Greenville’s matriarch of aerials brings her gravity-defying practice to a new location
More than anything, Kelly VanLeeuwen, the matriarch of aerials in Greenville, wants her students to have fun.
For a teacher and performer known for artistically dancing through the air via silks and trapeze, that seems a given. After all, circus acts are meant to entertain and delight. But they’re also physically demanding and high-risk, and the teacher assumes that responsibility not only for herself, but also for every student in her class. For the teacher, the fun can be overwhelmed by responsibility unless you take care to hold onto it.
After almost a three-year pause of aerial classes, VanLeeuwen has done just that, returning to the aerial yoga scene she founded with new offerings designed to challenge but also reinforce the fun of being weightless while fully cocooned in a suspended fabric sling.
At her peak, VanLeeuwen taught 3,000 students one year under the MAYA Movement Arts umbrella. That meant sometimes four classes of people—all hanging mid-air from hoops, slings, silks, or trapezes—were operating simultaneously in her former studio space at The Lofts of Greenville. She managed the schedule, insurance, and expenses of nine aerial instructors in the upstairs space and six or seven dance teachers in the ground-floor studio.
“I also did payroll on Sunday morning in bed with a beer, telling myself it was personal time,” she says, recalling just how busy she was juggling every aspect of owning a unique business that required her extreme vigilance over every part.
Then, while in the process of looking for a new location for MAYA in the spring of 2020, the world changed. “The same week everything went from interesting to terrifying with COVID news. Instead of relocating, I put everything in boxes,” she says.
Yoga at Altitude
A wearer of many hats, VanLeeuwen is also a Pilates teacher and massage therapist, and as soon as it was safe to do so, she continued offering those classes and services while still unsure about the future of her aerial classes. The sudden shift in the way people lived challenged her ideals and plans, leading her to offer a new kind of aerial yoga class this fall at C.O.R.E. grow strong., a Pilates studio in Greenville’s Overbrook neighborhood.
“That time taught me that coming back with the same offerings would be unaffordable,” she says, both from an operations perspective as lease rates skyrocketed, and for her clients. “I’m at peace with coming back in a different way.”
One location for her Pilates reformer classes is C.O.R.E., and that relationship led to her being able to offer aerial classes in its second-floor studio.
“What I love about this reincarnation of it is that it’s bringing back the best parts of why I love aerials,” VanLeeuwen says. “It’s not yoga. It’s not a straight-up circus class. Whenever you fuse two things together, it’s a whole new baby. It’s accessible and beginner-friendly.”
A combination of strength, balance, and core, it will still include conditioning and increased flexibility.
“Yoga students will assume they’ll be good,” she says. “It’s hard.”
It’s also important to attribute her evolving perspective to her fifteen years of teaching and fourteen years of massage therapy rather than just the pandemic.
“Now that I’m forty, and now that I’ve spent the last four years teaching Pilates to a range of demographics and bodies, it gave me a deeper appreciation for the realities of what people can do,” she says.
Having recently recovered from a non-aerials-related back injury, VanLeeuwen has a new understanding of what she thinks Greenville needs in the aerial yoga space.
“I’m a little older, and smarter, and more efficient,” she says.
Providing students with a fitness class that also includes the sensory, womb-like pressure from the sling and a deeper sense of relaxation is as important as helping them change their outlook and increase their confidence, she says.
“Aerials get people out of their comfort zone,” she says. “We don’t need to do and be everything anymore. People need this more now than ever.”
What is aerial yoga?
Aerial yoga is a hybrid type of yoga combining traditional yoga poses, Pilates, and dance with the use of a sling or hammock.
What to know before taking a MAYA Movement Arts class:
- Beginners are welcome.
- Bring your own yoga mat.
- For safety reasons, students must adhere to these personal guidelines: no scents, lotions, jewelry, zippers, shorts, visible midriffs, illnesses, tardiness, phones, or known pregnancy.
- Inversions are optional.
- If you bruise easily, wear a T-shirt with sleeves to protect underarm skin.
Learn more and register for classes:
http://www.mayamovementarts.com/aerial
