Wakeful Ascent Aerial Arts

Keep up your aerial strength with floor exercises!

Common knowledge in aerial silks is that to get into hip key, you tilt to the side to get the fabric between your thighs. The more you tilt, the higher the tail goes, which is good, because then the tail will land on your back not your butt. This is true, but it is not the most efficient way to get that tail where you want it. Tilting to the side is considerable energy expenditure and it can be replaced with a different technique. Instead of tilting a bunch, try making a re

DROPS – so bold and exhilarating! Why would you ever want to slow them down? Oh, for the challenge, of course. And the body awareness. And the gratification. And the skill. Having the ability to slow down a drop as an aerialist is a fundamental skill that will make you better at drops overall. So how do you do it? 1. Know the Pathway To move with control, you must first know where you’re going. Being familiar with the pathway of your star drop is crucial for executing a smoo

Creature is a skill that really highlights the importance of muscle engagement in aerial silks. Many people get the false impression that they need to be really bendy to unlock creature. You do need some hip, shoulder, and spinal flexibility, but certainly not at a contortion level. The key to creature is actually keeping your fabric very taught and engaging your legs powerfully. The most common mistake I see is people sliding their hands down the tails so that there is not m

Training aerial requires a lot of physical and mental effort. With so many skills to work on, it is no surprise that so many aerialists share the sense of feeling overwhelmed. Let’s look at few ways that you can create clarity and efficacy in your training sessions over the short and long term. Watch the FREE video Know Your WHY: At the core of every successful aerialist or pole dancer lies a powerful “WHY” – a driving force that fuels their passion and determination. Take a

These tips can help you to find and refine your flow as an aerialist. In aerial arts, learning to flow and refining your flow can be a deeply rewarding process. Flow brings us into a closer connection with the apparatus. It can help cultivate our intuition in our movement. With enough study and practice, you can unlock this wonderful aspect of aerial arts, and realize how GOOD it feels! Any aerialist can steadily develop grace and fluidity in the air…so let’s look at a few co

The hip key rollup is a fun dynamic skill that highly depends on good technique. It's extremely common for aerialists to get stuck on this skill, but often it just takes a deeper understanding of the body position. INJURY PREVENTION: First we need to ask - is flexibility an issue? Make sure that you can reach your arms up by your ears, ideally slightly past. If you can't, this skill could be inaccessible to you or could cause injury if you try to force your shoulder past it

How does theory support your journey as an aerialist? As aerialists, we have the opportunity to learn not only by following directions, but by asking questions. Inquiries lead us into deeper knowledge and empowerment as aerialists, and if you ask me, make everything way more fun and exciting. Theory offers us a foundation to draw from as we learn and innovate skills, supporting us in many many ways! 1. Enhance Safety  By developing an understanding of how aerial silks works,