aerial arts and more...
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Well, I belly danced through highschool and performed with my college's troupe. Around the same time (in college), I picked up hooping-- I was too indecisive and thrifty to buy just one (haha!) so I bought a roll of tubing and made several of my own. Having the use of so many different sizes (and a lot of dance space) helped me learn very quickly and it became part of my daily routine for a few years. When I started grad school in Arizona, I had stopped hooping for the most part, but realized that my other form of cardio (running) was pretty difficult for me because of the dry air. One day I found a pole studio and decided to give it a go-- and I haven't looked back since! I'm actually looking into silks classes in Tucson, too, at the moment. :)
I was going to pole class for a year and a half when I moved to doing almost entirely aerial dance after the prompting of one of the upper level girls at pole. I wish I could take regular pole lessons, but my schedule no longer jived with the pole teachers I liked. I really love my aerial studio though... I currently take lessons in tissu, static trap and lyra (in fact the wonderful corbyOconnor is one of my trap teachers 🌸) I still do pole by myself at home and try to self teach coz I still really like it. Home schooling has been challenging and I still wish I had access to quality studio lessons. At first I thought aerial dance and pole were very similar, but the longer I do both, the more I realize they're different. While aerials have made it easier for me to do things on the pole that involve "pull" muscles or a lot of abs (like aerial inverts/inverted V's or aerial shoulder mounts), things that involve "push" muscles are a bit more of a challenge. I guess I don't get to use my tiny "push" muscles as regularly in aerials. My handstands have begun to get shaky and I lost my caterpillar and have to relearn it... it used to be easy for me when I was taking pole regularly! 😕
I am originally from Tucson and I started at Tucson Circus Arts. http://tucsoncircusarts.com/ There is instruction for poi and stilts and other arts available too.
I too have wanted to learn other things like silks, hoops or fire but live in georgia and can't seem to find any lessons for anything besides pole here does anyone know of some place i live in locust grove about 1hr from atlanta henry county
@gummypia I noticed the same thing about push-pull with silks and pole! I had to work extra hard to train my shoulders because my silks work never really used them. Trapeze folk don't have that problem so much, and they usually have nicer shoulders too. :)
@byrdgrrl, I will check them out! 😀
I've been poling for just over 2 years. a while back, the pole studio that I started out at, started running silks and lyra classes. I am 5 weeks into my first silks course, and plan to try lyra next. I also have a hoop and use it from time to time, and I did a trial bellydance lesson a few years ago.
I know this is an older thread, but like Elektra, I started through Burning Man. I was a bellydancer for years (performed at Renfaires, etc.), incorporated poi, did a brief stint with hoop (not my favorite). I originally started with pole about two years ago, but quickly moved on to silks and it is definitely my first love. I find pole so much harder, but I never thought of the difference between push/pull muscles. I have plenty of strength for silks, but there are some moves on pole I struggle with because of the gip even though my hand grip should be fine. I'm focusing mostly on silks and pole right now. Would like to do some Lyra, but I'm afraid it might be too much. I train silks twice a week and am trying to incorporate pole 3x/week. I worry about overdoing it physically though. I struggled with back muscle strain early in my pole/silks training and am now paranoid about injuries. Especially as I get closer and closer to 40. lol
@Elektra Vallens, If you are thinking of going to New England Center for Circus art, it's a great place! I took a road trip up there last spring and am going again in February for the intensive silks beginner teacher training program. All their instructors are wonderful, I had a private lesson wit Bronwyn in trapeze and silks and I learned so much! If you need a buddy to road trip up there with, I'm in! :)
In highschool I was in the juggling club, so I already stilt walked and juggle. I did years of ballet, tap, and jazz, so dance has always been natural, and that what I turned to when I wanted to lose weight. After finding my groove again doing Latin style dance, I found hooping!! From then, I got involved with the "flow arts" community, and got into poi, multiple and mini hoops, fire hooping, fire eating and breathing, fans, etc. We had a play date once, and a girl hung her silks from a football post. I spent hours just trying to pull myself and hold my own body weight. By the end of the day, I could hold myself 6 inches off the ground lol. I asked her how to learn more, with no classes within 2 hrs of me (which has since changed a LOT) and she told me that a lot of pole moves would translate to silks, so to practice with pole for strength. Got my pole, fell in love with that, and everything I've been doing, strength and flexibility training, cardio, etc, is to get stronger and flexier to improve on pole and hooping. Silks and Lyra are things I want to get into when I have more strength and flexibility. Belly dancing is my next planned "dance" class because I think it will help with some muscle control. I also want to take a burlesque class, both for burlesquey stuff, and to help with the sensual and comedy sides of performance, as well as confidence. Now that I'm seeing people do Trapeze, I'm like "hrmmmm........" I also want to set up a slackline in my back yard. I'm not very good at contact juggling, but my husband is. He is a very good hooper as well, but he doesn't do pole. We want to do acroyoga together, but he knows nothing about yoga, so we need to practice up on that. We're both musicians, and we both often do local plays. I always see my day job as A) Supporting these hobbies and passions and B) Taking 40 hrs a week of practice time away from me. Right now I really want to get STRONGER and BALANCED!!!!!!!! I want to do a hand stand!!
@AliciaPolerina - Thanks for the offer. I may take you up on that at some point, because I do make the occasional trip up there for a Chinese pole lesson. What I was talking about in the earlier post, though, was going there for their 9 month intensive training program. Let me know how your experience with the silks training program goes; I don't know anyone who's done that program yet, and it's something I might be interested in doing.
