Air & Accomplishment: Taking an Aerial Sling Class

Sass Fitness Studio kicked my ass. That’s not their slogan, but I am definitely not the first to say it. Over the past 7 weeks, I have intentionally gotten myself into some rather challenging situations. Aerial sling was the most physically challenging yet. 

If playing pickle ball is the most typical sport for a 50-something to try out, then an aerial sling class is one of the most atypical. Maybe I was under prepared. Until I was in the studio, I did not really know what an aerial sling class was. I just knew I would get to hang upside down. The sling is actually more of a hammock suspended from the ceiling that can be bundled at the centre to create a strap-like form of support, or unfurled to create a cocoon of fabric safety.  

Now, as I may have mentioned in the past, I became a certified lifeguard at 53. I swim 10km most weeks, lift heavy once a week and take the occasional yoga class. You know those people who fall in love with fitness to the point they cannot pass a mirror without flexing? That’s me!

Luckily, I don’t take myself completely seriously. I was hoping my background in swimming and yoga would help me out on this adventure. It did not. Well, at least it did not until I had to fall into shavasana, also known as a corpse pose, under the sling. One move just needed a little more upper body strength than I had to give and three attempts wore me out. 

After taking my lifeguard training with a class of mostly teenagers, I thought I had developed an immunity to feeling out of place due to my age. And, absolutely no one did or said anything that made me feel too old or too awkward. It was one of the friendliest and most welcoming fitness environments I have ever been part of. 

Any insecurity was due to my incredible talent for getting in my own way. During my minutes in shavasana, I remembered the fitness classes I went to as a thirty year-old new mother. All the other new mothers in town were there too. We left our babies in the nursery, took our aerobics class and showered before picking up the kids and going home for lunch and naptime.  The class I took though, was the easy one. There was a class right after that used barbells and heavier weights and those mothers were a lot fitter than the ones in my class. 

“Perhaps,” I thought to myself at the time (I do always speak to myself like someone from the mid-Victorian era) “I should consider taking the fitness class the mothers who are actually fit take if I want to be physically fit myself?” 

So, the next week I took the fitter mom class, almost had a heart attack and put that perhaps away until I found myself, two decades later, doing the corpse post half-way through an aerial sling class with another much younger generation of really fit moms and their teenage daughters. 

The memory made me get up, climb back up as instructed, and learn how to hang upside down in the aerial sling in two different ways. 

What was most helpful in navigating my recovery, was the incredibly attentive and careful instructor, Shanyn. When I asked her to repeat a move, she repeated it. When I needed help getting out of a tangle, she helped me.

“I don’t think I have ever done anything this good for my back before,” I told the Shanyn and the lady next to me. I still feel it in that healthy ache that comes from good movement.   

I’m going back next week. I’ve signed up for the whole course.

It’s not just about getting fitter. Sass Fitness Studio is in an area of the city that has become synonymous with encampments, addiction and hopelessness. I live in an adjacent neighbourhood and, typically, I go to the area to do volunteer work or support an organization that helps vulnerable populations. I am acutely aware that the way the neighbourhood is now, is not its history. Businesses like Sass that are revitalizing old warehouses and industrial spaces show recovery and hope for the future. That is an excellent story for everyone to see unfold. I cannot wait for the next chapter.

I've been challenging myself to try one new thing a week. I mentioned pickle ball, but there has also been modelling, infrared therapy, ecstatic dancing, and archery.