The One That's Still Good

Remember when you dropped the last chip on the ground and you picked it up, inspected it for dirt and then popped it in your mouth? You know that brief exposure to the elements didn’t negate the delicious of the chip or its suitability as a snack. The 10 second rule saved us once again from wasting what is still good.

The moral of the 10 second rule has been important this month since I am simultaneously working on more aerial pieces than ever before including 2 duets, 1 silks burlesque piece and an audition number. I also noticed several of my fellow aerialists are struggling to keep up with show cases, competition applications and their own performance ambitions. While we are all trying to juggle these competing requirements without losing our minds the ethics of recycling material were discussed on more than one occasion.

The knee jerk reaction is to create something new, wonderful and stunning for each show. I have to admit that when I first considered revisiting material it felt like a cheat but then I realized I should be applying the 10 second rule to more than just my food. I had worked on a silks piece for 3 months and only performed it once for a very select audience…it was still good. Of course there were changes in musical selection and a move to tailor the dance for a new audience but in the end this will allowed my best efforts to go further. Rather than scrambling to have something completely different for every show I want to give the audience a polished performance from my library that has been custom fit for them.  

This approach won’t work for every performance but it does give me some breathing room. I feel free to develop new material at my own pace knowing I can call on acts that I did not discard after one show.

So I guess what I am trying to say is scoop your performance chips off the floor and savor the crap out of them.

Do you ever feel pressure when creating new material? Do you sample your greatest hits? Leave me a comment below.

The One About Practice Vs Performance

In the last several months I spent a significant amount of time preparing for my first aerial performance. While I faced the normal challenges you might expect like picking choreography and music I found it was some seemingly simple tasks that I struggled with the most. Most notable of those simple tasks was moving with what I would consider performance worthy poise. 

What do I mean exactly?

Well, what makes people want to watch you?



Miss Texas Pole Star 2013 Performance
Photo by Don Curry

I would see my instructor glide up the silk and be completely enthralled with how elegant they looked. When it was finally my turn to try I would scrabbling on the fabric for a bit and then eventually accomplish the thing. Not having any background in professional performance it seemed that getting ready for the stage should be as simple as acquiring the knowledge and strength to do tricks. However, I gamely attend class every week and ran through the same poses and exercises as my teachers and continued to notice something distinctly different between how they looked and how I looked. 

 Luckily, with the help of some mentors during my preparations I started learning other equally important skills to making a polished aerial performer that are not necessarily taught in the classroom. Most of these things were fairly basic and not directly linked to overall ability or skill but make a huge difference to how you practice and most importantly how you appear to an observer. 

If I only had to remember 3 words to make a routine performance worthy it would be

Intention, Extension & Tension.

Intention

One week our aerial hoop class was observed by a retired ballerina who now contracts with dance troupes to refine their routines. She had volunteered to give our class some pointers on performance. She sat quietly for the hour as we gave the lesson our best efforts. At the end of class we nervously clustered around to hear what she thought at which time she told us something that changed my practice from that day forward.

While she thought the discipline was amazing she found our efforts ultimately boring. It didn’t really have anything to do with our ability or skill but about our intention. We only worked with the end goal in mind when we should be considering every move we made. We should approach the apparatus like a partner with whom we coordinate all our actions. We should never rush through a mount or re-position just to get to a trick in practice. The audience is seeing everything leading up to your trick so just as much effort and concentration should be spent on getting there as perfecting your final position. 

Treat each moment like a performance in your mind. 

Extension

This goes hand in hand with intention. If you are thinking through all of your movements you should be thinking of what you are doing with your whole body from the tips of your fingers to the ends of your toes. So often we fail to celebrate movement and instead concentrate on points of strength or articulation and let the rest of our body be dragged along in its wake. We have learned to be prey amongst predators with eyes averted and limiting nonessential motion in our hands and feet. While this is a great strategy for avoiding predation by a T-rex it’s not very engaging for the audience. By allowing every movement to flow from the starting point out to your extremities you bring fluidity and grace to your performance.

One visualization that a lot of my instructors use time and again is imagining an extension of some sort that continuous beyond where you end.  There are different examples like strings or lights…you can even think of laser beams if it makes you happy. What is important is that you imagine traveling out along those lines as you preform because it brings animation to every part of your body from the top of your head to the bottoms of your feet and out through your hands. You should even extend your laser like focus to your eyes and use it to bring your awareness to the audience and let them know you are watching them. BECOME THE PREDATOR! (okay that got weird but hopefully it helped)

Where your gaze falls or the angle of your fingers can change the audience's preception

Tension

If you have done the first two steps you should be well on your way to achieving and maintaining tension but it is something worthy of its own consideration. One of my aerial trainers paid me the compliment that I was progressing well in my knowledge of aerials but I needed to remember to engage my whole body while on the silk if I ever wanted to perform. At first I was confused about what she meant because I felt like I was working my butt off every class.

Fortunately for me she had an exercise that immediately connects you with the feeling of engaging your entire body.  If you lay on the floor and bring yourself into a boat position where you are balanced on your bottom and someone poked your shoulders you should rock back and forth like a ship on the water. You are connecting your body so now you can move as a single unit.

If you ever feel like you are not working part of your body to stay in the air it is probably noticeable to the audience. When you are supporting yourself with your feet and you release tension from your arms it looks like you are just dangling instead of dramatically climbing.

Engaging your body has a huge immediately visible change but requires constant focus.

If you imagine the three words during every practice something as simple as raising your leg can go from a utilitarian action to a captivating performance. I am still working on this myself so I cannot claim to be an expert but I do know they have made a difference in preparing to share what I have learned with an audience.

These are just my suggestions so feel free to share your tips on getting ready for the stage.

What makes the biggest difference in your training?

The One Where We Compare Lyra Vs Silks

This year I wanted to take my current set of skills and boldly go where I never had before.  Expanding my horizon for hooping meant investigating the lyra. Naturally I assumed if I liked that hoop on the ground then it should be even better in the air.
 
I set out to find an instructor and settled on a gym for my first class. They offered lots of classes in aerial arts and I was faced with a choice between lyra or aerial silks. As it turned out I wanted to start right away and silks was the only class with room for me to enroll. I initially planned to try both disciplines but as it became woefully self-evident that I had a lot of work to do on silks I was more intimidated by the idea of trying the aerial hoop. I saw silks as a series of knots and slings that helped me stay in the air and the lyra as a cold steal hoop that would require me to do more artistic versions of pull ups the whole time.

That is when I started scouring the internet for comparisons of the two art forms. Unfortunately, while many people do practice both skills I could find surprisingly little written about it for the inquisitive. Finally, I just decided to screw my courage to the sticking place and try a lyra class  and write a blog for those who might be curious about either disciplineI am now about 4 months into my aerial silks study and 2 months on the lyra and let me say I am so glad I chose to try both. They are a vastly rewarding and beautiful art forms but aside from being in the air they have very little in common. If you are considering trying to decide between starting on either of these apparatuses I hope this will be a helpful post.

One thing I hear over and over about the lyra is that people feel like it is easier than silks. This is true to the extent that if you have the basic core strength to support yourself learning the pathways to tricks is much easier on lyra. Fundamentally it is just a large steal ring and as long as you can hang on all the tricks are just different orientations of the body in relation to the hoop. Silks tricks are often a long series of precise wraps that can be difficult to remember when you are beginning. Forgetting something as simple as putting the silk under an arm can leave you a tangled aerial marionette.

Where I disagree with the opinion of the lyra being easier is if you have not built up your core strength yet. I am not talking about being able to do a billion reps of pull ups but if you cannot support your body weight in a hanging position then it is going to be difficult to even get into the hoop. In the beginning aerial silks will give you a slight advantaged because you can essentially tie into the silks from ground level and start working on trick pathways. In my opinion you will probably feel like you have accomplished showier tricks in the first few weeks of silks as you are working on your core strength.  I started aerial hoop after several months of silks so I spent most of my time developing pathways to tricks but I see many beginners struggle to get into a seated position. There are some things you can do to squirm your way into hoop but your progress on lyra is going to be mostly conditioning until you have the ability to maintain your body weight in the air.

Since there is not much to the lyra aside from you and the hoop it is usually considered more dangerous than silks. Let me very clear here when I say “more dangerous”. Both disciplines are inherently dangerous and should be treated with respect and caution but lyra does not have any supporting fabric that can be used to create locks. Now locks can fail and you can perform a wrap improperly with silks but the support provided is far more than in a lyra where you either have some kind of grip on the hoop or you do not and pure balance is the key for a number of tricks. There is definitely instruction that goes into learning where the sweet spot of a trick is but if you screw up then there are a lot fewer opportunities to stop yourself from taking a tumble.

 That brings us to probably the biggest difference between the two disciplines and that is the pain factor. Both silks and lyra will tweak, pinch and squeeze you in uncomfortable places but I never bruised myself on silks as frequently as I do on lyra. The first weeks on lyra left the backs of my knees a mess of unattractive colors ranging from yellow to deep purple. As my skills have progressed and I found that the bruising can be less but it never seems to completely go away. It is safe to assume that while you may acclimate and find better ways to approach the hoop it will not change the fact that you are resting all of weight on a 1 inch diameter steal hoop. Any place where you are supporting yourself is going to be subject to bruising and is going to be a bit uncomfortable. You will just have to keep in mind the old adage…

Please keep in mind both lyra and aerial silks require vast amounts of skill, flexibility and strength at the higher levels of performance. This comparison is meant for those interested in what these disciplines might be like for someone starting at a beginner level. Hopefully, this will encourage you to expand your own horizons. If you have any additional questions about either apparatus I would be happy to answer them or feel free to leave your own opinion on why you chose lyra, silks or both.