Learning to Soar

Ah yes, winter break is over so I can get back go silking!! 😀 I have to say, I can already feel myself getting stronger. On day 4 of my aerial silks experience, I was able to climb all the way to the top not once, not twice, but three whole times!! This is a huge accomplish for me since it was a struggle for me to get to the top back on day 3, before we were let out for winter break. I did a lot of stretching over the break as well with my friend Shay, who is super flexible, in order to improve my overall flexibility, mainly in my splits. So back to the topic of silks — not only was I able to climb to the top multiple times, but I also did a single foot lock in the air! Another huge accomplishment on day 4 🙂 Because of this feat, I learned this pretty move featured on the picture to the left 🙂 My tights were a Christmas present from my sister, Kat, and I absolutely LOVE them, I thought they would look gorgeous in a photo with the black silk, and I wasn’t mistaken haha 😉 I also noticed during this class that I was on the silk more often than I wasn’t, unlike the first three days of silk lessons. On days 1, 2, and 3, I was so tired and sore from the minimal stuff I was doing at the time that most of the class I spent stretching out my forearm muscles (in my defense, aerial silks works the forearms like no other exercise I’ve ever done!). However, on day 4, I was finally at a good enough level to do the fun poses of silks, which is a pretty awesome feeling, so I wanted to be on the silk practicing these new skills no matter how tired or sore I was. I tried to do the move that is most commonly called “getting into the ‘x'”, a move necessary to master before doing a straddle back, but that move is tough!! I could hardly get my shoulders into the ‘x’; it was a tight squeeze. I need to keep practicing that move in order to get better at it, which I am so willing to do. At this point, I have realized that I really love aerial silks, and I definitely want to continue it in college and even after! 🙂

I started the Aerial Silks after school activity at my school on November 25th, 2014, expecting it to be a breeze — I was so very wrong. On the first day, the amazing teachers Mrs. Lauder and Mrs. Cho tried to teach me the most basic move one needs to master in order to do anything else silks related: climbing. And I couldn’t even do that. Not. Even. One. Measly. Climb. It was extremely frustrating, having seen so many videos of beginners who were able to climb right off the bat; even my friend who also started her first lesson at the same time as me was able to climb all the way to the top of the silk first try. I was frustrated and mad at myself for not being able to do it, but something inside me urged me to practice more. So I continued to go a second time the next Tuesday, and I was able to climb twice (yay!), but still not all the way to the top. In fact, I was so far from it that I said I wanted to make it a goal of mine to climb all the way to the top by January. Again, after day 2, I was frustrated, but more hopeful than the first day. That same feeling of wanting to practice again stuck with me, this time even stronger now that I climbed one climb higher than the previous time. Then day 3 rolled around. I expected it to go the same as day 1 and day 2, not being able to climb all the way to the top, but lo and behold — I made it!! All the way to the top, I pushed myself higher and higher and forced myself not to quit. I touched the metal clasp at the top with extreme happiness flowing through my entire body (or maybe it was adrenaline… ahh same thing xD) right before I descended quickly out of pure exhaustion. Whoops– forgot to take a photo haha :O Mah baaad… Anyway, that one climb to the top was all I could do that day in relation to actually climbing. Boy, it took all my strength to climb all the way up! So, for the rest of the lesson, I just practiced foot locks on the ground. I learned how to do a single foot lock and a double foot lock (as pictured above) and did the splits in a cool looking way 🙂 I was so proud of myself for reaching my goal on December 9th, 2014, instead of in January as I had predicted. Then Mrs. Cho asked me a question I had no clue how to answer — “Now that you’ve met your goal early, what’s your next one going to be?” I was stumped for the longest time. I saw so many people more advanced than me doing so many cool tricks, I didn’t know where to start! So as I contemplated this over the winter break, I decided my next goal was to take baby steps and do a single foot lock… In the AIR!!! 😀 ❤

Until next time, lovelies :* Thanks for reading ❤

Kisses,
– Kayla Scogin