An Evening of Aerial Arts

We had a packed aerial class tonight with a total of 7 students. Four of the women were new, so they worked solely on silks, switching off between two of the silks in the room. The other three of us rotated between using the silks, lyra, and corde lisse. While I am pretty sure that I will always prefer the silks, I don't mind the other apparatuses as much these days.

My thighs and hips are still all black and blue from the Star Drop last week, so I opted out of trying the Double Star Drop that our instructor went over this week. (I did get some iron supplements this weekend, so hopefully soon I just won't be getting bruised so much.) I practiced the Georgia Twist some more and tried to keep my legs straight in a cross-back straddle. It was a rare opportunity to be the person that can help others learn a new move. ;)

This video is pretty good for showing how the Georgia Twist works. I prefer the last way that he does it, where you move into and out of a sit.

(It's really difficult to find silks videos since so many of the moves are called by multiples names and most videos contain multiple tricks. I feel lucky that I'm finding almost everything that I'm looking for this time!)

We also worked on the Bicycle Climb on the corde lisse, which isn't bad at all. It's almost easier because the silks don't get tangled around the feet. (Video link is obviously on the silks.)

I spent the rest of the class working on the Layback on the lyra and the Crochet Climb on the silks. I found a good Crochet Climb tutorial. I still need to work on getting my unwrapped leg straight and stretched on the Crochet Climb. I keep bending and not getting enough height.

Thursday is the first time I'll get to try to the February choreography at Flow. I hope I'm not too far behind already!

Sunday Morning Aerial Arts

I usually don't like to make weekend morning commitments, especially when they involve something requiring a lot of energy like working out, but I am always glad when I do and actually follow through. Due to sickness and holidays, I rearranged my usual aerial schedule and ended up attending a Sunday morning class. I almost didn't make it out of bed since it was raining and the humidifier in our bedroom makes everything so comfortable. However, since Thursday, I've really been looking forward to my next chance to get back in the studio and work on some tricks that are included in the flow routine.

It was a little bit of an unusual class because of the four other women there, I only recognized one, and she had only been coming for the last few weeks. So by default, I was the most advanced person there. =) Quite a rarity for me! It is kind of fun to be the one that can do tricks that impress the newer people.

I worked on the bicycle climb and hip keys on both the silks and the corde lisse. I stuck with the just the silks for the angel drop (which I failed at since I haven't done one in forever and forgot all the steps!) and the butterfly drop. I did also get to take some time to work on my middle split from an arabesque for our flow routine, but I'm still off on something. My inflexibility is also really hurting me here so I can't keep both legs straight in a split.

Working on the arabesque with a twisted grip put some strain on my shoulder, so I iced it this afternoon and rubbed some icy hot cream on it a little bit ago. I definitely should have stretched it out a lot more beforehand.

I'm really hoping that my yoga practice will help with flexibility and coordination, which I really need more of for my aerial practice!

I've keep doing Google image searches hoping to find photos of the tricks I'm talking about, but no such luck, and videos either include several tricks or use different names that I've learned. I'll have to start having photos taken during class...