Today I did something rad. A friend and I got up at 6 and took an early morning aerial fabric class. If you don't know what that is, its that crazy shit Pink did at the Grammys last year and continues to do at every single one of her live shows. Check it out: Its sick.
I'm not sure why, but I somehow imagined this would be an incredibly easy thing to do. I mean, I took gymnastics as a kid. I'm a fairly flexible human being. And there was that stint in college where I joined the cheerleading team. I think I did a back handspring once in 2002. Actually, I definitely did. And then there was that time I took pole dancing classes at the Crunch in 2007. Don't wanna' brag or nothin' but I've nailed a helicopter once or twice in this lifetime. So I figured this would be the equivalent of a relaxing yoga class. You know, just some active recovery on an easy, breezy Sunday morning, some light stretching and breathing exercises, maybe a few backbends here or there. We chose an intro class which should have been Cirque du Soleil for dummies. Really, I thought I had this down.
Yeah. Not so much.
The class started easily enough with a soft, yellow resistance band and some deep breathing with our eyes closed, but by the time they busted out the silk saddle hammocks or whatever they're called, I realized I was in for it. First off, it kinda hurts. The fundamental move of Aerial Fabric-ing appears to be winding the silk around and around your forearms and wrists, and then hanging on it with your full body weight. (Owie.) Even better, is the follow-up move: While hanging with all of your body weight, you then pull yourself up by your biceps and feel the silk bite into your flesh like a plastic bag on a 20-block grocery run. I can't even do a real pull-up, let alone a chin-up which is pretty much what every single movement on this thing entails. Imagine you're in an exciting action-thriller and you somehow fall out of a helicopter but catch yourself on a loose parachute dangling out the door, and your only hope of survival is pulling yourself up, Channing Tatum-style, by your scrawny little biceps. That's what this is like. So that was hard.
Things got even more interesting when we locked ourselves in by our legs which is infinitely easier, but still kind of painful. You basically wind the hammock around your thighs and do this saucy straddle move while flipping upside down. There are all kinds of inverted ab exercises you can do in this position and then we did this thing where we tried to balance in that straddle pose with no hands. The whole thing was incredibly challenging and thrilling and made me feel like a daredevil monkey on a swing, which is something I quite enjoy. For our final trick, we unfurled the hammock and curled up in it like a little caterpillar, pulling the silk around our shoulders and drawing our knees into a little ball. We were then instructed to pike our legs out and invert ourselves in a move thats sort of like "skinning the cat" but much harder. I found I was pretty terrible at it, so I just closed my eyes and pretended I was some kind of fairy princess curled up in her chrysalis waiting for her wings to grow. Like I said. It was rad.
My friend and I were so enamored with this class, we decided to keep it up once a week. Its easily as challenging as any of the gymnastics training I do at CrossFit, and we definitely worked up a sweat. Mostly, its just fun to learn something new and pretend you're a magical creature while doing it. And best of all? Now we can join the circus!
3 - Full Clean Day
1 - Took 3 grams of EPA/DHA in fish oil tabs (6)
1 - Got 7 hours of sleep
1 - Active recovery while I watched TV
1 - Hydration (72 oz)
1 - Worked out
8/8
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