Handover Bootcamp: "It's a cross between a kidnapping and a sleepover"

Prologue: structure training (confused)


We lucky few on the inflatables (the great big silver armadillo) had three days before everyone else to get used to our roles. We were in from 10-4 and felt exhausted by the end of it; looking back I can only laugh at that. 


As well as the silver beasts we trained on proportional metal frames which, at that point, seemed to weigh an impossible amount. A session with one of those and I was in serious pain - by the end they felt light as a feather. That was largely due to the work of our trainer, Mauritz. This guy is amazing: a German acrobat/circus performer, his muscles have muscles. He improved our strength and flexibility to the point where we could have backflipped through the performance. Or near enough, I'll be able to carry camera bags more easily at least.


Feeling like we'd done quite enough already we had a day off and then began bootcamp proper:


Week 1: basic training (high)


Everything in mass choreography is arranged by numbers. The groundcloth is covered in co-ordinate marks so you remember your position relative to those (for instance, my "homebase position" was D-4) and you're assigned a unique number based on your group and your height. As you can imagine, I was at the lower end of the scale. I wasn't even judged tall enough to carry one of the planks (the Michael Jackson-esque light-up boards the pipers walked on), instead going into a group called "utilities" where my responsibility was initially as a spotter and then to help get the inflatables ready. Structures (utilities and the plank carriers) had to stay late several days to get in extra practice; that meant a few 12 hour days which really put a strain on.


The choreographers kept a track of us by the bibs we wore - colour coded and with our numbers printed on back and front. The first time I was called out by my number was a shock; I loathe being called by a number but I had to get used to it as well as to being called by my official name (Felicity) a lot of the time since that was the one the staff had. 


We had another fitting for our costumes in a horrible sequence which involved far more public changing of clothes than I like (uptight? moi?) and a thrilling adventure arguing over the pointlessness of trying on a bra several sizes too small.


This week we worked on improving our fitness and conditioning and learning the basic moves, such as marching. It was tough physically but by Friday I was riding an incredible endorphin high from all the exertion; my brain switched off completely and I was just sickeningly happy. 


Unfortunately, biology's irritating habit of getting used to things meant that by week two that wore off:


Week 2: putting it together (tired)


This week we moved to Toryglen football centre, a brilliant place on the south side I never knew about with a massive indoor football pitch which enabled us to rehearse with the inflatables without having to worry about wind and rain (a big consideration - those things go crazy in the wind since they are basically sail-shaped). Instead, we just had to worry about noxious carbon monoxide fumes from the leafblowers used to inflate them and the strange rubber chips in the astroturf which, it turns out, I'm mildly allergic to. 


We were all getting tired by this point and the natural drugs had worn off. Midweek I strained my left knee when we ran without warming up (producers were in and they wanted to show off as much as possible so they skipped it; big mistake - lots of people were hurt) and since I have no kind of sporting background I was stupid enough to ignore it and keep going, making it much worse. I only really recovered enough to do the run in India and even then I felt the consequences the next day.


Our props made the journey to India at the end of this week so we had a dress rehearsal on Saturday so we got to try on our kilts. Turns out kneeling in one of those things is more revealing than you would have thought. 


Without our props the next week was mainly for the fabric cast, we were just there to fill in the gaps:


Week 3: flower arranging (injured)


Since I wasn't running I had even less to do. I carried the steel frames (child's play by then) into position and then back out. I tried to rest my legs as much as possible since I really, really wanted to be able to do the run and the injury had spread to both because of my limping to compensate. 


It was a short week since we had a few early finishes and Friday off. From there, we just had to worry about getting to Delhi...