If you follow me on Instagram & Twitter (@katesnooks) then you might know that for the past year I've been attending training in aerial circus arts and so I wanted to talk about it in a little more detail today!
I have NEVER been one to enjoy fitness or sports of any kind (apart from swimming) but I've always been eager to tone up and get into shape. When a friend of mine mentioned she took aerial rope classes I immediately knew that this particular form of fitness was the one for me. I've always been fascinated by circus arts, especially silks and so immediately started attending silk hammock classes run in Battersea (here) (examples in the first 2 images below).
I should mention here that when I started attending the silk sling classes I had no upper body strength and hadn't worked out since school so I found it very hard at first. But being petite and flexible I found it easy to navigate my way around the silks and enjoyed it thoroughly.
I learned the rough basics over a course of 6 weeks and my love for circus arts grew, I knew I wanted to enroll on a proper course!
That led me to signing up to an Aerial Circus Arts Level 1 course at the National Centre for Circus Arts. I HIGHLY recommend this course if you're new to aerial. The basic premise is you do 4 weeks of aerial rope, 4 weeks of static trapeze and 4 weeks of flying trapeze. You'll learn all the basics (and also see which is your favourite) and if you pass each class you can then progress to level 2 which focuses entirely on the class of your choice.
As I said above, I adore silk hammock and wanted to progress down the silk route however at the National Centre you can only focus on silks after completing 2 levels of rope. Long story short, I hate rope. It's SO painful (especially on your feet) and takes an insane amount of upper body strength to climb.
I decided to specialise in static trapeze as I felt really confident on the bar at a height, loved all the pretty moves I was learning and was getting stronger and stronger each class holding my body weight with my arms and even knees (you can see my 2nd static trapeze lesson in this vlog). (Flying trapeze was also incredible but really petrifying the first few times. I'd love to do a full term specialising in this too) You can see me doing flying trapeze in this vlog here!
Term 2 of static trapeze has been HARD. We're learning much more advance skills (we're focusing on balancing - super painful) but I'm still really enjoying it and love feeling my body become stronger (despite all the bruises and aches I'm left with after each class).
I'm about to enroll for my 2nd full term on level 2 static trapeze and I'd love to do more content around circus arts so if you have any questions then do let me know!
Have you ever done aerial fitness before? Would you like to see more about this?
xxx