Cirque du soleil arial performer |
Aerial silk is aerial (in the air) acrobatics performed on a special fabric
that is suspended from the ceiling. It is very long and not made out of silk, but of polyester lycra. It is also extremely strong and a little stretchy.
Aerial silk |
The performers use the silk to wrap, climb, swing, suspend, twirl and drop into lots of different positions without a net under them for safety.
Lexi, my aerial teacher. She is amazing! |
As soon as my dance studio offered a class, I talked my mom into signing me up. It's lots of fun!
Before we work with the silk, we bring out mats and do lots of warm up exercises to avoid injury.
Warm up! |
straddle and froggy.
Straddle |
Froggy |
The first techniques we learned are called wraps. We wrap the silk around our arms and legs, so we don't fall when we go into different positions.
Single foot lock (wrap) |
Practicing a candy cane |
We also learn to climb the fabric, which is mostly done by pushing up
from a wrapped foot over and over again. I can't climb up very high yet, and
I think my mom is happy about that!
Trying to climb high! |
Aerial is FANTASTIC fun. It makes me feel calm and confident.
Have you seen an arial show?
Would you like to learn?