Episode 27: Lessons We Never Wrote Down: The Unspoken Lessons Girls Learn in Aerial

[00:00] Introduction — Flourish Retreat in Italy

[02:24] Empowering women through aerial arts  

• Kaiut Yoga 
• My class in Boulder

[07:48] Body autonomy and ownership in aerial

[10:23] Building resilience and confidence in young girls

[13:07] The sneaky teach

[13:56] The legacy of aerial teaching and its impact

Connect with Fallon

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 🌐 www.inthewingsaerial.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to The Aerial Alchemist, where movement transforms into magic and stories take flight. I'm Fallon, dancer, aerialist, and storyteller, inviting you into a world where circus and dance meet creativity, resilience, and community. Whether you're here to be inspired, to learn, or to simply dream a little bigger, you found your place. I'm glad you're here. Welcome to the Ariel Alchemist, episode number 27, The Lessons We Never Wrote Down. Today we're going to be talking about what we're also teaching when we teach Ariel, whether we mean to or not. Before we jump in today, my dog is already bored. She is snoring and had enough of me, but we're going to keep going. Before we jump in today, just a reminder that there are still spots available for our retreat this summer in Italy. It is coming up, y'all. I cannot wait. We are less than three months away. So we have popped into standard pricing. I do want to say that with all of the things that I produce, retreats, shows, everything, we never want cost to be a barrier. And we do the very best we can to make sure that it is not for people. So if the pricing, you've been looking at it and it's gone up and you're like, oh, now it's a few hundred dollars more and I'm not able to afford it, please reach out to us. We're happy to work with you. We're happy to work out different payment plans. If you need a different payment plan than what we have listed, we don't want any of that to be a barrier. It was just a jumping off point for us. So please reach out. It's going to be such a beautiful week, June 19th through the 25th in Umbria, Italy. And uh we, it's myself and Leah co-hosting teaching a creation retreat. All levels are welcome. All apparatuses are welcome. We will be tailoring it to you, but it would be helpful to us if you went ahead and signed up so that we know who we're tailoring it for. And we can make sure that everybody is included and we get in all of the juicy stuff for you. Sign up, you can head to the link in the show notes and uh feel free to reach out with any questions about what the plan is, what we're doing, what exactly a creation retreat is, if it's appropriate for you, the answer is yes, but we can dive in more about it. And yeah. So without further ado, let's jump in. So since today, when you are hearing this, it will be the last day of International Women's Month. And I am a feminist. I have always been and I will always be. And I truly don't understand any woman who is not, because all a feminist is, is someone who wants the same opportunities for all genders. That's that's what we want. And the first show that I produced actually debuted on International Women's Day in 2019 and was about women. So it's something that has always been been in the forefront of my brain. So why what do you mean? We're talking about lesson planning and aerial teaching and whatnot. So over the years, I've had a lot of thoughts on like what I'm actually teaching people when I'm teaching classes, specifically young girls, all women, but especially young girls. And I want to preface this whole episode when I'm speaking about girls and women. I'm speaking to anyone who has ever identified as that at the end. We could jump in more about what I mean by that if you would like, but that will be in a different episode. So when we talk about like girls and women in our culture, we get a lot of programming. A lot of programming around our bodies. I believe men do too, but today is about not to them. It is about us. So we get lots of programming about what our bodies look like, not what they can do, which is a lot, by the way. I mean, we have the capacity to grow another human, which is just the biggest magical trick there ever was. Anyways, so it's all about aesthetics, and it's not so much about what we can do. And so I think this is where Ariel can start to come in and start shifting that. Something that drew me to Ariel and the circus arts, having come from a dance background, was this more acceptance around bodies and not having to look or be a certain way, and in fact, like embracing the differences in bodies. Not saying like one is better or worse, but they're different. And because they're they because they're different, there's different capabilities, which I just always think is interesting and fascinating and cool. And it's something that when I teach, I speak to and try to do it in a very, well, in a not judgmental way for sure, but just in an observational way. Something that I think about with Ariel, specifically when we're teaching it, is body proportions. Something that I found interesting. This was years ago. I was doing it was a ground dance piece. It was with four dancers. Two of us were on the shorter end of things and two of us were on the taller end of things. But the interesting thing is at the end of this piece, we all faced the audience and we all held hands. And now that I'm saying this, maybe I've talked about this on the podcast before, but here we go again. And when we grabbed hands, the tall, so we went tall, short, tall, short. And the the dancer who was the tall one in between the two shorties had to reach further down for my hand than the other short dancer. And what then we started noticing when we were looking in in the mirrors is how much longer my arms are than other people's. I never knew. They're just my arms. That's just how they grew. I didn't know that they were freakishly long. And because of that, I am able to do certain things easier, like potentially inverting under a trapeze bar. I have more space. So it's something that, you know, interesting. On the other end, there's things that I can't do because they're long or that I have to adjust. So it's a thing that as we go through and we teach and we learn aerial, that we learn like, okay, this is my body proportions. And that's not good or bad. It just is. It is different, and we will be better at different things than other things because of our body proportions without judgment. It makes me think of when I'm in my I take a kaiu yoga class. And if you don't know what that is, look that up. I can talk about it later. Um, but I highly recommend it. It's done wonders in my body. So if you have that accessible to you, go take that class. Anyways, so my yoga teacher, she has us, you know, start out on the ground and with our legs up the wall. And she says, I want you to notice, I want you to notice how your back touches the ground without judgment. Like which part is touching versus what is not touching? Get into that. And then she says, admire it as if it were something in nature, as if you were admiring the face of a mountain or how a tree curves, or something like that. And I like that's been so like profound. And that's kind of what I tried to get to in all of this is like, can we just admire our bodies and what they can do? And all of us in Ariel are doing things that most people won't even attempt. So it gives you that like power over your body and it starts rewiring your brain a little bit. The big point that I always talk about when I'm when I'm talking about teaching Ariel, when I'm thinking about what I'm teaching, when it comes to younger women, for sure, younger girls, is the autonomy and body ownership. Yes, there's this like shift that can happen from how we look at our bodies from an aesthetic point of view versus what they can do physically. But then there's this autonomy over it. I start my classes, you know, in the first session, or if I'm doing a workshop, we introduce ourselves. And then I ask if people have injuries that I should know about, and then I ask if they're okay with me touching them for spots. And and rarely do I have someone say that they're not okay with it. Most people want that. I am a tactile teacher. So especially when we get into like, we know this when we're upside down, like everything goes out the window. We don't know what right or left it is. So I can touch an arm and say this arm moves. And so that can be very helpful. But understanding that that is your choice and whether that happens, I do put a caveat on that if you are about to actively fall, or if you are actively falling, I'm going to reach out and catch you and and help make sure that you don't land on your head. But aside from that, I won't do it. So there's that type of body ownership. Then I also talk a lot about with apparatuses is you tell the apparatus what to do. You tell the silk where to go, you tell the lira where to go on your body. Because if you don't, it will go where you don't want it to go. And it will be painful. So that's your job to have that autonomy over it and to allow it to happen or not happen the way that you want. And I think, I don't know if it ever really translates, maybe not in a conscious way ever, maybe, but how does that translate when we are then moving through our lives, moving through the world, starting to like, especially with young girls starting to become physical with partners and being able to have that voice of like, no, that's that's not where I want that to go. And that might be rich reaching, but I kind of don't think it is. I think that all these things help build blocks for us and build like rewire things in our brain of how we have this power and control over ourselves because it's the only thing in this life that we have power and control over. Something else that I touched on a few weeks ago, um, when we were talking about the space between, is um is that most people are not brave enough to do Ariel, to do the thing. How many times have I heard someone say, Oh, I wish I could do that, but I could never? Well, you could. And I think when young girls say yes and come to the aerial class, that requires commitment and presence and patience and determination and resilience. That girl learns to be bold and learns that there will be a reward for do stepping outside the comfort zone and doing this thing, and that that might translate further down in her life. There's also this idea about the teacher mirroring or modeling, maybe modeling is a better better word, is modeling these new relationships with bodies. And we're not perfect, we're all struggling through our own body things, and it changes over a lifetime. But being very mindful about how I speak about my body and speaking about my body with kindness and acceptance in front of my students and modeling that relationship. Because whether I realize it or not, most of the time, they're looking up to me. I'm doing this thing that they want to do. I'm doing it in a way that they want to do it. How many times, us as teachers, have we been told, oh my gosh, you made that look so easy? Oh my gosh, you made that look so beautiful. Oh my gosh, how do you do that? And so if you're so they're watching more than just what you're doing in the air. They're watching how you relate to everything. And it's a thing that as a teacher that I also try to be mindful of of when I don't know something or when I do make a mistake, how do I handle that? Because we can get into this like imposter syndrome feeling of I should always be doing everything perfectly. My foot lock went on wonky today, and what the heck? I've been doing this for 15 years, and and that shouldn't be happening anymore. But how do I handle that in front of students? And how do I bounce back from that? And how do I treat myself and my body when I do that? I'm doing very hard things too. And so modeling how that can work, the days that I'm off. Hey, y'all, like this isn't feeling good in my body today, so I'm gonna show you on the ground, but I can't show you in the air today. And that's okay because we're working with my body, we're working with my injury, or what happens when I make that mistake and in front of them. Well, that happens sometimes because it does. This is something that I've also talked with a lot with Leah. And I'm gonna pop in her little thing that she talks about about her sneaky teach, and it's learning to love yourself, which is really like everything that I've talked about so far, just wrapped up in a nice bow. But through finding strength and discovering resilience and moving with grace, that your students could build a relationship with their bodies that looks a lot like love, even though we never say that in class. The encouragement that happens, the us loving each other and supporting each other, then becomes internalized. And that's what gets passed on from teacher to student. And it's really, it's really quite powerful. So if you're an aerial instructor and you maybe have struggled with as I have, and I think some of my colleagues have, of what is my legacy and what am I teaching and is my work important? Because our society likes to tell us that it's not really is important work that we're doing. Yes, we're teaching cool tricks. Yes, we're getting people fit and physically healthy, but we're also getting them mentally healthy. And we're also teaching these lessons to not even just younger students. I've been focusing a bit on younger girls, but also women. It breaks down this messaging that we have gotten our entire life, piece by piece, and it starts rewiring it for us. And that matters. That is a big deal. So I just thought it would be a nice thing to talk about before International Women's Month ends. Feels like we should have more than just a month, but then I'll just me. I'd be interested to hear what aerial or dance or circus or whatever it is that you do, what your art form has taught you that no one planned to teach you. Have you made any of these realizations or discoveries on your own in a different way? I would love to hear about that. Please, please send me the messages about that. I want to know. I like collecting these things for myself. I'm looking at the time. I'm gonna wrap this up. I want to thank my patrons on Patreon for supporting me and all of my work for helping power this podcast. I could not do it without you. Thank you for trusting me. If this resonated with you, I would love it if you shared it. Maybe with a teacher that had an impact on you. That would be very cool. If you have requests for future episodes, drop me a line. You can reach me on all the social medias at in the wings Ariel or on Patreon at in the wings Ariel. I would love, love to hear from you. And I hope you have a beautiful week. I will see you next week. This has been the Arial Alchemist. Now go create some magic of your own. Happy flying.