Acro Mel
Circus
Fitness, Gymnastics, & Flexibility
Fitness and flexibility classes include acrobatics, tumbling, hand balancing, back bending, strength classes, as well as flexibility, contortion, and doubles contortion. Classes range from one to three hours depending on number of students and ability level.
Fitness & Flexibility Classes
Get Fit!
Combining exercises from gymnastics, dance, Pilates, and more from over 10 years in the fitness industry, learn awesome exercises that engage specific parts of the body and increase both muscle tone and active flex! Exercises include focused abdominal exercises, dance exercises from programs such as Ballet Beautiful (used by Natalie Portman for Black Swan), handstand exercises, shoulder strengthening, inner thigh and hamstring work, and more! Check us out and see how you can make a serious different to your body and your fitness regime!
Core Activation!
Want abs of steel but don't want to do 100 sit ups a day? Learn quality abdominal and oblique exercises that target focused areas! In this workshop, we do one set of eight exercises, and you FEEL those muscles working! In addition, learn how you engage your abdominals in the correct way (yes, there is an incorrect way!) and techniques to use on your other ab exercises, leg like and hip position, which can change the entire way you work on your abs!
Stretch Me! - Flexibility Workshop
Want to increase overall flexibility? Legs, shoulder, back, and more? This class is great for not only increasing your flexibility, but determining which stretches work best for you? Exercises including passive, active, resistant, and dynamic stretching. Students will also learn where their pain threshold should exist depending on the type of stretch and the length of time of stretching. This will help students understand how their bodies work and how to best increase flexibility without injury.
Splits Splits Splits - Leg Flexibility!
Splits, splits, and more splits! Learn specific exercises to help you achieve your splits in all the different ways! Front splits, middle splits, box splits, over splits, tilted splits, and more! If you sit in splits and feel all the pain, all your pain sensors are going off at the same time! Learn exercises that focus on specific areas, which will help the body adjust to deep leg stretching. Students will also learn passive, active, resistant, and dynamic stretching to support effective and safe stretching!
Back Bending
Want to increase your back flexibility or work on ways to back bend? This class is great for playing with all the ways to back bend and for all levels of students!
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Beginner: for students who are new to back bending or who struggle with their back bend, learn ways to open to the lower back so as not to "crunch" the back while practicing back bends. In addition, focus on opening up the shoulder and chest to help support back flexibility. Students will also learn back bending variations as well as dead lifts (back bridge to standing) and drop backs (standing to back bridge).
Intermediate/advanced: for students who have a comfortable back bend, work on teardrop (standing back bend with hands on ankles, chest stands, forearm stand backbends, and exercises that help open up the chest, shoulders, and lower back.
Contortion
For students who want to focus on shapes, transitions, and deeper stretching, contortion is great! Learn fun and illusionary shapes that wow an audience, as well as transitions like standing to chest stand and chest stand to standing, back bend to forearm stand, splits rolls, and more! Students will also learn exercises to help them reach their back bending and splits goals!
Prerequisites: for students with a comfortable back bend and good leg flexibility (splits or close to splits).
Contortion Doubles
This class is a great to learn how to work with a partner and find beautiful and illusionary shapes that look completely tangled and wow the audience! Learn where to press weight and how to push and pull using a partner to ensure you can find a beautiful shape as well as to protect yourself and your partner from injuries. Classic shapes include swan on swan (handstand back bend and belly arch on floor), bow on bow, standing counterweighting, and more!
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Prerequisites: for students with a comfortable back bend and good leg flexibility (splits or close to splits).
Gymnastics & Hand Balancing Classes
Tumbling
Interested in increasing your tumbling and gymnastics skills! We have intro to tumbling as well as regular tumbling workshops! Tumbling classes focus on gymnastics technique and does not include parkour or circus tumbling technique.
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Beginner/intro: intro to tumbling is great for those new to acro and gymnastics! Learn the basics of tumbling such as back bends, and handstands, as well as cartwheels, walkovers, and variations of them all!
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Intermediate/advanced: for students who have a grasp of basic gymnastics tumbling, we'll work on moves and variations of walkovers, back handsprings, and front handsprings, as well as saltos, twists, and variations!
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All Over the Walkovers!
Walkovers are beautiful gymnastics components that can really help your acro, gymnastics, and fitness repertoire! Learn front walkovers, back walkovers, tinsikas, and variations of walkovers to and from the floor! Learn how to dance, slowdown, and speed up walkovers to fit any type of routine!
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Prerequisites: students should have a basic back bend (back bridge) with their shoulders over wrists.
Dance Acrobatics
Dance acrobatics is great for students who want to take their dancing to the next level or to blend gymnastics and dance for additional dynamic and "wow"ness.
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Beginner: for students who are new to dance and/or gymnastics to learn the basics of dance acro such as rolls, dance cartwheels, and leaps.
Intermediate: for students who feel comfortable with single and double pirouettes, and who are ready for dynamic movements such as cartwheel variations, walkover variations, and aerials.
Advanced: for students who have a solid background in dance and/or gymnastics and are ready to learn chest stand variations, aerials, handspring variations, and handstand variations.
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Prerequisites: intermediate and advanced students should have splits and a comfortable back bridge.
Inversions
Love going upside down? We do too! Check out this inversions class that looks at headstand, forearm stand, and handstands, as well as variations and exercises of each that can help you find that comfortable and strong inversion. This class also includes ways to support spotting, exits and ways to fall out of positions safely, and how to balance.
Intro to Handstands and Hand Balancing
Handstands are excellent way to bring up your fitness, flexibility, and alignment! This classes focuses on finding and building up that elusive "handstand line" and what areas to focus on to achieve that line. Students will learn the basics of finger balancing, wrist, elbow, shoulder and torso alignment, as well as exercises to practice balance, endurance, and strength to help support the handstand!
Hand Balancing
For students who are familiar with the handstand shape, learn how to take your hand balancing to the next level! Combining both Western and Chinese practices and exercises, learn the ways you can build your handstand up efficiently and effectively! Including finger flexibility and strength exercises, the best ways to build up handstand endurance, exercises and stretches to target weakness such as shoulder line, and exercises to help you find balance!
Contortion Hand Balancing
Love balancing on your hands or do you just fall into a natural backbend? Contortion hand balancing is great for those who struggle to keep the "handstand" line or battle alignment issues, as well as for students who want to learn how to take their handstands into back bending handstands.
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Beginner: learn the best shapes for finding counterbalancing positions in both forearm stand and handstand, and how to practice contortion hand balancing safely.
Intermediate/advanced: Have a pretty good contortion (counterbalanced) handstand? Learn more intermediate and advanced shapes like L, Z, eagle, straddle, scorpion, straight leg scorpion, and more!
