A satellite.
I don't have a personal favorite so I will just list some of mine: Perceval, Sigurd,Cecilia, Franz, Sirius, Hardin,etc.
Lol everyone keeps bringing up how Yona just rode a horse without us seeing any training. I think y'all are over-exaggergating the amount of skill it takes to just simply ride on a horse. Nothing suggests she was doing any fancy stunts or even doing much to control the horse. Obv the horse wasn't even facing the right direction when we saw her on it. It's doubtful she even had to hitch up the saddle or reins herself. The horse was likely extremely well-trained already. I dont see what's stopping Yona from hopping on a super well-trained military/royal horse and riding on it while it just follows everyone else. If she needed to know commands, then it was likely very few: go, speed up, slow down, and stop. Even directing a well-trained horse is pretty easy -- you kinda just lean in the direction you want it to go. And whose to say that the horse wasnt letting her ride while following the command of someone else? There really isn't much that she needed to have been trained on ahead of time to just kinda get the job done.
For comparison, final rehearsal
Most of you know me as a not-very-strong middleweight strongperson. Those of you on Instagram know that I have a second sport: poledance. I've been self-teaching in my dining room (no, we never have guests over anymore; why do you ask?) for a few years now. In 2019, I set a goal to compete. I got mono and spent most of that year on the couch. In 2020, I again set a goal to compete. We all know what happened that year. So this year was the year: on November 13th, I flew out to Chicago and competed at PSO Great Lakes, an amateur pole competition that is very much the equivalent of paying to compete at a local powerlifting/strongman meet.
Why am I posting about this on the weightroom subreddit? Because pole has much more overlap with strongman than you'd think, because balancing the two is a high-wire act that requires careful consideration of one's biceps, and because I kept lifting throughout this whole process with the goal of building muscle. Here's what that looked like.
Background
I don't know shit about fuck. I never did dance as a kid, unless marching band counts. What I've learned about pole, I've learned from a variety of online resources, which I'd be happy to pass along if anyone's interested. Even though I had planned to compete in 2019 and 2020, this was my first time actually going through the preparation process.
As for lifting, I competed in July at Missouri's Strongest Man, where I got first place* (*out of 1 people). That was a fun show, but it was more apparent than ever that I need to eat more damn food. My body's natural "set point" is about 145. I need to be 165. I need to fill out my weight class.
I felt really fluffy after Missouri's Strongest Man. I was sitting at 157. I really, really wanted to cut weight so that I'd look hawt on stage, but then I realized that my desire to actually get good at my primary sport overrode my desire to look my best...and I made the decision to keep bulking throughout the pole competition prep. Pole is much more body-positive than you'd think! It has taught me that grace, sexuality, and beauty are, in fact, skills that can be honed regardless of your bodyfat percentage. So, fuck it, I thought. I can be fluffy and hot. This decision alone was a huge accomplishment that represents a lot of mindset growth.
Competition prep
I started a (fun, exciting, stressful) new job the same week I
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