop. L: Yes. R: There was no other a person and weirdly as tough love as that sounds I found it not tough love. I feel, I felt very supported. L: Yeah, because I was there to talk you through it- R: Right. L: But you were still the one where to get yourself off the floor. R: But it was empowering L: Yeah R: Because I could find it on my own and for that it was, it was really interesting to learn to let the baby bird fly in its own. L: To to be- R: I'm the baby bird in that analogy. L: Yes. I want to- I want to be very clear on one thing with people though is that we were working with you against a wall. R: A wall, a safety mat was nearby, I had a spot- I had a visual spotter to make sure I wasn't doing anything dangerous and I had already been training with you coaching me hands on, for months L: Yeah R: We're not talking about "go throw yourself at the wall" that's different. Please if you're going to try the things we're talking about remember we're having a discussion as backstage, as performers who are trained in doing physical arts. L: Yeah so, so R: It's important. L: So it wasn't me just going "ah yes, do the thing and endanger yourself" that was not what I was doing. R: I believe we have disclaimer-ed ourselves blue in the face. L: Cool. R: Moving on. L: Moving forward. R: There was a victory that finally came though. L: Yes R: After months and months two things happened I think are significant, one we're going- we're going to use our time travel ability and come back to, which is you recovering, but the other was on July twentieth I founded my own personal holiday. L: Yes R: On July twentieth after months of me feebly throwing myself into this ridiculous configuration that humans being should not do I stuck a handstand for real. Not a bad thing that was almost a handstand if I could just fix it, but I successfully did the thing well enough to call it a handstand. L: Yes. R: And at that moment I hit the ground and this- this is two years of work. I stopped and I was like "Was that it?" L: And I said "Yes" R: You were like, "Yeah" I said "Are you sure?" and you said "Do it again." I did it again. Something clicked and from there forward I got significantly better and so I declared the holiday 'Turnip Day' as in 'turnip-side down' it is a stupid name for a holiday and I will fight you if you come after me about it. I do not care. L: I love it. I love that you have Turnip Day. R: I have Turnip Day. I have Turnip Day on my calendar. Turnip Day will likely be celebrated in some way in coming years and it was, it was success after slogging through so many months of, frankly "this sucks and I hate it" L: Yeah R: I loved what I was working towards. I love the goal but no one likes conditioning exercises and I- I feel the need to stress this. I am not a jock. I am a very lazy couch potato of a human who likes to play with their brain and be silly. So to tell me "You're going to do push ups and you're going to do kick up drills and you're gonna do wall planks and you're gonna do all-" I'm gonna- I get very angry a lot and- and you put up with that very well. L: I did, I did. R: Well I knew I couldn't hit you because you couldn't hit me back because you were- L: Fair, point. R: In the- you couldn't punch L: yeah, R: So like I said that, the flashing forward and then back, was that with all of this effort came this weird victory which is you successfully coached me in a process to where I succeeded and I got my hands dad and since then I have made significant progression. I won't say I'm good at anything. I'm not. L: No, but you are, I wouldn't say you're not good at it. R: Well thank you, L: -at it but you definitely have, have just, just leaps and bounds since that point. R: It is, it is something I can say I do badly and I'm super- I'm always the person I'm like "I'm the worst handstand do-er in the room but I'm in the room" and that to me as very significant L: Yes. R: and I feel like that's important. So that's, that's sort of- that sort of wraps up, like, the coaching side of that story. L: Yeah R: So rewinding back we have more of your, of your recovery was kind of an interesting process L: It was. So I am exceptionally lucky in that I got the opportunity to actually receive medical care for this. I found myself with an occupational therapist within a range than I could walk to their office. R: Which was good because you weren't driving. L: Yes and I had the opportunity to be at occupational therapy twice a week for a significant amount of time and so I got to work with an incredibly skilled doctor, a therapist who helped me train myself back to the point where I had functional, functional wrists and functional hands again. R: Watching you make progress was so amazing because we always talk about how progress is not a straight line. We always say this, it's is wavy line, I'm making this wavy gesture in the air, but watching you have a good day and push limits to new places and then cr- L: And have a bad day that I couldn't even practice R: Well yeah, well you couldn't lift a- you couldn't lift a spoon that day. L: Yeah. R: It was, watching you go through that. It's brutal to watch but it's also really an amazing reminder that these things are not linear. Skill progression, recovery, you know, learning, they're not- they're not these things that you just keep doing and you slowly incrementally get better. I feel like you did such a- and you put the work in. L: It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of work. R: It was a full time job. Getting well for you was a full time job for a while. L: It really was. I appreciated the heck out of- out of my therapist because she was marvelous. It was very funny though because she- I was the first, I was the first circus performer she had ever worked with R: oh wow L: So there was a certain level where she wasn't sure what to do with me because she's- she was the person who does hand and wrist recovery at the location I was, I was going to, so it's not that she was unfamiliar with how wrists work but as an occupational therapist, the thing the things that she was used to getting people back up to being able to do are things like being able to type and to get dressed and to drive a car and to navigate through your day in a day-to-day way. R: Not use these things as feet. L: Not, not use your hands as feet yeah. And I made it very clear when I went in "Oh, I need to get back to the point where I can use these as feet" and I'm- once again I was very lucky in that she was totally on board. R: Ready for the challenge? L: She was like "Alright, let's do this!" R: Ok L: She also expressed a fair amount of enjoyment in having a- in having a patient who knows something about how you train your body. About the non-linear way in which that works, about how to judge for yourself how much is too much. R: Oh, yeah. L: Because I actually introduced her to some new phrasing and new ways to talk about it. Which I think is really funny, because one of the things they have you do, because they're trying to make it as- as clear and documentable a science as they can. So they have you rate your pain level, one to ten, or zero to ten. It's a scale of zero to ten, how much pain are you in. And ten is essentially the most pain you could possibly be in- that you- the worst pain you can imagine and zero being none and- R: This scale is bogus. L: Oh it's totally bogus. They really, really want to pretend that that is a thing that is reproducible that is not arbitrary that is, that is "scientific". It's not. It was also really nice, she was willing to admit that it's not. Because everybody's concept of pain is different, how everybody interacts with their body is different, how- what they have experienced, what they haven't experienced is going to be different and- and people's imaginations are different. So, you know, ten is always supposed to be the worst pain you can imagine well, one, a person who has been through childbirth has a different standard for what the maximum pain they can remember is than somebody who hasn't but it's hard to say who could extrapolate out to a higher level based on pure imagination power. R: The other problem is memory. So, I have done some dumb stuff to my body throughout my life and so I have like, mentally at times of injury went "Yup that's the most pain have ever felt" and so unfortunately when talking about these pain scales my brain- my brain is going "Yeah, that's about a 'falling off a unicycle in a particular way' or that's 'that's about this injury'" Yeah, it's just that- L: Exactly, that's how people do. R: that's a tough, I want to- can we can we slide forward? L: Yes, yes, yes. R: Thank you. L: But on- on the phrasing and the terminology that I brought up. So, you're dealing with stretching and you're dealing with rehabilitation on- on, on muscles that had not been used for a while and one of the things that is not helpful is doing an exercise to the point where you are experiencing the worst pain- R: Oh no L: -that you feel like you can- R: No, no, no L: You don't want to do that. What you wanna do is work to a point where you're dealing with sensation that is uncomfortable but bearable.I- I pulled the phrase sensation from circus performers talking about rolling out on a foam roller which is done to help relax the muscles and help rehabilitate after doing heavy work and it's really interesting because the human body is not very good at expressing what is okay, what is not okay. R: I have a lizard that lives in the back of my brain that only knows one sentence "We're gonna die!". And all he can do as express that more or less loudly. So the things you're talking about I'm trying to map this to my own experience and the things you're discussing where like "That's a lot of sensation, perhaps a negative sensation" my brain is going "That's when the lizard's getting conversational" when it's not so bad the lizard is just going "we're- we're gonna die" just gonna quiet about it and so I have a lot of trouble with this because I- I approach this entire thing different. I also noticed something about us that's interesting L: *Affirmative Noise* R: and this is with no judgment statements. I am strong and not very flexible you are- L: And I am, by comparison fairly flexible and not as strong. R: Not as physically strong and I wonder sometimes especially the- the minute you get near the topic of stretching L: *Affirmative Noise* R: My brain- the lizard immediately goes "Oooh, Where's the mic? L: *laughs* R: I got things to say" L: And, and I- before I ran into this phrasing of calling it 'sensation' the- the body only has an on-off switch as to whether it says that something is- R: It can just say 'no' L: "I am experiencing- I'm experiencing a thing! Warning!" or not. Like, that is how the nervous system works. R: It's got volume L: The brain has to deal with- R: It's got volume. L: It's actually just got repeats on signal. R: You think? L: Yeah. R: Oh, I've got volume. L: It- there, there isn't volume. Your brain says there's volume. R: Ok L: because your brain says not only is that nerve yelling, but the cluster of nerves near it are also yelling. So therefore that's louder volume, or it's yelling repeatedly. The nerves don't actually do that. Like, individual nerve just send signal "something's happening!" R: Can I make an observation? L: *Affirmative Noise* R: I think- during that time where you were stuck sitting, you did- you did a lot of looking things up about pain on Wikipedia. Didn't you? L: No, I had done that in the past. R: Ok, because I'm- wow you got smarter! L: No. I'd already known that. I- R: You are smart before but I think you got- L: I got into dance- I was in ballet when I was five and I was in dance from when I was five to when I was about fifteen and over the course of that, one of the things that's done a lot in ballet is you are pushed to stretch, you are pushed to be able to reach- reach the maximum of, of certain, certain stretches and up to and including me having a dance instructor who when asked why she became a dance instructor said "It allows me to cause people pain, and they pay me for it". This was at the point where we were teens, that she said this to a room of her students, but she did. R: There's an outtake reel that happens right here that we're not doing. I'm just- L: Yup, and- R: I just think there's a whole good- there's a secondary conversation if anyone wants to ask us, that's a separate thing but- Moving on. L: But so what I was taught, what I was taught in learning about stretching at that period of time was that there is 'good pain' and 'bad pain'. R: Remember that outtake reel? L: Yep and I think that that's- I think that's problematic for dealing with training physically because it's not strictly speaking inaccurate but I do think talking about sensation R: Is healthier L: -is a healthier way to discuss it but there's also sort of different like your brain will flavor pain in different ways. R: I think from having done some things where I physically push my limits, one of the one of the studies I looked at some point, I don't know where or when, was the idea that we're as, you know, as- as physical machines always holding back a certain percentage of our limits as a safety mechanism, and that's- that's our fight or flight stuff. L: Yeah R: We're always holding back and I think one part is learning to manage your adrenaline such that you can access that in a way that does not lead to a trauma reaction or freak out L: *Affirmative Noise* R: but also there there's a little, you know, red warning light the goes off and some of it is ignoring the warning light and some of it is knowing "Okay, I'm past the warning light, there is a definite limit where stuff breaks, goes wrong, goes off the rails- L: "But where am I at?" R: -but where am I within that continuum." L: And that's exactly it. R: yeah. L: Is that, for example when you're stretching and that is- once again train with somebody in the room who knows their stuff, don't just listen to me, but there is- when you're stretching you will reach a sensation, arguably pain, where it is that warning light going off. But if that is sort of a diffused more soft, more warm or just tension pain? That's fine. Take a deep breath, try and see if you can focus on the parts that hurt and relax them and if you can do that, you can go further into the stretch. However, if something feels a sharp pain if something refuses to relax, don't try to push further. That is where you will do yourself damage. R: There's a fantastic thing in the way musculature works were if you have an injury, and this this can be both amazing and dangerous, L: *Affirmative Noise* R: Where if you have a particular part of your body that is injured, all of the stuff around it will step in to support. L: And it'll seize up R: And that won't let go and it will basically hold everything in spasm because it thinks "I'm holding this- this thing together" even if it's wrong and anatomy has then done something terrible, and I've unfortunately been in the room where I have seen dislocations and things like that- that the muscles had to be un-spasmed before it could be dealt with. L: Yeah R: and so there's- there's an interesting- there's anything place there to also realize that if you- that holding of tension is the enemy of so much useful work, because on one hand it is a logical survival mechanism L: *Affirmative Noise* R: on the other hand nothing good happens with tension L: No and so- so, so the- the reality is figuring this stuff out for yourself in your body and becoming familiar with the sensations your body gives you, learning what is safe and what is not safe is something that is an acquired skill. Some people have some people have it more naturally, some people it's easier to develop, and some people have reasons why their brain really does not do that well at all, and that's just the range of human experience but when you're dealing- but so to go back to my- my therapist, for her, a ton of the people who she sees are not people who tend to be active or tend to be in their bodies. Most wrist injuries in- most wrist injuries come from tripping, falling, and catching yourself on your hands. That's like, the number one wrist injury that- R: Yup. L: -anyone gets, and that happens to, honestly that primarily happens to people who aren't particularly in their bodies. Which means that a vast majority of the patients that this person sees don't have a good concept for when they need to stop because when you're healing and when you're stretching and when you're practicing there is a point that is too much and so a big part of her job on a normal basis is actually when- when she has somebody do exercise and they push really hard and she asked them afterwards what their pain level was at and they tell her that they made it to an eleven out of ten but they held on, she's just sad because the likelihood that they're doing themselves damage instead of trying- instead of getting- instead of 'getting it done' as fast as possible to get themselves back up and going, which is where they're coming at it from. So a huge part of her job is to say "No, you need to slow down, you're gonna re-injure yourself." So for her to run into me, who's had as much of a history with training my body, with stretching with building the strength in the first place and I happened to- to have been trained in ways where I was told to be very careful about my limits when I never tell- when I tell her the maximum number she hears from me as to how much pain I had during an exercise is a five and I tell her that I- that I hit a five and I stopped because I needed to and took a break and came back and finished it out she was just super happy. R: It's it's interesting where, so many people have, you know, a distance from their physicality. It's something that I struggled with in the first half of my life. I was very- I was not a sporty person as a kid, I was not an athletic adult, it was only when I got into circus did I get in any way into my skin and then there's a lot of- there's a lot of stuff there that you're- you're avoiding, I think, whether it's physical injury, trauma, fear and it takes a long time and all I can- all I can come up with, listening to the way you worked with your therapist, listening to the way the you trained with me, listening to the way that I watched your physical recovery back to doing acrobatics and hand balance, is that the slow and steady pace is the only one that works. I've watched so many people out of the gate throw themselves into physicality so hard, they had something to prove, they they weren't strong but they were- they were foolish enough to just do it, which is impressive and useful but because there was no technique, there was no discipline to it, and because they didn't pace themselves, every single one of those people I've ever met had an injury like you are describing L: *Affirmative Noise* R: -without the foundational knowledge and the foundational physicality that you built up and that ended them. I think one of the things that- I'm sitting here and we're talking about it after the fact that so we're so casual. We were sitting there having a real discussion of "Is that it? Are we- are we- is that done?" and it was a real- it's a real question. I mean, I am so excited that we pushed through it and we got past it but this was- this was a very real event. L: And it- and it took months! It took months and months and months ah. I am still not back to full capacity. R: No. We're probably at about seventy percent L: of where I was before my injury R: because we've been adding little things back to our training as you're capable of doing them. L: Just- just in the past- I think was just last week- I did the exercise R: You did L: -that I had been injured in. R: And what was so great, you had spent so much time retraining, and we both knew was coming, but you had spent so much time training and preparing and restrengthening and you went and did it and not only did you do it, but you were better than before you got injured. L: I was, I will own that I was better than before I got injured at that particular- that particular piece and are still pieces- there's still stuff we haven't done R: You can't L: because it was at too much of a risk. R: You can't do, or you- you- we tried that- the pieces of it and it doesn't feel right. So, even coming back, there isn't a moment where you go "It's all better now! Let's do everything!" No, there's a steady progression, up and down, good days and bad and we do it- you know, we do it till it feels wrong and then we go "Okay let's put this one to bed, let's take some notes on what we need to focus on for next time" and we go back to it and I think if you approach it any other way, well, you're just going to turn that injury into a permanent part of your life. L: Yeah, and- and so it was- it was very interesting after finally got a handstand back and my therapist fired me- R: *Laughs* On the spot, pretty much. L: Pretty much, yeah- I managed to do a handstand right before we had a reevaluation period and so I was like "Well I've managed to- I've managed to balance on my hands" and by the end of that day she was like "Well, we're here if you need us, give us a call, but we're done."and I still had a long way to go I'd- I'd recovered by- to a huge degree but I still a long way to go. I had been very amused to discover that the- I think we've mentioned it on this podcast before, but the grip- the grip training exercises that we do. R: Yeah. L: She assigned me- R: The baby version. L: the- the, the- without any additional weight R: We called it the baby version L: -version of all of the same ones. R: because I was doing mine with weight trying to strengthen my wrists L: and I was just do- going through those same motions without even holding any- without- without even an object in my hand R: And it was, it was really fun to sit there and do them together as a "Someday you'll do it with all the weight" and you do now. L: I do yeah, I've gotten back to- well R: Some L: Not all the weight, but some of the weight. R: We're getting there L: But, you know, then I had to start rebuilding. And this was one of the most frustrating parts for me. One of the most frustrating parts was I write up a gym for us so that we don't have to think about what exercises we're doing next while we're working out. R: And that's- that's your- that's your job but it's- it's a job the we- we develop it together. L: We develop it together R: But you're managing it. L: I'm managing it and so, and particularly since it was for my rehabilitation R: Absolutely L: I had to manage it and the reality was I had to go in and write up something that I felt would be challenging if I was having a great day and I had to be prepared for the likelihood that I was not having a great day. That I was having a mediocre day, or a bad day, when it came to where my wrists were at. Or where the rest of my body was at, to be perfectly honest, because by that point having to isolate both wrists really made it so there was very little I could do because when you're working on a lot of other things you want to at least be able to theoretically catch yourself if your balance goes off and- and when both wrists are completely out of the picture you can't do those things. So my- so my whole body wasn't at the level that it had been before I got injured so I would have- I would write up this gym knowing- R: that you were gonna fail L: That I was going to fail R: That was hard to watch you do that, but it was also wonderful to watch you get the little victories and then step back and say- and watch you realize, if you're doing something as a life practice, which you know, this is. L: *Affirmative Noise* R: If you're doing something on regular basis that, "Okay, so today I did five of something, or I did two or I did one of something and was perfect but I want to walk away with that victory and come back to it next time." You don't have to max out everything. I think there's a really toxic success concept where "Best of the Best" is not super useful. If- if I have to do something once, I can be best of the best but if my job really is to be able to do this as if it were normal, and to be able to do this every day to be able to do this reliably it's a much different prospect than- than pushing a limit to injury. L: Yeah. R: And when you're coming back from an injury it's really, it's really, it was inspiring because I said okay "I'm going to be here and not-" the handstand stuff is important to me, but the partner acrobatics is the reason I'm here. L: Yeah. R: I love, I love picking you up in the air in weird ways and some of those things are dependent, if they go right they're dependent on us both just being awesome, and if they go wrong, they're dependent on me being able to get you to the ground and you being able to catch yourself, which may involve a hand and if you didn't have it that day we didn't try it that day. L: *Affirmative Noise* R: And having to be good with that and stay positive when you, you know, L: When you didn't get to play either, yeah. R: Yeah, this was a day, this was a day where- "This is a push-ups day, we're doing push-ups today. There's no fun today, and you're just going to love that and have a good time." and you're like, you know, your inner child is going "But I wanna do the be awesome superhero thing!" and you're not getting to do that. It is frustrating but the cool thing is then you have those moments where you feel good, I feel good, we kinda go "Do you want to try that?" and then what I thought that was so funny is that then it was the opposite. Then I was like "Um, we haven't done this in seven months are you sure?" L: And I'm like "let's do it!" R: And then we do it and I'm the one who's freaking out and needs to be reassured whether or not I've got the skill, the strength, the technique not even withstanding- just needing to calm me that I'm not going to screw it up. L: Yeah R: That was very funny, to me. L: So- so, at this point we're- we're back to- R: We're getting there. L: We're definitely getting there and it's more good days than bad days but it's still a thing, We're still- we're still doing rehabilitation and like, you know, it's funny I have maintained a practice of doing coffee handstands. And by that I mean, ages ago I had a period of time where my coach went on a vacation and was gone for two months and I made it through one month of that and realized I hadn't practiced R: At all L: At all and that if I didn't find a way to make myself practice, just trying to keep up in the room was gonna kill me R: Well, you were gonna- you were going to lose what was, at that time, a couple years of work, just to atrophy of the skill L: You know, that was not how I thought about it. I just thought about how how awful trying to be back in that classroom was gonna be. R: *laughs* L: but I went "Okay, so what am I going to use as my trigger for doing handstands?" R: If only you had a constant addiction that you needed to feed a couple times a day that made you really happy and gave you a rush of dopamine and adrenaline that you could train as the reward for a task you don't one hundred percent love doing at the time. L: And as it happens, caffeine as an addiction that I have. So I, I made a rule for myself that before any caffeinated beverage- So not just coffee, tea also counted, before any caffeinated beverage I would do a handstand and this started to really work for me and it worked for me consistently enough that well after the point where my coach came back and I was training with him again and I just kept doing it. It was the one thing that was consistently making it so that I was working on handstands so even when we doubled down on doing handstands, still, on the off days, I was doing coffee handstands and eventually I started getting to the point where I was actually doing one with a kick off from each leg as a singular coffee handstand. Like that was the cost of a coffee for me R: Plus the beans L: Plus the beans, and- and in the p- in the past when I had run into those days where you have to take a day off because you've done something and your wrist is angry at you and you know everything's gonna be fine after a rest day but you really need to have one, I had done something where, as I bullet journal, it was easy for me to keep track of it, I would create a coffee handstand count. R: You owed the bank L: I owed myself- R: you are the bank L: -x number of coffee handstands and I had a very strict rule for myself that, I've had a couple of different points in the past where I've had even so much as a week where I couldn't use one wrist or the other because of repetitive strain, that didn't get to a point where- which I was making sure didn't get to a point where it became an ongoing disabling thing for me. So I had had, in the past, up to a week where I wasn't doing handstands and so I would build up this coffee handstand count and then, so as to not just injure myself when i came back, it was that "Okay, when I feel okay, do two sets of coffee handstands before each coffee and whittle it down slowly until the point where I'm back to just owing the coffee- the handstands for the coffee in question. R: And you kept the count through your injury. L: So when I injured myself this time I kept the count. R: Everyone is gonna ask, how high did the number get? L: I've forgotten. I know it was in the two-hundreds R: Okay L: I will have to look up what the actual coffee count max was. R: And where are you now? L: I am currently at one hundred and two, as how many I still owe. I am actively trying to stay on track to have- to clear my coffee handstand count by the one year anniversary of my injury. R: Ooh, I think you'll make it. L: But that is how serious this was. R: Yeah. L: Was that, that is what the reasonable goal is R: A year L: Is a year between the accumulation of that coffee handstand count and actually clearing it. R: And so you're on track, you're doing- you're doing well, L: I'm actually on track to potentially be done with it a full month in advance but I have no faith that I won't have some days where I'm not up to it and I'll eat through that month of- R: You definitely, you learned your lesson. That's what I'm hearing. L: Yeah. R: You learned L: Yeah, You learn R: So that, that pretty much wraps up the saga of your wrists, which got to the point where people would literally pop into a video chat and say "How are your wrists?" which is, it's super supportive to have people checking on you and- L: It was lovely, it was wonderful every single time R: It always felt like I was in the room with you, me, and your wrists. L: *laughs* R: It was always because "How are you,- L: They were their own things R: -and how are your wrists?" They were their own topic and I'm glad to say your wrists are doing okay. L: Yeah, they're doing all right. R: The, the other- the other topic, activating the time travel, around around the time of you getting fired by- L: A little bit before, probably- probably a week or two before I got fired. R: Yeah, which- which was just after that big victory of mine that I mentioned earlier L: In fact, in fact- I know it must have been a month, it must have been a month before I got fired. R: Okay, right around that time you gave me what I regard as the worst birthday present of my life. L: Because, to be clear I was going nowhere except for walking twice a week to my occupational therapist's office. Putting on an N95 that had been properly fitted because I am exceptionally lucky and have somebody in my life who could do that and spending an hour with my occupational therapist R: Who was also in a mask L: Who was also wearing a mask. R: Despite that you managed- L: She had- I saw her on a Thursday, found out the next Tuesday that she hadn't been feeling well by the end of the day Thursday, that she had had a really rough weekend but that she'd tested negative for COVID, so she was probably fine. Saw her that Tuesday, saw her that next Thursday and by Friday I had a little tickle in my throat. R: And by Saturday I had way more and unfortunately- and again we we made warnings about this earlier, but you gave, you gave me a set of- a case- a set of COVID L: A set of COVID R: It felt like more than one that's why I say it that way. But you gave me a case of COVID that was bad enough that within a short period of time I ended up in the hospital. L: Yup. R: And I was in the E.R. because but honestly we thought I was having heart attack. L: *Affirmative Noise* R: I am- it was terrifying because that is not a thing I'm prone to are historically known for, but we rush me the hospital and they took really good care of me and they tested everything. I haven't been sick in a long time, and they- chest x-rays, needles and blood and look in places and ever- everything. After a while I'm laying there, I've been joking with the nurses between panic attacks because when I'm afraid I tell jokes. That could be why I'm me, but I'm sitting there and having as good a time as I can at this point 'cause there's no good time to be had and it is the day before my birthday. L: Yep R: The day before my birthday, for the record, so it's on the permanent record, it was the day before my fiftieth birthday and I'm- I'm laying a hospital and a slightly older exasperated doctor walks and sits down and goes "You got the same damn case of COVID everyone else I have seen has. It sucks to be you, I think you're gonna be okay, but I gotta tell ya, you are in amazing physical shape other than the COVID." Which is the best worst thing you've ever heard. When you're sitting there worried, you're genuinely afraid, I- I don't, I don't get sick often. I don't, I don't think about it but you know, I've got aches and pains and you're always the back your head you're worried "gettin' older, could could fall apart at any minute!" to have a doctor sit down and say "Other than the plague you've been afraid of for a very long time you're doing great! It's kind of annoy-" and the tone was "I'm kind of annoyed with you" L: *laughs* R: And so I said "Thanks?" and the we were talked a bit more about the particulars of it and I said "Um, let me ask a question," which was obviously fueled by the high fever I had which was "When will I be able to train again?" and he gave me some outlines about breathing and heart rate and stuff like that he said "As far as I'm concerned, if you feel up to it, you can hit the gym tomorrow. You won't want to." and- and sent me home. L: I want to clarify something. R: What? L: You never had a fever. R: I never had a fever? L: We checked, you continually had fever-like symptoms. You did not have a fever. If you had had a fever I wouldn't have let you train. R: That's true, you're right. L: It's one of my- it's one of my few rules about when you don't train. You don't train when you have a fever and you don't train if you're dizzy. R: That's true, that's true. So pick another colloquial symptom that would have made me a little wonky in the head to ask such a question but I did. L: *Affirmative Noise* R: It could just be that I have my personality. Many people have said that that personality is something I should be concerned about, so there you have it. In any case, returning to the stumbling thing I call a narrative. I'm sent home and I am feeling moderately dreadful and I'm thinking about it and I'm thinking- you know, I just very shortly before hand got that Turnip day and I don't want it taken away from me because I've been injured and lost a thing I said "I don't want it taken away from me" I said "What if I just did as much as I could?" and that doctor was wrong. 'Cause the good news of this story is that on my birthday I did a damn handstand. L: Yes you did. R: I did a bunch of damn handstands. I did my job. I didn't do everything. I fell out real quick like but I got I- I kept it and I trained. Now to be clear, I am training at home. I am isolated, everyone around me, you know, we were- we were past- we were past any concerns, and anybody I've mentioned was cheering me on was in a video chat, So it was not a safety concern to do that other than for myself, and I- we had monitors on me to check. So that's the- that's the good news. The bad news and it's embarrassing and hard to talk about is that I've been experiencing long COVID. Everyone who has seen me training sees me on a good day. L: *Affirmative Noise* R: You know, L: For the most part yeah, R: Yeah, there's been some good days that weren't so good, but I've been- I've been struggling and brain fog is a thing and for a long while, up until about a month ago, the problem was I was having trouble breathing and I would have to stop and what we what we explored and learned about was that for me, this is my experience, I was having a lot of chronic fatigue symptoms that I'm still struggling with, and exercise within a safe limit seemed to be beneficial to my situation. And I'm gonna say I am not a- I'm a clown. I am not a doctor and I was listening to my body and the minute it said "rest" I rested but I kept doing physical activity and I've- from the way I feel, feel like that's why I have any energy now, why I'm doing okay now. The bad news is that I'm still- I'm still a bit of a struggle, I'm still not okay. Even sitting here right now, we- I rested all day yesterday to do this recording and I'm, I'm havin'- I'm havin' a pretty good day L: *Affirmative Noise* R: But let me tell you this, it's so real and scary and it was probably and- it was the was sick a way I've never been sick. And the weird feeling that comes from going back and forth between feeling okay enough to do a physical skill that I trained myself up to that is "only thing well people do" in my head and being literally flattened for days at a time and having to be cared for did a number on my head. I mean, it really, it really was something I was like "Am I faking?" Was a question I constantly asked, "If I'm good enough to do this, why am I feeling that?" L: And I'm watching you and I'm like "No, nobody could fake this, you're- you're miserable and- R: Yeah L: -and really struggling" R: And I think what was so- what was so difficult on the far side of it was to know that it didn't matter what I did there was going to be good days and bad days. It was very much of a spoon theory or match- or match- it wasn't match theory because it wasn't- it wasn't a matter of whether or not I burned them all, it was this idea that some days I had good days and I was very lucky and I think the thing that I am so grateful for is that I was surrounded by friends online and friends here, thank you, who- who were very understanding and were checking in with me and supportive and also were just- I mean they were just there and I think a lot of times we don't value presence enough. That's something I learned while being sick, I got reminded of. There were days where I couldn't really hold together a conversation but people were there hanging out with me. Doing their own thing in some cases but they were hanging out with me in a video chat, just so I wasn't alone and that meant- that meant so much. That someone would gift me their time and if I ever wondered what the purpose of what we do, on a greater scale, as an entertainer is about it's, I think it's about trying to project that even harder. It's not about the tricks, it's about being there with people, because being sick and lonely sucks. Being- being sick and surrounded by your friends who are at a safe distance? Who are laughing with you about it? That's a good feeling because then you're like "Well yeah, we all know this sucks." So I wanted to take a moment to say "Thank You" I wanted to take a moment and own the fact that I'm still having good days and bad days, more good than bad lately which is nice. L: *Affirmative Noise* R: Yeah so, we'll see. We'll see how that goes. As far as what that meant, on a day to day basis, that meant that I've been training and I had to take a couple of months off of doing mask making and some of the art projects and writing projects I've been working on. I have recently gotten back to those a little bit and it felt so good to- to work on, like, finish- I had a mask that was half finished and I finish that mask and I had to go slow and work on it, and lay it down, and work on it, lay it down, but I got it done and putting that- off to the- you know, putting that away because it was finished was such a big feeling because it- it started to feel like "Okay I can do more than just rest some days". So, yeah, there's you- you learn to narrow your scope. They talk about in clown, that there's this magnifying glass we have this magic magnifying glass that can take big moments and make them small and small moments and make them big and this was one of those moments where every little thing was a win. Every little thing was- was joyous and everything that sucked just sucked. And so yeah, you just- you just roll past it. So, what I can- what I can say on the end of that is that I'm still here, I'm still going. Please be careful, because I stayed in the house. L: Yeah, you didn't go anywhere. R: I didn't go anywhere. I managed to catch a case of COVID without going anywhere and so, it was- and I've been isolated and I've been very careful, we haven't been performing and so this late in the game to have that experience just tells me, it's not over yet and please be very, very careful with yourself. That's what I'm going to say to the world, be careful with yourself in making your choices, make them safely make them safe for you and others. L: And- and lest anyone misunderstand what was said at the beginning of talking about my having caught COVID and giving it to you, where- where it began with a sniffle, R: You got very sick for about a week. L: I also got very sick for about a week and continued to have some symptoms- though not nearly as badly as you have R: Sure L: since that point. R: I'm sorry- L: some of which I've R: I didn't mean to roll over you. L: I don't mind- R: Oh good. L: You're, you're the one that got significantly more affected but I want to make it clear R: That even a mild case sucked. L: That even a mild case sucked. R: So, I will tell you this my friends, I hate talking about this topic. Not because of, not because it was- it's something I don't want to talk about. It's not about me and my sad but it's been the bogeyman in the back of everyone's head for so long that now that it's- now that it got me, I don't think I'm quite at the "pull out my pain and play with it" place yet. I don't think I'm quite at the place where it's funny yet. L: No, and it may not be for quite some time. R: Yeah, check in with me later to see if it's funny but for now, yeah, just take it seriously 'cause, wow, it's not over. L: No, it's not. R: Let's pull the lever on the time machine one more time. L: That sounds good to me. R: Because I think we've- we've, we've talked injury and COVID L: We've talked injury and illness and we promised R: We gotta and somewhere good L: -promised some other quite personal stuff, which I think comes back to me. R: Sittin' a chair. L: Sittin a chair! So, backing up again to me sitting in a chair alternatingly icing my wrists and not being able to move them. I reached- I mean I was at the point where even- where even operating a computer to read some web comics got to be too much. So I had the point where I was really doing nothing. I was sitting and thinking, and as can happen when you sit and think you go and you review things that you've been thinking about for a while, but that you've been thinking about occasionally for a while instead of the things- and instead of all the time because now you have the time to think about them and not be distracted by other things. And in my case, and from what I hear I am not alone in this, these past few years have given a lot of people a lot of time to think. R: Having a pause to reflect unpacks a lot of stuff. L: And in my case I found myself and packing a fair amount of feelings and thoughts about gender, and I had been exploring playing around with gender presentation for a long time by this point. I had been talking with a lot of people, I have a lot of trans friends, I have a lot of non-binary friends, whether they identify as trans or not, and I have long felt like the binary concept of gender is neither biologically accurate nor particularly sense-making in a more social space. So I've been, I've been very open to the idea of there being a wide range of expressions of gender and ways that one can behave and ways that we could potentially shift some of how our society works and through a lot of that, I sat there going "I'm just a very, very concerned and strong ally" and as it turns out, I was not just a very concerned and- and strong ally and there was a bit more to my interest in the topic than I was willing to admit to myself and through a range of of things and thoughts and really asking myself some questions, I finally went "Okay maybe, maybe I'm not, cisgender. Maybe I don't fully identify with- with the gender I was assigned at birth. Okay, if we're willing to unpack that, we're willing to go into it, I've got all the time in the world, clearly. All right, self, let's open the door. There's this wide range of things you can play with. Let's take a look at it. We're gonna go ahead and set ourselves up an- an alt on the internet so we can explore and we can say 'we'll be whatever we want to be today' and we can try something else tomorrow and none of it has to stick but we can explore it with some friends who we know we can trust with it. And my brain said "Boy". R: *laughs* I'm sorry, I'm on your team, but it never stops being funny. L: It- it's never stopped being funny. It was like it said "Thank you for finally showing up. Yes hello, we are a guy. We are a dude. Welcome to man town" and I was like "But there's- but there's so many options though, there's this whole wide range- what do you? What?" "Yes. Man. Thank you." It was one hundred percent, just the way- Apparently, I have a very all or nothing sense of self. Which is fairly, honestly, accurate to how I approach the world in a- in a regular sense, so despite the fact that I fully feel like the binary is nonsense, apparently I fully jumped from thinking that I fit mostly on one side of it to very much on the other side of it and it's that weird thing of it both feeling a little bit like it took me by surprise and every thought looking back over my life I go "oh, no, this makes sense," I mean, I have friends that I literally told "Oh, I'm such an egg." Which for anybody unfamiliar with with language frequently used in the transgender community, people frequently look back over themselves- over over a period of time in their life where they were in denial about their transgender identity and we refer to that as being an egg, being in the egg, because the minute that it cracks and that you hatch as yourself, there's no going back in. You're done. That moves forward because moving backwards doesn't really work very well for most people. So I was literally sitting there saying "I'm such an egg." looking at a lot of the stories and patterns of many of both trans masculine people who I knew and trans masculine stories I was reading on the internet and going "Ah yeah, no, I totally see how I'm on that path. Eh, I guess we'll deal with that later if we need to deal with that later. I've been doing that for years, and I finally, finally went "Okay, this is who I am. I am a trans man." I then of course went "What am I going to be called? Can I continue to use my given name?" and part of me really wanted to, because it was an awesome name and I loved the fact that my parents gave me the name they gave me, but the story involved with me having been given that name was so intrinsically tied up in a feminine identity, that for me, I had to leave that behind. We'll see whether I can hopefully reincorporate it into some artistic project in the future or something because I do think it's awesome but I started thinking "Okay, I'll- I'll experiment with a wide range of name's! Let's do that!" and I promptly identified that I could be William, which is a family name and I was like "I'm- I refuse to go by the nickname 'Bill' because that is the how my family has been doing it for generations and someone in my life said "Liam is an option" and so I thought I was completely joking when I was thinking about using Liam as my name. When I was thinking about taking on the name William. R: It stuck to you like glue. L: It stuck, so fast and there was just no question for me at that point. I just- it took a little bit of adjusting 'cause everything takes adjustment time, but there was- there was no other option at that point. I did continue to like, review baby name books and look at a whole bunch of different places I could pull names from, but it was Liam. It was done. R: It was, it was fascinating to watch you hear it and go "Oh, that's me" you know, and watch that process. I'm mean, I'm sitting on the outside obviously, and you have- you have my support and I'm proud of you and whatever thing I'm supposed to say, L: *laughs* R: but the reality is, I've been on the ride, I've been watching- I've been watching you work this out and I think you, you sat down and you had- you had no choice but to live inside your own head for minute without distraction. L: Yes R: And at that moment, processing begins. There's a- there's a whole thing in clown training where they talk about this- the power of sitting sitting with an idea L: Yeah R: Of the silence in your own head and learning to listen to yourself. If you've got something this big, that you haven't resolved it's- it's going to be the thing that is there whenever you listen yourself and if you're not ready to listen to yourself obviously L: You just go find other things to just be listening to. R: You become a very busy person I imagine. I'm- I'm, you know, I'm glad to be you know, a part of your support team. That's what I'll say. L: And I'm- I'm really, I'm so lucky because I hit this point where I had the opportunity to think and I knew that I had a friend group and a social circle that was going to be perfectly happy no matter where I landed. No matter if I- I felt like I wanted to use a male identity for a week and then decide "Oh wait, no, that's not for me." That they were going to be comfortable with it. That I had a chosen family that was going to be comfortable with wherever I landed. It- it really, it made a huge difference. R: What I think's really, really interesting. You know, invariably, we are- we are continuing to, to work on circus-y physical skills and theater things and L: *Affirmative Noise* R: - all of these things and obviously this will- we have not even begun to think about how this will come into our work because it's- it's- it's happening right now. L: Oh, we started to think about it. R: We've talked about it, L: but yeah. R: but it's- it's fascinating to be able to have that that kind of transformation L: *Affirmative Noise* R: and transformative process just in the work because you then, you are- you are no longer subject to any default thought you ever had. L: Oh true, yeah, defaults, totally- totally fly out the window R: And that's something that I've always said, and I learned this- I learned this very early on, before I ever came to circus is that oftentimes in life and it doesn't matter what the issue is L: *Affirmative Noise* R: You're you're handed a default answer and for many people, fine. One of the most difficult things to do is question- I don't want to say the word 'rules' here but that's what they are in my head like, question the rules of, whether it's society, or culture, or people and the minute you question them, if you are clear of heart and mind enough to hear yourself say "No" and begin to ask "Okay, well, what does that mean?" It's- it's a fascinating thing to find what you'll discover. I know I found- I found different things, obviously, but I found things in that and I'm excited to see as you come more comfortably into your own L: *Affirmative Noise* R: I- to see what you discover and you know, how neat it is that as a, you know as a- as a theater maker, as a creative partner to you, to get to- get to explore that, I get to- I get to be a part of that, is very cool to me. L: Yeah, it's very exciting. So- so at this point, I have come out my whole family. This is not- this is not my 'coming out of the closet' episode of "Two Clowns in a Closet" R: It's really weird- L: -to- R: because we are in a closet and you're not coming out but you already have. L: Yes because I've, I've come out everybody in my life. R: Time Travel, time travel. L: Yes. So, this is not- this is not me- me using a way to- to surprise everybody, but it is letting- letting you guys all- all catch up on, on what's going on. I am going to in advance, say I apologize if my voice starts to crack and be awful over the course of this season because, as I have been told, that is that is how testosterone do and that is part of my journey. So, bear with me I'm, I'm gonna be here and just- just do it. R: And I am, as your supportive friend, going to mock you mercilessly. L: I would expect nothing less. R: That's what I'm here for. Well that, that more or less, those minor things, that more or less brings us up to date- L: Yes, I think that was our main things R: with everything that's going on, if you're hearing this and you- you have questions that have been in the back your head from previous seasons or obviously we covered so much stuff, I would love to expound on this. Our plan is- is trying to find the balance of Okay, these- the topic of your exploration of your gender L: *Affirmative Noise* R: being a thing that- I mean, it's part of our lives, we want- we want to include that in conversation L: Oh, very much, yeah R: But also, this is about the performer side of our lives. So we're going to try to find a way to hit a balance on that, obviously, if you have questions about either we're gonna try to L: We're gonna try answer them R: We're going to try to answer and I'm- I'm interested in discussing and hearing your viewpoints on the intersections with the work L: Oh yeah, that's going to be very interesting to be- to dig in and R: Sure L: -and play with R: but as was saying, if- if you listening have- have questions, follow up thoughts, you know, wanna know stuff about anything. Whether it's the, the- the injury stuff, which I think that we could talk about for hours L: *Affirmative Noise* R: And I think, you know, COVID is a thing I think there's plenty of, there are more reputable sources out there, but I'm happy to talk about my experience and- and then- and then there's this big L: Gender R: there's gender as the big trademark topic. Obviously send those questions, but also you know, the- the questions we- we have been getting have been great because we've got- we've got stories in the queue about circus experiences L: *Affirmative Noise* R: and- and, and cool silly stories that we are gonna be sharing moving forward and I'm- I'm excited about that. I'm excited about a brand new season. L: Yeah. So please send us questions, R: Yup L: because this- this is exciting. I'm really glad to be back R: In the closet L: In the closet, with you and with all of you and it's- it's actually gotten quite cozy, for all- for as cold as it was when we first got in here. R: You know that's because we're full of hot air L: Ah, that explains it! R: And now we've let some of it out, to our friends, the hot air. L: Yes. The faces you're making, I'm just like- R: That may have been fart joke. May not have been. L: That was the question I had. R: That's the question. We will not- *gasp* We will not tell. *cough* We won't tell. In the meantime, thank you for listening and tuning in. Thank you for everyone who shouted at us that you wanted another season. L: We wouldn't have done it R: Yeah, we wouldn't have. L: if nobody had said something. R: Yeah, we had a lot of people saying come- come hang out with us. So we'll see ya next time, right here, very soon, on your podcast, behind the scenes with the Circus Freaks performers, that we like to call L: "Two Clowns in a Closet" R: And now: theme song *Sound of door opening* *theme song*