If Pink Can Do It, So Can I! Right?? Maybe not so much.. My first aerial silks fitness class. Circus, see you in 15 years!

I’m on a roll with trying out great classes. After success in finding a great barre class (Exhale!), I’ve made amends with spinning (Aqua!) and yesterday I’ve conquered my fear of heights and proved to myself that I have more upper body strength than I may think in the aerial silks class (Fly Fitness!) . I remember having fun when I took aerial yoga 6 years ago. I also remember simply kicking back in a hammock style device that we called the ‘cocoon’ (aka, silks wrapped around your body). This aerial silks class was nothing like the aerial yoga. This was more like Pink at the Grammies or Cirque du Soleil– except of course not as impressive when you’re doing it as a first timer like me.

Thankfully, I found that all my conditioning classes and push-ups (of the girly variety) have been doing wonders for my burly arms, because I somehow managed to climb up the silk rope hanging from the ceiling with moderately intense effort. This is far more impressive than it seems. I didn’t think I’d be able to move up more than 10 inches from ground. I somehow wound up next to the ceiling on my second try. The secret is the foot leverage! Thank you aerial silk instructor for teaching me this valuable survival skill in case I somehow wind up in the middle of a life-or-death gym obstacle course.

Once we  got the hang of, well, hanging on the silk, the instructor demonstrated a few more neat moves that we proceeded to emulate while she watched. All in all, pretty amazing and scary experience. Mostly scary when hanging out horizontally, not so much vertically with head down. In a nutshell:

  • Amazing upper body/arms/shoulder workout
  • Really tests the limits of your strength since it’s just you and the rope (and if you’re up on the rope, you can’t just ‘give up’…you have to finish the move despite incredible burn)
  • Has some downtime while you watch instructions, but that downtime is desperately needed since arms are burning (see above point)
  • Makes you feel like you’re the sexiest being in the universe
  • Sounds impressive to your friends.

You can see my awesome moves from the class on my Instagram. I felt like I was doing this:

pink grammys cirque

But it looked more like this:

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Nataliya Ogle

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Nataliya Ogle likes making sure others live to their full potential. She publishes articles on her primary website styletomes.com and works as a freelance writer for other women's interest sites. Her physical body is in New York but her presence can almost always be found online. The internet is her first love.

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