|
Last Saturday, I flew from Zagreb to the Split/Šibenik area for an experience I’ve been dying to be a part of since I first heard about it ~5 years ago: Aerial Cruise Croatia. Organized and led by Austrian aerialist Nicola (@aerialsea), an instructor at Aerial Silk Vienna, this weeklong excursion involves two 50’ motorized sailing yachts, four aerial rigs, five crew/instructors, and sixteen aerial sailors who, quite literally, get to hang out all day. Everyone on board except yours truly hailed from Europe, from Bilbao to Saint Petersburg. A vast majority of the passengers (and all of the crew) were from Austria or Germany. We spent six days/seven nights sleeping onboard, sharing the cooking and cleaning responsibilities, and participating in workshops or open training. There were always three silks available— one suspended at ~4 meters above the waterline and the other two hanging from ~6 meters up— and either an aerial sling or net for mermaid class. Yes, you read that correctly: we had mermaid tails and everything. Suffice it to say it is incredibly hard to do anything in the net with those things! I could barely keep my goggles on for the underwater segment of that particular workshop. Aerial silks, which has been one of my biggest hobbies since picking it up in 2014, is already a demanding art as practiced in studio. While less flexibility is required than you might imagine, an aerialist has to condition high levels of both grip and core strength, build muscle memory of pathways and transitions in the fabric, and develop a general sense of knowing when to quit before you hurt yourself (injury prevention is the best cure). In studio, all of this is done under stationary, climate-controlled conditions. On the open water, however, the wind blows the silk out of your hands right when you’re in the middle of doing something with it; the water saturates the tail of the fabric, rendering impossible the sequences you could do in your sleep in the studio because of the additional weight; the interplay of wind, water, and fabric swivels you every which way, disorienting you. Furthermore, you can’t just come down out of the fabric to rest and try the move again: you have to: ease down into the water pass the fabric to someone on the boat lest it blow out of reach for minutes on end and tangle in the rigging swim to the back of the boat clamber onboard swing out over the water again
The 1-2 minutes at a time that you’d normally spend training in the air grows into 5-6 minutes because you don’t want to go through all that trouble of getting back up in the silk. In spite of all of these new variables at play in my aerial practice this week— actually, because of them— the cruise was without a doubt one of the most fun, challenging, and memorable experiences I think I’ll ever have. For one thing, it provided me with a great opportunity to see more of Croatia. Last time I was here in mid-2019, I explored most of the Istrian region with @femmetravel and an intimate group of travel enthusiasts and influencers from a stunning modern villa. This time, I alternated spending nights in different ports and remote island coves. I went night-swimming twice; played with bioluminescent plankton; observed the Milky Way in all its splendor far from the light pollution of a city; experienced a lightning storm at sea; admired the biggest, brightest, most pumpkin-orange full moon I’ve ever seen. I made new friends from all over this incredible continent, many of whom I look forward to seeing in Vienna later this year. And, of course, I got to try some incredible new moves I hadn’t seen before, flunking some but acing others. Through all of this, I somehow managed to not get a sunburn, believe it or not… color me amazed. The whole experience was very reminiscent of the summer weeks I spent at camp when I was growing up: cooking and cleaning with my cabin, spending all day outside and nights in cramped, non-air-conditioned quarters, taking classes and getting out of my comfort zone by jumping off things or swinging out over the side of the boat from the top of the mast while it’s tacking sharply. I’m already looking forward to the next time this retreat is hosted, whether that’s one year from now or several. In the meantime, back to reality for me: I’ve made it to Rome, and I resume work on Monday. I’m excited for a bit more stability and routine.
|
