Not the beach, Tuesday morning

[betterthanaplan]

It was finally cold enough to start giving Duke flashbacks to his childhood in Maine, so he figured he'd give Rey a break and handwavily let her know he'd moved their morning yoga to somewhere with walls and a heater.

Which meant, of course, that he wasn't going to follow through on his threat to make her do yoga on a rickety stack of rocks. Yet. But considering he'd moved them to a room on the Cape Rouge, it did mean that she was going to be doing yoga on a surface that was gently bobbing up and down, back and forth, with the rise and fall of the water in the port.

Not that he noticed the movement anymore, not unless he was specifically paying attention to it. So he also had that balance board he'd been talking about ready. . . .

[beach yoga is not on the beach, but it's still open!]

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

"No. Just that I want it to," she said.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke nodded slowly. "And, uh. When you first started doing handstands, and you 'cheated'. Did you think about how you were doing that? Or did you just know you wanted your body to be steady?"

[thatwaslucky]

"Both?" Rey said, lowering her legs to get up again. "I knew where to apply it and just kind of did it."

[betterthanaplan]

"Alright." Duke tilted his head. "Do you know what's different between stabilizing yourself in a handstand and lifting yourself up off the ground completely?"

[thatwaslucky]

"I knew exactly what I'd have to do to stabilize myself," she shrugged. "Floating still seems like one of those things that's crazy to think about."

[betterthanaplan]

“Why?” Duke asked. “What makes it crazier thank holding yourself, or that balance board, steady?”

[thatwaslucky]

"Because it's me, in the air, with nothing holding me up. I know when I'm holding onto the board. I know how that works," she explained.

[betterthanaplan]

“Hm.” Duke reached over to hold onto her ankles. “So if you were to overbalance right now, I would be holding you up, right?”

[thatwaslucky]

"...Yes. Should I be overbalancing?" she asked.

[betterthanaplan]

“Nope,” Duke said. “And if I do this. . . .” He shifted closer, to wrap both arms around her knees and pick her up off the balance board entirely.

“What’s holding you up then?”

[thatwaslucky]

There might have been a little undignified yelp when he did that.

"You!"

[betterthanaplan]

“Exactly!” Duke lowered her back down gently. “I can hold you steady, and I can pick you up. How is what you’re doing with the Force different?”

[thatwaslucky]

"Because," she said, standing up, "I didn't tell you to do that, or when to put me down. It's different."

[betterthanaplan]

“Rey,” Duke said. “Rey. That’s ridiculous.”

She could, for instance, absolutely tell him when to pick her up and put her down.

[thatwaslucky]

"Look, it's just... different when it's me, or something. I don't know why, it's just the way it is, and I'm working on it, but I'm not there yet," she sighed, and the frustration was at least mostly with herself. Roadblocks were harder when so many other things came so easily.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke sighed and nodded. “You want me to stop pushing?”

[thatwaslucky]

"Today, anyway," she said, almost reluctantly. "There aren't going to be any breakthroughs there this week."

[betterthanaplan]

"I can do that," Duke said, nodding. "What would you like to work on instead?"

[thatwaslucky]

"I actually really like the balance stuff," she admitted. "It's a good way to focus."

[betterthanaplan]

"Well, in that case," Duke said. "I'm curious to see if you can get into the handstand while standing on the balance board. . . ."

[thatwaslucky]

Rey looked back at the board, trying to figure out if she could do it wuth the room given on the board. "Wait, seriously?"

[betterthanaplan]

"No judgement if the answer's no," Duke said. "I sure as hell couldn't. But I also couldn't swap legs on tree pose as smoothly as you did, and I've done this before."

[thatwaslucky]

"One day I'll do something normal," she sighed.

She would not.

"Do I have to do it like you've shown me?"

[betterthanaplan]

"Considering that -- again -- I can't do it at all, I'm going to give you free rein to do this however you see fit."

[thatwaslucky]

Rey stepped into the board, only steadying it with her mind once she'd balanced herself. Then she slowly turned herself sideways so her feet were very close together on the width of the board, taking a moment to make sure this would work like it did in her head. She bent, almost like she was going to do a cartwheel to turn herself sideways on the board again, but instead of completing it she pulled her legs back up until she was just doing the handstand.

...This was a reason she'd flipped herself into things back when she was new and practicing in her apartment.