I’ve gotten this question from a few of our members. “I have a hammock/hoop/silks at home and I want you to teach a class for it online.” And my answer to this is a hard no. Why? Because I do not know your rigging nor crash mat situation. Plain and simple.
I do understand that to our aerial girls it looks like we are favoring pole by offering pole classes online but not aerial classes. But here’s the thing, I can’t safely teach you aerial online. Rigging is a huge deal for aerial. Trees and i-hooks are 100% no for rigging. So unless you have a free standing aerial rig I would say with 98% confidence that your rigging is not up to my safety standards. You need to have a reinforced attachment point that has a minimum of a 2,000 pound working load and then a saftey factor of 5:1. So take that 2,000 and multiply it by 5. So to be truly safe you need a point that can accomodate 10,000 pounds. It is highly likely whatever you put up in your home is not this unless you brought in a structural engineer. It is for this reason I discourage members from trying to set-up aerial at home. It is expensive to do and maintain. If I don’t know that your attachment is safe, I can’t teach you. At Aerial Dance I am 100% confident in our rigging points so I am happy to teach you. My concern for your saftey is why I am not teaching aerial classes during this time.
“Why are you teaching pole but not aerial at home?” Home poles have more standard set-ups and are more trustworthy. Before every class (and during the class) you’ll find that the instructor is telling the student to test her pole. But if you are paying attention to what we are teaching 98% is grounded. Not inverts, not big tricks but instead our home pole program is geared to keep girls desensitized and maintain strength. There are no new inverts being learned. We can’t spot it so we aren’t teaching it. Those that are in our new “pole 2” class starting next week will be doing inverts they are already clear on and 100% comfortable with. The intent is to help those upper level women maintain where they at.
I know it is frustrating being grounded during this time. I miss the heck out of hoop myself. But with all the classes we ARE offering you can use this time to come back strong. You can use this time to improve your flexibility. You can you this time to gain better awareness of your body by taking DANCE classes. ALL of these will help you when you get back in the air. So celebrate what we CAN teach you safely at home and we will be so excited to get back in the air with you in a few weeks! Until then, stay safe.