We just realized we should be celebrating our 1 year anniversary of giving up our studio. Neither of us are that interested very good at celebrating things from the past. We are both naturally more focused on the up-and-coming.
It can be kind of funny how bad we are at the past. Here’s a flyer we created in 2014 for our 1 year birthday.
And of course we are notorious for releasing new features or content, mentioning it once and then moving on to the new thing. Ummm, speaking of which…
Did you hear about our hugely expanded Favorite/Bookmark feature? We built it specifically for aerialists in mind who love to save things, but want a little more control and organization. You can see the Bookmark button at the top of this blog post. If you are a logged in paid member you can click on it. Or learn more about it here: AFO Bookmarks
Anyway, back to our actually, mathematically accurate (plus or minus a few days) 1 year anniversary of closing our own, dedicated circus space and going online mostly.
It has been both amazing and hard. Social media is kinda designed to focus on the amazing, but life is messy and so are our thoughts on it.
Here’s what we’ve lost and here’s what we’ve gained:
Lost
Our own dedicated space to train and teach.
Gained
The many hours spent keeping that space safe, welcoming, clean, and usable.
Here’s the trade-off. Now when we want to train we have to schedule the time, bring and rig the equipment (depending on the space), and limit ourselves to the time that we’ve booked. That does help keep our training more focused and productive since we can’t spend as much time lying around deciding what we want to train.
Lost
A huge collection of apparatuses, tons of stretching and PT props, and millions of different pieces of aerial equipment.
Gained
The hours spent inspecting, cleaning, rigging, and keeping track of everything.
We loved our aerial toys and invented apparatuses. They each had their own personality and were like found family to us. But, we also thought about every piece of equipment and were on constant vigilance for potential risk to our students, teachers and ourselves. Now, when we walk into a studio, we can enjoy other people’ aerial stuff and then simply walk away from thinking about them when we are done training.
Lost
Regular students that we worked with every week.
Gained
Online students who we work with when they need us.
This has plusses and minuses. We miss our in person students so much (it kind of hurts) but we are really enjoying all the new ones we’ve had a chance to work with all over the world. And now that we have more time to dedicate to our online resource, we are spending more of that time cheering on our global online students who share their questions with us.
Lost
Teachers (aka our friends) that we worked with regularly.
Gained
Many more teachers that we are both collaborating with and sharing our knowledge with.
We truly care about every teacher that we’ve worked with. There is a bond built when working together in a job with so much inherent risk. Now, we have added so many new teachers to our lives. We feel awkward using the word members, because they/you are so much more to us. And apologies if we call you “students”. We don’t mean to imply a lack of experience or knowledge or a power dynamic. To us being a student is a high compliment, not an insult, and we are forever students ourselves.
Lost
A dedicated space to film our tutorials.
Gained
The time to script, edit, cross-reference and release the hundreds of tutorials we’ve already filmed and been eager to share.
In the works: new places and new faces to be featured in future tutorials.
Lost
A regular training and teaching schedule.
Gained
The ability to travel and the time to try new things, like training in new places, cross-training at a regular gym, and exploring complementary activities like rock climbing.
Expanding out into new realms is always a great way to grow and a nice side-effect of giving up our studio and all the full-time work that came with it.
So is the trade-off worth it? To us it absolutely is. We would not give up the years we spent running our studio for anything. That time was so incredibly valuable in our lives, for so many uncountable reasons.
For all the studio owners out there, we see you and we appreciate you so much! For all the aerialists who go to studios, here’s a reminder about all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into running an aerial studio. Remember to show appreciation for the people keeping those spaces open and running. They do more than you may realize at first glance.
For us, we’ve realized that the years of coaching and training aerial full time has prepared us well to be thrust into new and scary situations, and to thrive there. We would not be where we are without it.
Log in and open your next tutorial. Take a look at all of the cross-references including Building Blocks, Common Mistakes, Related Drills, Ground Drill, Variations, Next Steps, Future Goals, and Sequences. Think about which of these sections you use most in your own teaching. Then take some time to explore a different section and see what new guidance it provides you.
Join us today and unlock every tutorial — cross-linked with all the building blocks, ground drills, related drills, progressions, sequences, and more. It’s not just a library — it’s a full learning system.
Send us a message. We genuinely love chatting about this stuff — whether it’s a quick question or a deep dive into your training.
