Hanging by an ... Aerial Silk
For the past five or six years, one of my oldest friends has hosted her own birthday celebration — a group fitness class in lieu of a party. Over the years, thanks to said friend, I have done barre, yoga, hot yoga, spin and now I can add aerial acrobatics to the list.
I love my friend and love participating in her celebrations, but I am almost always outside of my comfort zone, in no small part because of my introverted nature but also my long-standing beliefs about myself and my body.
Almost every year that I do this, I think, I’m not going to be good at this.
I strap on my armor by telling myself, I’m going to support my friend. This is not my sport. This is not my activity. I’m here to provide comic relief. At least I will be doing something active.
I’m never thinking, this is going to be fun.
This year, I had even more trepidation than normal, because I am larger than I was last year. I also haven’t been strength training, so I am not as strong. And without the stretching I did before my strength training, I am even less flexible than I used to be.
There is also holdover baggage from my old way of thinking.
It says, these activities are not particularly suited to me or my body. Oof, this is not the statement of an empowered woman. It’s an absurd statement, and yet it’s one of my first thoughts on this subject. Why should any of these activities be out of my reach because of the size or shape of my body? My higher mind knows better. It’s an example of the kind of negative, defeatist self-talk I’m actively working to address.
Until recently, I never thought these activities were particularly suited to me because I didn’t think they were suited to my body. I am not coordinated. I am not rhythmic. I am not lean. I am not lithe. I am not limber. These are largely the kinds of activities that I used to think only feminine, graceful, thin women did, and I had never thought of myself as particularly feminine or graceful and definitely not thin. I often looked at the women who did these types of activities with envy because I wished my body looked more like theirs.
The reality is that it’s not possible for me — no matter how much I might restrict or diet (believe me, I’ve tried) — to have this type of body. While I might have known it on some level all these years, I remained a slave to dieting and restriction, and what I pictured in my head every time I started a new diet was not physically attainable for my body type.
I am broad and muscular. At my thinnest, I was broad and muscular. Even now, as I am working to restore my previously restricted body and carrying extra weight, I am still broad and muscular.
I am also physically stronger than most women and always have been.
My means of making peace with my body was by leaning into the things I thought I could be good at, the things I thought my body was suited for. Eventually it was my strength. If I couldn’t be thin, I would be strong. So I gravitated toward gritty, tough sports that required mental stamina and strength. Crossfit, Olympic lifting, mountain biking. I used all of them and overexercise as a means of weight management.
Part of this healing journey I am on is about accepting myself and my body. It’s also about challenging some of my long-held and deeply ingrained, faulty beliefs.
On some level, I associated activities like yoga and barre, even femininity itself, with being soft and weak. In my own messed up way, I believed that being soft and weak made you vulnerable, more likely to be taken advantage of, more likely to be abused. And as a child who was sexually abused off and on for a period of years and verbally abused for much longer, I never again wanted to be a victim. So I created a tough exterior. I put up walls. I took up sports that were gritty, that required mental fortitude and strength.
As I was writing this, I had a thought. A question actually. Were my muscles — even my fat — padding I used subconsciously to protect myself?
Even strong people can become prey. It’s taken me a long time to understand that the walls we put up around ourselves don’t always protect us and they don’t always serve us. In the last year, and in particular the last few months, I have been working on tearing down those walls with the people I trust and the people who need me to be vulnerable.
So I tried aerial acrobatics and confronted some of my long-held beliefs about myself and my body, but was it fun?
Yep.
Our instructor, the lean, lithe type I would expect for aerial acrobatics, led us through a warmup and then shared three important things we needed to keep in mind before we got on the silks:
It’s hard. Like really really hard. Don’t expect to get it right away.
It hurts. After you do it a long time, she said, the pain goes away, or maybe you just get used to it.
It’s dangerous. She didn’t elaborate on all the ways hanging by bolts and fabric could be dangerous, but it’s not too hard to imagine.
She also made a point of explaining that the silks and the hardware holding them are incredibly strong and could easily support every person in the studio. This had been one of my worries — at my heavier weight, could I even attempt to participate?
As I expected, aerial acrobatics is difficult and takes an incredible amount of strength and coordination. Our instructor demonstrated a few key movements, breaking them down multiple times, and then walked around and provided individual coaching. We did short and long holds, foot locks, side leans and a few hanging upside down poses. In some weird alternative reality, I approached all of it with an open mind. Even if I didn’t think I could do it, I attempted it anyway. Some of the movements I had to attempt multiple times. I was surprised by what I could do.
And I had fun.
There were a lot of laughs. Everyone was put in uncomfortable positions and faced challenges that they may or may not have overcome. In many ways, it was much more freeing than other types of fitness activities because it was brand new to everyone in the room. Even non-acrobatic types like myself could still somehow position ourselves in the silks and hang upside down. I didn’t poll the room, but I bet most everyone would say they were surprised by what they could do.
In between breaks, I surveyed the room. There were women of all shapes and sizes. Most of them were decently fit, this type of activity usually weeds out people who aren’t at all athletic or adventurous. And I had a thought: I’m not all that different from all of these people.
Even though I’m not where I need to be with body acceptance, I have much more kindness towards myself, especially in these types of situations. I also have way more appreciation for all types of activities and movement. These activities aren’t weak or soft. They’re really hard. And the women who do them are badasses who, no matter what natural physical and mental gifts they’ve been given, actually have to work at it to get better. Just like me.