We are really busy…yay! You are busy. I know that our students are really busy too. We are so focused on where we want to be tomorrow that we sometimes don’t take the time to acknowledge how far we have come today.
Everyday we see our students make so much progress. We have students in our mixed levels lyra (aka Aerial Hoop) class who couldn’t hang from the lyra without their grip slipping when they first started. Now they are effortlessly pulling themselves up and on to the lyra. Pulling oneself to a seated position from a long straight arm hang is quite an accomplishment. Somewhere in our sedentary lifestyle, so many of us, both men and women, lost the ability to do this seemingly simple physical act of a pull up. As kids we climbed trees effortlessly, but as adults we find the action of a pull up or even just hanging from our arms humbling or worse demoralizing.
Being able to pull oneself up is a great example of functional strength. Circus Arts and Aerial Yoga are a great way to build functional strength including learning a pullup. While the elite performers fly 40 feet through the air, we don’t need to do that to begin to get the same strength these performers are envied for. In our beginner classes, students learn the basic body control, core strength and muscle activation to get them to develop the strength for pull ups. The hanging upside down just makes this growth process fun!
So a note to self and a note to our students. Take the time to acknowledge and enjoy the progress you have already made.