Juggling
Juggling is one of those skills that takes time and practise is key. Within the beginner's lessons, we will start with one ball and progress to three in no time. I will provide lots of little exercises to held build body and spacial awareness along with attention to technique. And help you with common problems when starting to learn. Not only this, but some bits and bobs that are fun to play around with, so within your own training, you can keep it fresh.
If you are coming to me with more advanced skills, we will work on a variety of tricks along with more complex techniques, using a 'breakdown' method to learn them faster. There are endless patterns to learn and juggle, so there are endless throws, catches and ideas to play around with. Coupled with advice and tips to improve your current level!
Handstands
Handstands are hard. But totally possible to learn. If you come to me with zero experience of being on your hands, we will work on everything from correct body position, hand placement and position and building strength in the core areas. We will usually start with headstands and progress to handstand after some strength is built. The progression in handstands is up to you, meaning that if you put the effort in, you will see improvement faster. And we will progress from the basics, to basic shapes, then free standing and duration, to transitions and more advanced handstand skills. All you need to start learning handstands is an empty wall and some floor space to warm up and condition.
If you have some experience in handstands, I will act as more of a coach to correct your shapes and give you harder exercises to increase your handstand time. Along with developing your shape archive so you can challenge yourself and achieve more!
Fitness
Fitness is a broad term. As a circus artist, I have to keep my strength and resistance up through any phase or situation. So if you want to just get fitter or have a need for it, grab some friends and book a group class! And lets be honest, it's not the most exciting thing to be doing. But I have to tell you, I was exactly the same. I found the fun in doing exercise and not just by convincing myself that it would be good for me. But by varying the exercises and performing 'multi-exercises*' to keep it from being boring and I also love creating circuits so you are constantly doing things whilst time is flying by. I am also a firm believer in having a continuing progress through fitness. Meaning that I won't force you to do a set amount of repetitions all the time and always provide variations within exercises to cover every level for everyone.
Fitness shouldn't be a chore, it should be fun and inclusive, that's why I don't take myself to seriously and am not militant during our sessions. Another area of fitness I firmly support, is stabilisation and resistance. For joints and range of movement, muscle density can only do so much. That's why I integrate these types of exercises within my classes, so you can be reassured that you won't be feeling like your knees, shoulders, wrists and hips are going to snap as the muscles surround them develop.
*Combined exercises in one exercise
Flexibility
Flexibility is essential in life, not just for instagram. If your goal is to get the splits, then you need to be aware of your own body's build and carefully stretch to increase your range of mobility. Not just your flexibility. And that's what I can help you with!
How flexibility works, is by very carefully pulling on your tendons to cause some minute tearing, which in a short time with heal longer. So I get that it sounds horrifying. But that's that truth. So to prevent this process from being detrimental your body, we need a good warm up to get the blood flowing and loosen the joints in preparation.
Not only this, but as a standard practise within my classes, I will incorporate stability and resistance exercises to improve the strength in joints. This is to prevent possible injury in these areas and improve a thing called active flexibility. Which is another element within flexibility that is important.
So within the whole act of stretching, you have two major types of flexibility, one being passive and the other being active. In short, passive flexibility is stretching in a relaxed state and active flexibility is a form of flexibility that requires you to engage your muscles to be able to hold positions (like in ballet for example). Which is important so you can control how you use your flexibility. And avoid problems in the future, because if your tendons become too long, your muscles may not be able to sustain your newly discovered range of motion.
So with all of that out of the way, split class anyone?