I'm an amateur aerialist with 5ish years' total experience and started as a 100% beginner in my 20s. There's one aerials question friends ask the most: “so, how did you get started?” TL;DR: I found a studio in my area that welcomes total beginners of all ages and sizes, got WAY better at showing myself kindness about challenges and making mistakes, and leaned into everything that made me daydream-y and excited about challenging myself physically and creatively. (Note: do NOT try to teach yourself or train aerials on your own as a beginner! Huge safety issue and responsible instructors won't recommend it. It's why I don't include equipment or rig recs on this list; a studio should provide those to you.) The part about giving yourself kindness, well, that's all you! But this list—with studios, training and performance wear; learning aids; and performances to get you inspired—puts the kind of info I would’ve loved to have had immediately when I got started in one place. Since my training's focused almost exclusively on lyra/aerial hoop this list is slanted that direction, but there are good things here regardless of what apparatus you're into! Let's help you get in the air for the first time (and hopefully me, currently on a long hiatus due to work stress and injury, in a good mindset to for when I get back in the air too.)

I love going to workout classes and find myself gravitating towards barre and yoga- there are so many great studios and both are fun/low impact types of exercise. Classpass is a great way to try out local studios, btw, that's a great place to start! Here is everything I find helpful in my barre and yoga journey!

When it comes to hitting the gym, the key for us is comfort and practicality. This list contains our absolute favourites when it comes to breaking the sweat and recovery afterwards. We actually bring most of those on our travels because their practical outside of the gym too. Why spend money on many things when one can be versatile and serve more than one purpose. Hope you'll get some inspiration and get one of those for yourself.

Paddleboarding is for everyone. You don't have to be a pro, you don't even have to swim! Take your own safety seriously but get out and enjoy yourself. Paddlebaording is so freeing and fun! It's a great group activity! I'm looking forward to so many adventures this summer... and using my inflator! Goal this summer: stand on the board! I don't think it will be as hard as I thought! I'm making a plan! Find me on IG.

You don't need a full home gym set up to stay in shape and un-injured, just a few small items go a long way, you'd be surprised what you can do with so little! 🤸🏻‍♀️ I've written a note on what each item is used for too 😉