While I’ve always been an active person, I‘ve never really been in shape; unless, of course, you count round. Though I’ve gone in and out of having rock hard quads, my arms had all the functional merit of a set of pool noodles.

In my first aerial class, the first task we had was to look a 20 foot set of crimson aerial silks in the folds and climb it.

Needless to say, my pool noodles strained so hard I began sweating in a place I was not aware produced sweat, and yet I did not even manage to climb a foot off the ground. Even though that one hour of aerial yoga kicked my but in a way 19 years of dance training never could, I could not wipe the grin off my face for the coming week. This is especially impressive considering how incredibly hard it was to get out of bed the next morning.

For those of you acquainted with the study of physics or, at least, with the mechanics of throwing a ball into the air, then you know that what goes up will inevitably come down. Even more so, you understand no matter the initial force of the ball being thrown, it will continue in its parabola pathway at a constant velocity until it reaches the ground.

Aerial dance allows you to look physics, constant velocity, and gravity in the face and tell it to, “Get Lost!”

You learn to climb up, wrap yourself, and look down on the gravity-bound suckers below you with pity. Aerial dance brings style pull ups back into style in a much cooler way than middle school compulsory physical education ever could.

As I’ve gotten stronger and learned more ways to tether myself from the rafters, I’ve felt a new sense of self-confidence that was entirely unprecedented. Gone are the days of being ashamed of my pool noodle arms, in fact, I began to actively invest in muscle tees.

Even though aerial classes provide me with a physical exhaustion beyond compare and keep me up at night with anticipation, it is entirely indisputable that aerial dance makes me feel like a warrior Viking mermaid.