Silks Inspiration

I awoke on Sunday morning to a beautiful spring...blizzard. While I wasn’t overjoyed by more white stuff it did at least make for a pretty walk through the park and meant I arrived form my circus double bill nicely warmed up!

Class 1 was the free hoop class I mentioned last week. My teacher was recording a demo class to send away for assessment and needed demo students too! It was a really positive class.  After recapping some of the moves from last week she went on to teach us a simple routine to music. This was great as it’s definitely the closest I have got to anything even remotely resembling a performance. Again the hoop seems to be more accessible and safer for beginners in that respect. I think this is a lot to do with how easily resting / safe positions can be reached. For example its possible to just sit on the hoop or even lie down:

Man in the moon rest post

  Normally for me on silks it’s a case of climb up, attempt (or actually do) pose, come down in a hurry wait for my forearms/ fingers to stop pounding and repeat! Which leads me nicely on to Class 2: Silks.. Already a little tired from the hoop class it certainly wasn’t my best class ever but it certainly gave me some useful insights!

Early in the class I did quite well, got to grips with a couple of new moves, improved some older ones and did a successful bicycle climb (a very smooth method of climbing where it seems like you are peddling up the silks but requires really awkward foot positions ) At the moment my grip strength /endurance is the thing that is holding me back even though the rest on me is strong enough to do the moves. For example a one arm hang on the hoop is fine, not a chance on silks. I’m trying not to get too frustrated about it. I know my grip will get stronger eventually. I also know I am gripping too tightly and I need to work on relaxing it a bit. Slightly scary to find the balance between choking the life of the silks and dropping out of the sky!

When I got home, feeling in need of a bit of inspiration I watched the video at the top by Christine Van Loo. She is a world class aerialist/acrobat and huge source of inspiration for me. Her choreography is beautiful, complex and original but quite apart from that is the way she makes everything look so effortless. There is a crispness and precision to all her movements from the big splits to just putting on a foot lock. It occurred to me that one of the most helpful things I can do it to aim for her perfect crisp technique. Not a second of her routine is wasted fumbling with fabric where as I can waste a lot of energy before even getting into a pose trying to get the foot lock on or the silks separated.

So in the interests of progressing faster and being able to get more out of my tuition time...I have finally taken the plunge and bought my own aerial fabric so I can practice the little things like 2 foot locks at the same time, hangs etc at home! It should be delivered later this week :)