Week 14- It's My Birthday and I'll Handstand if I want to (esp. for THo!)

I had to get a photo on my birthday! Some friends were expecting a Birhtday handstand photo so here ya go T Ho! This photo is taken inside old navy where TBird and I were shopping for t-shirts and the perfect reflective outfit for my Halloween handstand. We got some weird looks from Massachusetts moms, but the dressing room attendants got a kick out of the two of us crazy ladies on this dull rainy afternoon! Stay Tuned-Halloween next!

Photographer: Tracy Bird

Location: Old Navy Burlington, MA

Week 12-Shadowy Handstand in Bermuda @ the Grotto Bay Resort

We were going for capturing the handstand and shadow in this photo. It's too bad you cannot see the fantastic Bermudian ocean in the background, but just beyond where I am handstanding you can see some stairs. Those stairs lead into a cave where pools of water rest. You can swim in them! There used to be a disco down there in the 70's. There are two gound levels in the cave. There was a stage for the band and a dance floor and as far as I can tell it was not man made, perhaps man honed! It's very cool and kind of spooky!

Photographer: Dan Donovan

Week 11-Working with the Pros

This week I was covering for my handstand coach, TBird, who is the diving coach for some pretty phenomenal divers! I am a swim coach so this dive coaching thing was new for me! I learned a lot from Gracia and Sean (the divers) and have a new found respect for diving coaches everywhere! It takes an incredible amount of concentration to analyze each and every dive. Think about it...each dive is executed in about 5 seconds and they are coming one after another!

Here Sean and I are coming into our handstands. One thing I am trying to master is getting up and balancing with one leg going a bit past the vertical line of the body then coming back into vertical and meeting up with the other leg. It's a process! We are trying to come up and sychronize our hold, but after several attempts without the perfect photo we moved on to our

task at hand, diving practice. This was the most synchronized of our photos.

Photographer: Gracia Leydon Mahney

Week 10-Gravity Free Handstand

This was a fun one! Super easy without gravity to contend with. Maybe you can see how I am cheating to keep from floating up. I kind of blend in with my aqua speedo but my silver Gray Sharks cap stands out! My fellow swimmers surround me, from left to right Dave, Cathie, Kirsten, Steve, Karen and Paula swimming in the background. This was taken on one of our Saturday afternoon workouts. We were filming our strokes with an underwater camera and of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get a photo for the week.

Photographer: Mike Bolio

Mike Bolio's weight belt: David Schubert

Week 9-Curve Street Field 09/28/09

Thanks to Jack (my son) and Owen (his friend) who took time out of their Monday holiday to humor me in my handstand quest! Jack took a few photos. Some were taken in a field of wildflowers and sunflowers and some with this flumey stuff (don't really know what it is). The wildflowers were cool, but the handstand in this one was better. Still working on that toe point! You would think that would be easy to incorporate once you have got the handstand down. Not so! I will keep working towards it.

After posting the link on facebook my facebook page I have recieved great comments and suggestions for locations and ideas! One of my favorite is doing a handstand in front of a No Standing road sign. Thanks THo!

Photograher: Jack Donovan