Aerial Circus Arts Private Lesson Requests

Working on including the thoughtful art of minimal gripping to your foundational skills or a short and specific sequence. This type of lesson is most useful for a skill you are able to repeat throughout a private lesson. Assessing the execution of a skill or sequence with an eye to clarity can help "clean" a skill to appear more polished, clear and purposeful in terms of transition moments, extensions/styles and poses. This lesson would begin with discussion and practice of a skill you consider to be foundational/basic (ex: double foot-locks, flamingo, or a short sequence). First we watch and appreciate the way you habitually work through the skill, looking at grips, engagement in different parts of the body, and gaze. Then we discuss ways to shift or change these things that may have become a habit unintentionally or because of a modification that was never reassessed. In the end, the hope is that the foundational skill and the way it is executed has a reason behind the manner of its execution.

Conditioning for a specific goal or skill. In the private lesson we would work on developing personal cues and exercises to harness your strength and flexibility to execute skills with proper form and confidence. This style of lesson is great for nailing skills that aren't quite where you want them to be stylistically, or for skills you have just begun including in your training. Examples: hipkey, hikey roll up, hip circles, wheel downs, inversions, 360°, cross back straddle. There are so many ground and aerial based drills that can be created to help you reach your goals faster without sacrificing safety or form! We love to create & develop new ways to help students connect with different ways of engaging and moving in the air.

Thoughtful insight into your form or technique on specific skills. This lesson can help you think through ways to make a movement or skill more straightforward, audience-appealing or even easier (without sacrificing form or technique) for you as an aerialist. We will work to discover habits that have developed over time that may be changing the nature of a skill, or even hindering the full possibility of its execution. The lesson will begin with a breakdown of the skill you want to work on. For example, a basic star drop; The foundational pieces for star drop are an inversion, a diaper wrap and a belly wrap. We analyze each piece of the skill so that in the end each and every movement has been unpacked. There will be a thought out reason and rhyme behind why you execute it the way you do. This practice can help connect the skill together with more confidence. We look at at shape, alignment, flexibility, and moments of strength to address or work on with drills. This lesson can help a skill feel like it has been made your own, feel like it has new life, purpose or power, or give you a new lens through which to train it. It is always good to be able to do things multiple ways before picking the one that is best for you.

Integration of new skills (of wraps or techniques) into already developed ideas or repertoire. This can mean wrap theory discussion/ practice or finding ways to link your new skill/technique into your previous practice. You want to bring your new feat into your repertoire. For example you've just unlocked your meathook! You want to develop ways to bring it into your practice more regularly. We would discuss how to add a meathook or meathook flair/direction into your basic inversion? Your S-wrap entry? Your hipkey? Adding in a new technique or skill to your basic repertoire can give new life to your practice and improve the new skill itself as it becomes a familiar movement. Another example: you have just learned a new divided pole sequence and want to link it with a basic sequence so that you can work your endurance. We can find various ways to link this divided pole skill into a foundational sequence for repeated practice. This is a great way to find original pathways or "OMG" moments where you realize there is a connection you did not see before.

Cleaning and uncovering new techniques and personal style through basic flow. If you are feeling plateaued or like you are ready for your next skill to condition and perfect, a lesson which analyzes basic movements to make clearer pathways or cleaner technique is fantastic. It can improve both your ability to flow, and/or exercise your ability to look at your movements and analyze what would make it easier, smoother or feel better in your body. Giving you a basic flow (with a focus on skills with beautiful transitions between them), we would learn the movements and see how you naturally handle the transitions. Then we would pick moments which feel "wrong" or clunky and find the cues for your body to find a flow or "ah-ha moment" within them. OR we find a way to temporarily work around the transition if there are any flexibility, ROM or strength based attributes that make it difficult to execute at the moment (this can also lead to the discovery of new pathways! exciting!). If the latter seems to be the preventative factor for the transition we would address it with conditioning drills or alternatives which do not detract from the beauty of the transition, but add to it. These cues to help your body acclimate to new transitions often transcend beyond the specific moment or skill and are applicable to various movements that can be added into personal practice.

You want to review a sequence from a class or workshop. Let us know which pieces of the sequence or skill you would like to go over so we can assess if it will take an entire private lesson or just constitute a piece of it. Describe what about the skill sequence challenged you, or what parts of it you want to address in private-level depth. Ideas for this being: (1) you are confused on gripping and would like a clear answer, (2) you feel like your form in one moment could be improved with a personal cue, (3) you want to learn how you could integrate it into a longer sequence, (4) you want to ask for specific input on how you as an aerialist could improve the skill (either with a unique flair or conditioning).

You feel ready to learn a new skill! We feel most comfortable teaching new skills to students whose habits and strengths I know well. The lesson can either involve a skill we see you executing with great skill and form that we create or choose based on our prior knowledge of your strengths. OR if you have a specific idea or would appreciate the skill including a certain feature (strength, flexibility (back or split), hipkey, foot-lock, spin) we can develop/ choose something you may connect with! You can always request specific skills that you anticipate are at your level, but be ready for modifications if we do not see a clean pre-requisite skill.

Wanting a new choreography or sequence or help with one! This may require being built over multiple lessons depending on how in-depth you hope to process the skills and routine; a focus on skills, or musicality, or transitions - or all of the above. You would need to relay your expectations for the sequence and/ or choreography. (1) do you know the skills you want to integrate? (2) Do you know the song? (3) The style you want (fast, slow, creepy, etc)? What do you need from me to help you create this (inspiration in the form of skills, technique adjustment, helping with a specific transition) - or are we to create it for you (which we are happy to do!). We can develop the choreography or sequence through a conversation of movement and technique, it is just helpful for me to know how many of the ideas you would like for us to have for the sequence or if you would like me to be an idea-bouncer for you, or a technique/performance advisor!

You want us to tell help you discover what is the next step in your aerial training. You want us to tell you what you need to condition next in general, or in order to achieve a certain skill (that you want or we see you rocking in the future). In the lesson you want me to find a technique to fine-tune or a habit that may need to be broken or discussed so that you can move passed an inspirational or skill/strength based block in the air. This lesson would include a lot of demonstration on the students end of their foundational and basic skills (as habits are often discovered in the foundations). We would let you know what I am seeing, thoughtfully question your perhaps unintentional or automatic movements so that we can make room for new ideas to be explored. This private could take that foundational flow you've built into your body and add to it, thoughtfully question it for productive change, or teach you new techniques that link with (or shift) the foundations or transitions you know and love.

Submit a video of your personal training practice demonstrating a combination or short choreography on your apparatus that starts from the floor.

Pre-lesson Zoë will develop strategies and drills for unlocking different movement methods and techniques that can help smooth out any bumps , wraps or tail placements - as well as add to the fluidity and “constant motion effect” of your flow!

During the lesson she will break down the seconds of your video for you, showing exactly what parts can be developed to reflect the qualities you can to showcase! Then we will break them down together to help achieve the desired affect - and/or ways to practice and things (engagements/gaze/skills) to focus on to get there!

Going over the details and technique of one of my digital manuals:

(1) Smooth Operator, C Shaping

(2) Star Stacking

(3) Spinning Silks Lift Offs

(4) Lift Offs: Pathways from Earth to Sky

(5) Centered on Silks

(6) Cross Back Creativity

(7) Mindful Movement

In working through these topics together we can unlock the technique for you to integrate them into flow and practice!