Words by Nicoletta Noir | Photographs by Mia Maraschino
Everyone’s aerial, pole and burly journey is different, we pick up skills at different rates, fall in love with different moves and we love our art for various reasons, beautifully unique to us as individuals. One thing that we are all familiar with is the ‘F’ word… FEAR. Fear of failing, falling or forgetting, it’s that hesitation before a nemesis move, or that little negative thought that instantly makes your body feel heavier or your mind goes completely blank. We’ve all experienced it - I certainly have. I feel like a lot of my own personal training is spent in a constant battle with my mind, overcoming fear and self doubt.
The brain is a really powerful, fascinating thing, I love knowing why we do things or feel things the way we do. What I wanted to share is the role our brain plays in this.
Our brain is wired to remember negative things instantly, while positive things take between 15-20 seconds to be saved into our memory. How unfair right!? I believe this has a huge impact on our experiences with aerial, pole and burly.
When our bodies are learning a new movement, our brain searches for a memory to relate to it. If we’ve only had the fear memory for whatever reason (most of us feel awkward and nervous trying new things), it’s all our brain will pick up. For reasons we don’t know, a move will trigger something on a subconscious level and we avoid it all together.
I have definitely experienced this, lately it’s with aerial shoulder mounts which I’ve been happily doing for years. It doesn’t matter how much my logical brain tells me I have the strength, skill and technique, recently my subconscious mind feels that little bit of doubt and then my body just says no. It’s super frustrating and I’ve been working hard to retrain my brain with positive experiences when training these so that I can build up my positive memory bank. It’s been about a month and I’m finally starting to feel the dread lift, but it’s been a challenge and it’s ongoing!
I also remember when I first learnt forward handsprings they absolutely terrified me. It didn’t matter how much I tried I simply couldn’t do them. I gave my mind a few months break from them and randomly tried one without thinking too much about it, and did it! Since then I’ve had no problem with them, it was like obsessing about the move was just sticking my brain to this negative memory pattern and I had to wipe the slate clean in order to over come it!
Here are some tips for getting past nemesis moves or for being less fearful of learning new skills:
Try to say ‘Yes’ more I’ve definitely been guilty of not doing this enough - when you see a move and straight away say “I can’t do that” so you don’t even try. This has already laid down a negative memory in your brain, which means if you decide to try this move in the future and struggle, it might be because of this split second in the past where you decided you simply ‘couldn’t do it’ without even attempting it.
Celebrate the small stuff When you succeed, doesn’t matter how small this is - it might be you’ve lifted your feet off the ground for the first time, or remembered a section of chore - celebrate it! Sit with it for 20 seconds, feel it in your body and brain and give it the time to become part of your positive memory bank. The more you do this, the more positive experiences you build up in your memory bank and the greater the chance the mind can pick up a positive instead of a negative memory (think of it like a wide range of files to choose from). If you’ve done a class with me before you will have noticed I tend to jump up and down a lot and clap and dance when you try a new move! We’re so quick to criticise ourselves even after succeeding because ‘it wasn’t perfect’ or our ‘toes weren’t pointed’… Try and push that negativity to the side and focus on celebrating the positive!
Approach the move differently Trick your brain so you can circumvent the negative pattern. If you keep trying something and stopping at the same place you create a new pattern so you need to come around it like a detour around a road block. For example if a certain skill in a combo is a point of struggle, try the skill from a different entry, or play a different song, approaching it slightly differently might help.
Take a break Obsessing over a piece of chore or a move can repeat the same negative pattern. Taking a break and focussing on something completely different could help clear the mind and start fresh. Inverting for the first time is something a lot of people struggle with, it’s easy to get caught up with the fear of being upside down and the quest to move up a level. Try to give your mind a break, think about a different move or a different goal, taking your time can be so beneficial!
Repetition We all tend to feel awkward or uncomfortable or weird trying something for the first time. This is actually a good thing because it means your body and brain is making a connection. Try the same move again, and again, because each time you do it lays down more nerve connections and your brain is connecting to your body. I’m a big fan of doing a challenging move or a piece of chore three times in a row. Repetition helps things feel familiar and builds neuronal connections between your brain and body - imagine you’re walking through the bush and theres no path, the second time you walk there the path starts to appear, and by the 3rd, 4th and 5th time theres a visible path that you enjoy walking down.
Fear is a normal emotion to feel, it creeps up on us when we least expect it, we might not be able to control when it happens but hopefully some of these things can help you understand it and break negative patterns for the future. We’re always going to have moves we feel uncomfortable with, but hopefully we can work towards being OK with the uncomfortable feeling, and celebrate more when we do something positive, even in the smallest way because it’s a part of learning and growing and we deserve to be happy!