Nobody Starts at the Top: A Beginner-Friendly Way to Start Aerial Hammock (Aerial Yoga)
(If you’re new here: I use the term aerial hammock, but you may also hear it called aerial sling or aerial yoga—same apparatus, different communities.)
As I watch the Olympics, I think about the little girl version of me—mesmerized by figure skating.
Behind my childhood yard was a swampy patch of woods that froze over in winter. I would shovel a 10×10 space, lace up old skates with rusted blades, and pretend I could jump and spin and glide across the ice. My parents didn’t have the money for lessons or decent skates, so I quietly filed the dream away. It felt like something beautiful that belonged to other people.
Then something shifted when I became an adult: I realized there isn’t an age limit on dreams. As an adult, you can go after the little-girl dreams you still carry.
But the first time I stepped onto the ice again, I was holding the boards in fear of falling and thinking: How am I ever going to jump and rotate in the air? How does a person even get from here to there?
Every skill has a starting point (and it’s smaller than you think)
Here’s what I learned: every move you see an athlete do has a starting point—way, way back in their training—and it’s almost always smaller, safer, and less dramatic than you’d imagine.
In figure skating, the beginning of jumping is something called a bunny hop. It’s basically a little skip-jump. That’s it. That’s where “jumping into the air” starts—before you ever rotate, before you ever fly.
And honestly? That first hop can feel terrifying when you’re older, when the ground feels farther away than it did when you were five.
But over time, that hop becomes so simple you barely think about it. And that’s the point: you train the basics until they become your body’s normal.
Aerial has bunny hops too
The same is true in aerial hammock/sling (aerial yoga).
On Instagram, we see high-flying drops, intricate spins, and beautiful choreography. When we watch Cirque du Soleil, it can feel like we’re watching something inhuman. But every person you admire started somewhere. For many, they didn’t have the strength to lift themselves onto the fabric at first.
For every “strength-defying” moment, there were a thousand small starting points:
A plank on the fabric
A simple climb up and down
The first time they found circus seat
The first time they explored an inversion safely
The first time they learned how to hold their body with control
No one starts at the big scary thing—or at least they shouldn’t.
And when people do start there (often with poor instruction or without a systematic approach), they get frustrated, scared, or hurt. They walk away thinking: I’m not strong enough for this. When really, they just didn’t get the “bunny hop”.
Why social media makes aerial feel harder than it is
We live in a very trick-oriented culture. We’re trained to focus on the “bragging rights” moments—the moves that look cool on social media. You see it everywhere:
Skiers doing blacks before they’ve mastered solid parallel turns
Skaters going for doubles and axels before they truly understand their edges
Aerial students attempting drops before they know how to organize their body on the fabric
And what happens? We start to fear the very thing that could bring us joy—before we even begin.
A safer, more joyful way to start aerial hammock (aerial yoga)
What if you could start differently?
What if you could understand that there are gentle, small steps that build real strength and real confidence—steps that make you feel safer every time you practice?
Because here’s the sneaky truth: learning this way doesn’t just change your aerial practice. It changes how you approach your life.
Learning to figure skate as an adult helped me believe I could learn aerial in my fourth decade too. It taught me that I’m allowed to start at the beginning. I’m allowed to be new. I’m allowed to build something slowly—and still get somewhere beautiful.
Activation First: the difference between “just doing it” and learning safely
One thing I see all the time (in skating, in aerial, in fitness) is people trying to “muscle through” a move.
But progress doesn’t come from trying harder. It comes from learning how to engage your body before you load a skill.
That’s why I teach Activation First—so your body learns how to organize, stabilize, and breathe before you climb higher, invert, or add complexity.
If you’ve ever thought, Why does this feel impossible for me?—it may not be strength you’re missing. It may be activation.
You’re not behind—you’re at the starting point
If you’ve had that childhood dream… if you’ve watched a performance and thought, That would be incredible… you’re not behind. You’re just at the starting point.
And the starting point is where everything begins.
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