Written by Lindsey Morgan
We all have that one skill (or maybe one handful of skills) that feels like we’ve been trying to achieve for ages, but it just isn’t clicking. There are many reasons we can find ourselves hitting a road block. It could be a mobility or strength deficit, it could be that the movement pattern isn’t making sense to our brains or bodies, or it could simply be that we avoid spending enough time working on it because we find it hard, frustrating, or scary.
Nemesis Skill Definition
A nemesis skill is a skill we can’t do even after a lot of practice and effort and it is a skill that many other aerialists who are at a similar level are typically able to do. These skills are unachievable, not from a lack of trying, but some yet to be discovered missing link.
For me, that skill was Flag on aerial silks. I felt that I understood the movement pattern, conceptually, but when I’d go to try it in the air I just couldn’t make it happen. I was often frustrated that other students were achieving it relatively quickly, even those who hadn’t been training for nearly as long. Since it’s a fairly stand-alone skill and not a key building block like climbing or an inversion, it was pretty easy for me to avoid training it.
However, when Aerial Fit hosted a one month class called Nemesis November, for the very purpose of focusing our attention on that one skill that had been escaping us, I knew it was time to face the Flag. Every student had their own project, although there were a good number of inversion nemesis skills, and with the help of Jordan and Clayton, we all broke down our skills into their components, and designed specific warm ups, drills, and progressions for our particular nemesis skill.
Forcing myself to focus on that one skill helped me realize what my barriers were. I have limited overhead mobility in my shoulders, and fear of impingement with internal rotation. These issues were contributing to my difficulty initiating the skill. I also don’t have a lot of trust in my grip strength, particularly when the majority of weight goes into one hand, so any time I felt a bit of sliding, I would balk.
After four weeks of trying out different drills, I found the ones that seemed to be working the best for me, and was able to create a stream-lined warm up and progression that I could make sure to fit in each time I came to train.
1. General ground and aerial warm up.
2. Focused warm up with Single Arm Shoulder Rotations. This not only helps with my shoulder mobility, but also allows me to feel safe passing through that unnerving moment of overhead internal rotation with my feet still supporting some weight.
3. Single Crucifix to practice posting with the bottom arm.
4. Practicing Flag on just one piece of fabric, rather than both pieces together. I feel more comfortable in my grip when there is less fabric, so this is a nice confidence builder before trying the full skill.
5. Putting it all together and trying the full skill at least once or twice on each side.
We also tried to gamify some of the drills to make them fun and more entertaining. We found subtle ways to add spinning, swinging and a dash of silliness to the drills. Sometimes just changing the emotional relationship with a skill is a great way to make progress.
As we all know, some training days are better than others. If I find myself struggling, I may add another intermediate drill such as practicing Flag on one piece of fabric with some of my weight supported by my feet on the other piece. If I’m sliding too much for comfort, I can add a grip aid such as spray rosin so that I can complete a few successful repetitions that day.
My Flag may not be performance ready, but it has certainly come a long way, and I no longer consider it my nemesis. Spending time figuring out what my roadblocks actually were, and discovering which drills suited my needs best were the keys to my progress. With those tools in my pocket, I no longer avoid training the skill, but actually practice it a little during each training session. I feel confident that with repetition my performance of the skill will only continue to improve!
