A Better Perspective From Upside Down
How Aerial Arts Redefined My Life
Photo by Don Curry
Hello, I am Cali the Weirdo
I was never athletic. I sucked at sports. I skipped P.E. and gym as often as I could.
But I did join Drill Team in high school, although that was more of an attempt at mocking the podunk town’s values rather than any sort of enthusiasm for dance.
Look at me, I’m a semi-goth intellectual wearing a sparkly cowboy hat at a football game, I’m sooooo ironic, right? I’m like a whole different kind of weirdo, right?
It’s not a phase, Mom.
Sure, my intentions were a bit warped, but Drill Team did teach me one thing: I am pretty darn flexible. For initial tryouts, we had to attempt high kicks and I discovered I could naturally do the splits with ease. My flexibility was the only reason my satirical tryout became a real spot on the team (much to my chagrin).
Sidenote: I skipped practice so much that by halfway through the year I just dropped out of it completely and took up running the yearbook instead.
While it was cool to be effortlessly better at something a group of legitimate Drill Team girls struggled with, I walked away from the team without a second thought about those bendy skills.
My future was going to be flexing my brain typing away at a desk, not sashaying my way through life. I knew what I was going to be, simple as that.
Writer, Girlfriend, and That’s About It
Leaving high school behind, I eventually achieved my goal of typing away for a living and escaped that small, provincial town.
I transitioned from Cali the Weirdo to Cali the Writer, and also Cali the Girlfriend. But that was about it.
Those titles were how I defined myself both internally and externally. I was a workaholic, a homebody, and terribly codependent. And after a few years in those self-appointed categories, my mental and physical health started to suffer.
I was depressed and anxious and drinking a lot and insecure about every part of my being, especially my appearance. I just wanted to run away from my unhappy job and my toxic relationship, but I didn’t know how. Abandoning those titles would mean I was hopelessly lost and worthless.
If I wasn’t Cali the Writer or Cali the Girlfriend, who was I?
Self Actualization Hanging Upside Down
In stepped my best friend, Christin, to try to get me out of my funk. My downward spiral was uncomfortably evident and there weren’t enough happy hours or yoga mantras to slow down my plummet to rock bottom.
So she suggested something completely new—and incredibly intimidating. She invited me to a lyra class: a large metal hoop hung from a high ceiling, designed for poses and tricks and sequences stringing them together. Think Cirque du Soleil, but featuring an uncoordinated and self-disparaging girl known as Cali the Unstable (in mind and body).
Although banged up and bruised from my shaky first attempts to hop on the hoop, I couldn’t wait to go back.
My long-forgotten flexibility was re-engaged and it didn’t matter how much of a struggle-bus I was at the beginning of each class—by the end, I had a sense of accomplishment that I hadn’t felt in years, or maybe ever.
Photo by Michael Nylif
I was now Cali the Aerialist and that had a ripple effect on every aspect of my life. I was more than just an employee or girlfriend—there was a truly tangible thing that gave my individual life depth, that revitalized my self-image, and that gave me a sense of community I never realized I was so desperately lacking. Suddenly I had real self-confidence, both in and outside the studio.
It no longer mattered if I changed jobs or ended relationships or felt insecure. Cali the Aerialist had a tribe and could tackle any challenge.
If I could do this, then I could do anything.
My Tribe
Located up on the second floor of an old building in the Lower Greenville neighborhood of Dallas was my home base: Extend Fitness Studio (EFS). Over countless hours of lyra, Christin and I became ingrained in this tribe of Amazons known as aerialists. As a family, we laughed and cried and tried and failed and succeeded and cheered each other on and picked each other up (sometimes literally).
Together, Christin and I shared many aerial adventures hanging out on that hoop.
Sidenote: Christin is now a Lyra instructor at EFS and I couldn’t be more proud of my best friend.
I discovered that when I spin around, hang upside down, use that flexibility, and just let myself breathe...there is a clarity of mind that I never thought was achievable. There is a strength within myself that I never knew was possible. I found a version of myself that I could love. And that was something I never truly had before.
Photo from Disco, TX Psychedelic Spaceship
Home is Where the Hoop Is
Jobs and relationships change, and inevitably so did my location. I moved away from Dallas to Austin, painfully saying goodbye not just to EFS but to my best friend. While distance could never sever our friendship, it suddenly put me 200 miles away from my tribe.
Refusing to ever go back to being just Cali the Writer and Girlfriend, I faced a new round of intimidation and entered a new studio, Laché Movement Co. All that self-confidence I built at EFS had the potential to deflate around new faces, new classes, new apparatuses.
But it didn’t. Although I may have been 100% alone coming into a new studio in a new city, I didn’t feel 100% alone. I had that self-assured foundation that I could do anything, and it remained steadfast in the face of uncharted territory. Being at Laché I didn’t feel like an outsider, even though I technically was, because I knew I was strong enough to overcome my insecurity of being new. If there was a hoop, I was home. And Laché welcomed me with open arms.
So I slowly found my new tribe in Austin, both in and outside of the studio. My fears of falling back into being a one-dimensional person diminished, and I even broke out of my comfort zone to explore new apparatuses, different studios, and create new friendships. I wasn’t just spinning around upside down on a lyra around old familiar faces anymore—Cali the Austin Aerialist was growing.
Just like in the beginning back in Dallas, my perception of who I am was expanding thanks to aerials. I embraced the unknown and intimidating once again and found that not only could I survive, but I could actually thrive if I just threw off my preconceived notions of who I was, what my mind and body were capable of, and who I needed surrounding me to be able to accomplish things.
All I needed was a little self-confidence and I could achieve anything, from spinning heel-hang splits to making friends as a 30-year-old in a new city.
I am Cali the Weirdo and Cali the Writer and Cali the Girlfriend and Cali the Aerialist, but most importantly I am a person who knows how to accept that those titles may change and I’ll still be okay. The possibilities are endless.
I have so much more to offer the world beyond all the titles I assign myself. We all do.
Aerials taught me that.
Photo from Disco, TX Psychedelic Spaceship
