Things that go Wrong During an Aerial class

Aerial silks, aerial hoop, trapeze etc can look so amazingly graceful and elegant! It can also look ridiculous and be hilarious and frustrating! It’s such unusual movements our bodies are doing it’s hardly a surprise that it doesn’t always go to plan. I’ve been doing aerial for about 5 years now and during that time I’ve seen pretty much everything that can go wrong, here are the most common things that happen in class. . . . .

Falling/Getting tangled

Luckily I rarely have anyone fall properly out of the hoop, and I have only fallen badly once (missed the crash mat!). Most people tend to just land a bit ungracefully if they’re coming out! It’s getting tangled in the silks that’s the worst! It only takes a tiny mistake to suddenly find the silks where you don’t want them and you’re stuck! This coupled with being suspended off the floor and your arms rapidly losing strength and it can be really quite dangerous and scary! A lot of the time though lessons are just spent laughing trying to get your foot out!

Forgetting a move during a routine

There’s something about routines that seems to make our minds go blank! Every so often I’ll do routines with my students, these are doing moves they know and we will go through each move and combo just before we do the routine. Pretty much every time someone will totally forget at least one move and it’s usually one of their easier ones. This means I’m at the side trying to quickly describe and demo a move on the floor, I sometimes think they do it just to see my floor demoing!

Grabbing body parts during spotting

When you’re learning new moves your instructor will probably spot you to make sure you don’t fall. Most of the time your instructor will be anticipating your movements and be able to catch you. Sometimes though a student just catches you off guard or goes the opposite way to what you’re expecting, in which case your instructor will grab anything! Bums, boobs, whatever we don’t care as long as we keep you from getting hurt!

Being kicked/hit

When people are upside down, spatial awareness tends to go out the window! I’ve seen many people coming close to being kicked and hit in studios where the equipment is quite close together. You just need to time everything well in those studios and keep an eye on who is standing close to you! This also usually happens when a student is being spotted and moves an arm or leg in a way that the instructor isn’t expecting, don’t worry if you do hit your instructor while they’re spotting you, it’s all part of the job!

Weird noises

You’re really struggling to get into an awkward, difficult move, your legs are further apart than they should be and your concentrating hard, then suddenly you hear the dreaded noise. You aren’t even sure which part of you it came from! Your instructor is standing right next to you, did they hear it?! Don’t think too much about it if this happens to you, it happens all. the. time! Embrace it and laugh or ignore it, your instructor probably hasn’t really noticed anyway and they will just take their lead from you. I never realised what weird noises people could make before I started teaching aerial!

Wardrobe malfunction

Luckily for aerial lessons people tend to wear leggings so at least its only boobs that fall out. Sports bras don’t seem to be made for us to be upside down! When you’re getting dressed for your class imagine what your outfit is going to do when you’re hanging upside down. If your leggings are see through though or your boobs pop out, don’t worry about it! Your instructor will have seen it all before!

Occasionally it will go very wrong, read what happened when my training ended very badly From Aerial to A & E

Do you have anything else that goes wrong in your classes? xx