In-Depth Presentation

Hi everyone!  I’m Brianna and welcome to my in-depth presentation!  Although my final presentation isn’t quite what I thought it would turn out to be, I’m still proud of how far I’ve come since I started this project in January 🙂    

For those of you who are new here, let me give you a quick recap.  For my first in-depth project with the TALONS program, I’ve chosen to learn aerial hoop, a dance apparatus similar to trapeze.  When I chose my project, I’d done other kinds of circus in the past but I never tried aerial hoop as it was never offered with the class that I was previously taking.  Aerial hoop is also a more difficult apparatus than trapeze or aerial silks, so I was always a little scared of trying it.  Now that I’ve done aerial hoop, it’s become one of my favourite apparatuses!  

I met with my mentor Kimmie weekly to learn different poses on the aerial hoop, in order to complete my final goal of mastering 10-15 different poses that I would then use to choreograph a routine.  Unfortunately, due to restrictions that came with social distancing, my meetings with Kimmie were cut short and I couldn’t film my final routine.  However, I was able to learn quite a few poses during the time that I had access to an aerial hoop through my mentorship meetings.  

 

A description of all the poses I learned:  

  • Pike Through / Pop Onto Sit: This pose is used to mount the hoop.  You grab onto the hoop with your hands, then swing your legs up and in between your arms into a pike position.  When you are ready to mount the hoop, you hook onto the base of the hoop with your knees and sit up onto the hoop.  
  • Mermaid: This is the first pose I learned on the aerial hoop.  This pose is also featured in a lot of my progress videos.  During this pose, you hold onto the hoop with one arm, then lean out until you are in a horizontal position with your legs together and your other arm reaching in the opposite direction.  
  • Man in the Moon: Another basic pose, Man in the Moon involves sitting sideways on the hoop with your legs pressing against the opposite end of the hoop and your arms helping you balance on either side. 
  • Arm Chair: Facing the hoop, you hold onto the top of the hoop with your arms and hold your legs in a pike position at the base of the hoop.  Then, you have to push your feet against the hoop until your legs are straight.  
  • Split Step: From arm chair, let go of one leg to form a split.  
  • Tree Branch: You lean onto one side of the hoop, holding on by one arm and letting your legs dangle.  
  • Amazon: This pose is similar to Tree Branch, except you face the other side of the hoop when you hang instead of the front.  
  • Front Balance: You balance on the hoop with your waist, spreading your arms out and keeping your legs together to hold your balance.  
  • Reverse Angel: This pose is like Mermaid, with the only difference being that you face downwards rather than sideways.  
  • Running Man: I wasn’t able to master this pose completely, but it involves wrapping each leg around the two sides of the hoop and holding on with your hands as well.  You face sideways with this pose.  
  • Birds Nest: For this pose, you hook each leg around their corresponding spots on  the hoop (as in Running Man), except you face forwards, hold onto the hoop with your hands apart from each other, stick out your chest, and look out so you are bending your back.  
  • Back Balance: We only just started working on this pose before we were forced to stop meeting in person, but my understanding is that you lay back onto the hoop so you are looking at the ceiling, push one leg against the hoop, and balance on the small of your back.  

 

Progress Videos:

To document my learning, I regularly recorded progress videos of myself on the hoop.  Here is a small collection of them:  

January 26 (the first progress video I recorded)

February 16 

March 15 

 

A brief presentation about aerial hoop and taking aerial hoop classes:

Aerial Hoop Presentation

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38 Comments

  1. I loved reading about the different aerial hoop poses and then watching the videos!

  2. Wow Brianna! Your in-depth presentation is incredible! I really enjoyed watching the videos of you on the aerial hoop!

  3. Brianna! It’s amazing to see your progress throughout the videos! I can see how hard you’ve worked!

  4. This is amazing! I can’t believe you can remember all the vocab for your aerial hoop!

  5. Your balance is crazy! Very impressive !

  6. You are strong and graceful at the same time. What was the hardest and the easiest skills to learn and why?

    • Thank you so much Ms. Mulder! The hardest skill for me was Running Man (the last skill at the end of the second progress video), as it requires a lot of strength to hold yourself in that position. The easiest skill for me was Mermaid, since to do that pose you can kind of just roll into it 🙂

  7. Wow it’s impressive how fluent, strong and graceful you became through the three videos! The progress is evident! How much of your silks skills translated to the aerial hoop?

    • Thank you! The skills I learned from silks mainly helped build up my strength for aerial hoop, but the way you mount the hoop can be pretty similar to some poses on the silks! Trapeze and aerial hoop share a lot of the same poses like Mermaid and Man in the Moon 🙂

  8. Wow, I loved watching your progress! You looked so graceful into these videos! Go off, Brianna!

  9. Your presentation is super awesome and those look really hard to do, you can really see your progress through the videos.

  10. Great job, Brianna! You improved so much since the first video. In the last video, you hesitated less and seemed much more in control of your movements. I have a question: After doing your routine using this apparatus, which muscles were the most sore?

    • Thank you so much! After aerial hoop, my hands, core, biceps and the backs of my knees are usually the most sore.

  11. Hi,

    I was wondering if you had to do other training to be able to do this? Like did you have to do weight training, or cardio?

    • Hi! I did some conditioning before and after each lesson, and since my meetings were cancelled I’ve been taking an online conditioning and flexibility class, but that’s about it 🙂

  12. Natalie and Brandon

    We loved seeing your progress from the beginning, amazing! It takes a lot of strength to master all of the movements!
    – Natalie and Brandon

  13. That looks so hard great job!

  14. I really enjoyed reading about all the different aerial hoop poses! I can tell you put a lot of work into this from your progress videos.

  15. SO TALENTED! Not only that but imagining the strength that would have taken is making me sore! Seriously though so amazing!!!

  16. Angela Plagemann

    Great choice! It looks like it would be fun to learn. Did you ever get really dizzy?

    • Thank you, I had a lot of fun! I got a little dizzy the first time I tried spinning while doing a routine, but I got used to it eventually.

  17. The strength!

  18. This is really impressive Brianna! How long have you been doing aerobatics similar to this? Out of the different circus apparatuses you have used in the past, which has been your favourite? Great work!

    • Thank you! I’ve been doing circus since Grade 7, and I really like all of the apparatuses I’ve tried, but aerial silks and hoop are my favourites so far!

  19. Really great, I’d love to try this some time! What was the most difficult and what was the easiest skill to learn?

    • Thanks, it’s really fun you should try it! The most difficult skills were Birds Nest and Running Man, and the easiest were Man in the Moon and Mermaid 🙂

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