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Hi, I'm new and exited, it's nice to meet all of you. For years I have been passionate about learning aerial acrobatics, and I want to finally persue learning. Unfortunately, I am not in the financial position to pay for clases. Seeing as it is dangerous, and I don't have an apparatus, I'm not sure how to start. Is there anything I can do on my own? Or anything I can do to build skills and condition myself for when I have the opportunity to take classes? I have a background in yoga, pilates, ballet, gymnastics(not since I was little) and a little bit of modern dance, and while I can't take classes in those either right now, I could maybe practice some of those easier? Or are there any other skills that are cheaper/easier to learn independently that would transfer well?

I have never done this before so I am attempting to kinda make this into a story kinda plot line for my own amusement. Maybe it will help me out and actually keep on top of things, My goals are going to be pretty much circus/ strength training. Goal 1: Fitness 5 training sessions/week (usually i am at the studio Monday- Thursday 1-3 classes a day) (3) Run 1x/week (3) Walk 1-3 miles a week. ( I see this as reasonable since Pokemon Go keeps me moving most of the day!) (3) Goal 2: Circus Goals Continue my Monday - Friday schedule (3) Hand stands on the wall 3 days a week (3) Get the ever elusive cross back straddle. (10) Work on Pull overs on Lyra! (5) Work on Pull overs on Trapeze! (5) Goal 3: FOOD! Eat small meals through out the day. ( I am super bad about only eating once a day...) (3) No sodas. Not even Sprite. (5) Eat a healthy meal choice other than crap food. Potato chips are not healthy.(3) Meal Plan. Its a lot easier than me last minute planning cause then i just get junk food.(3) Goal 4: Money My house is always super tight when it comes to budget. Our paychecks seem to disappear before they are even in our hand. Mine goes to gas, food, pet supplies and then I send a whole bunch on crap I don't ever use. My goal as far as money is going to be making our budget stretch farther and save $20 every check. I get the feeling this will fail but it is worth a shot. I am super excited to give this a try. For each goal that i accomplish I will earn points(jewel shards)

Alrighty...this is my first challenge back since...oh July of last year. Crazy life changes have happened, and now that I'm pretending to be more settled, it's time to take control and make shit happen. I feel what I really need and want out of this challenge is to Make Fitness a Priority!! just for good measure, I went and re-read this article from Steve....https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2015/01/26/why-you-need-to-be-selfish-and-put-fitness-first/ My short-term goals include performing at the aerial showcase at the studio where I teach fitness classes in the fall/winter and absolutely slaying. I've put on fat and lost strength since last summer and I'm not happy with the routine I could put together at this point in time. This is my performance from earlier in the year, which I'm happy enough with, but I definitely wasn't strong enough to do the things I wanted...and I *might* have only put this together 3 days before the performance. My goals from now until the end of 2016 are largely gaining strength while lowering my bf%, and improving my flexibility. I know that it can be hard to work on strength and flexibility at the same time, but I figure I'll give it a whirl and see what comes out in the end. Missions: 1) Practice aerial hoop 1x/week - this should be easy enough because I can practice after teaching my conditioning class Thursday nights. I just need to make myself do it!! 2) Go to the gym 2x/week - Ideally Monday/Wednesdays, but it'll depend on my work schedule. I just started a new job, and right now the hours are a bit all over the place. 3) Stretch daily - even if it's just a couple of sun salutations in the morning/evening. I want to work on hip mobility and hamstring flexibility working towards full splits, and also back bends. I do have starting photos from a bit ago: Food: 1) Eat clean - "pretend" like I'm doing a whole30. Basically I'm going to follow whole30 guidelines as much as humanly possible while living in a house that makes things difficult to do so. To put systems in place for this I need to meal plan/shop/cook every week. Life: Reconnect and make more NF friends around here. I went to camp last fall, and with the camp Facebook group being active, I haven't spent much time around these parts anymore. I want to check in with my own thread and other people's at least 5 days/week. And here. We. Go!!!!!!

What’s good, Rebels?! I’m back again to try to finish a six week challenge. First challenge with the Assassins! Life Update: Depression sucks. I’m sure a lot of you know that. I moved out to Los Angeles about a year ago with hopes of find a job in the film industry. After 10 months, several hundred applications, and a couple dozen interviews, I was completely burned out and feeling extremely low. I had been working in a cupcake & ice cream shop, and while it was fun in the beginning, many factors led it to become one of the most draining jobs I’ve ever had (not to mention the amount of weight I gained because I couldn’t control myself from devouring the product). A couple weeks ago, after a particularly awful interview, I had a stroke of inspiration and decided enough was enough. I quit my ice cream job, and decided to pursue some other interests. And as soon as I decided to catch my breath and stop searching for a job in the film industry, everything fell into place in the most beautiful and unexpected way. Now I have 3 jobs. It might sound crazy, but the schedules actually fit together like a flawless puzzle. I work for Tempest Freerunning Academy, an aerial arts studio, and an elementary school. The elementary school job is just something a friend was able to set up for me that works really well with my schedule (plus, I freaking love kids). Parkour and aerials are two things that I have followed for years, and have always wanted to try. But being the chunky/ clumsy lady that I am, I figured it would never be in the realm of possibility. But it turns out there were two positions that opened up right as I hit my low point, and I feel like it was God saying “I’m game if you are.†Its a chance for me to work towards becoming a person I never thought I could be. So this challenge, I’m going to learn how to fly. (or at least start to) Goals: #1. Attend at Least 1 Aerial & 1 Parkour Class a Week I get free classes at the aerial studio, and Tempest. I need to take advantage of that. It’s scary for me, because I’ve never been one for group exercise, and I’m extremely out of shape. But it will be good for me, and I’ll learn how to do things I never thought I could do. #2. Post At Least Twice a Week (/Finish the Challenge) I always fall away from Six Week Challenges. Not for lack of trying, but I let me schedule consume me sometimes. But I’ll have the time available with the new jobs to get stuff done. Another thing I should absolutely take advantage of. Besides, this community rocks and I want to be a more active member of it. #3. Prep At Least Two Meals A Week My schedule is crazy. And if I’m not careful, I’ll end up eating out every day. I can’t afford that! So hopefully I can pack myself some food and cut down on my food spending for the next month or so. #4. Don’t Step on the Scale This one is for my mental health. I get obsessive over numbers. If the scale isn’t consistently going down, I get super discouraged. I need to stop relying on it as my source of results. I just need to chill a little bit, and focus on how I feel, and how I notice my body changing. No scale for six weeks will be tough, but I think I really need it. *Bonus*: Climb the Silks/ Get in the Lyra/ Do a Pull-up My upper body strength is minimal, and it’s needed for both parkour/freerunning, and aerials. I just want to be able to move my own bodyweight. I’m not sure if I can get there in six weeks, but I’m damn sure gonna try! Let’s get to it!

While I'm sure most people here are pumped and ready to get back into the swing of things...I'm not. I have 3 days of challenge and then I'm off to sun, sand and relaxation in JAMAICA! I'm extremely excited, this is my first hot holiday, and the start to a very travel-exciting 15 months. (January 2015 - Jamaica, Sept 2015 Camp NF!!!, March 2016 -Europe!!) So it's really hard to set challenge goals when the first 2 weeks will kinda be a wash. The other thing that's tough for me is because I'm a fitness instructor, I start up a bunch of my classes in the end of January, and from now until the end of April, my schedule is a bit crazy. So I'm setting out some small goals to try to ease into the new year of challenges (PS. I'll hoping to hit the end of February challenge hard, and be ready for it!) Main Quest - Be a badass who looks killer in a bikini and can do a pull-up (aka, the ultimate in badassery) For those who don't know - I love practicing aerial hoop/lyra and in March, I'll be taking another step towards teaching it! The super cool upside is that I get all the free practice time I want, and 50% off classes at my studio! Yay! So my goals are also to do things that will help me in hoop - the pull up for sure, and also flexibility and mobility is another pretty big goal for me. Goals 1) Drink 3L of water/day - with my trip coming up, it's hard to set a food goal, and I'll have to see how things are when I get back. With that in mind, staying hydrated is definitely a step I can take towards keeping my body in check, so water it is. I find this hard at the best of times, but especially in the winter. While on vacation, this is a bit harder, so the general goal is to stay hydrated, and not be hung over. lol 2) Stretch/fascia rolling daily - I'm really needing to work on my flexibility for hoop and and also focus on self-care a lot more. I really believe in the whole holistic aspect of health and fitness, and with what I've been reading about fascia is just fascinating (yup, I just did that), and so I need to a) finish reading The Role Model (about half way now) and continue to roll, ideally daily. For this, I really plan to instagram daily either a stretch sequence, or rolling, or something related to it for accountability. If you're all instagrammy, follow me and cheer me on @jbean86 AAAAAaaaand 2 goals is going to be it for the physical side. My 2015 mantra is the idea of "doing more with less". Experiences trump stuff, less is more, etc. As part of that I'm trying to purge my house, use up what I have, buy a minimum amount of stuff. This is really inspired by me wanting to move across the country in 2 years. I figure if I start downsizing now, I'll be happier, but also ready to move when the time comes. And who knows, it may been sooner than 2 years, and if the right opportunities come up, I want to be ready. Well...readier. lol Life Goals 1) Clean and purge my house. As part of this, I also want to finish up projects that have been started, including decorating my condo. I want a nice place to live in, but also when it comes time to sell it, I want to have a showing-ready place. Basically, I'm a grown up (without kids) and there's no reason I can't have a nice looking place. lol To make this more trackable, I want to set aside (minimum) an hour per week (with the exception of week 2) to make an effort to do something towards this goal. 2-ish) I've been toying with the idea of journaling again. I did it as a hard hat challenge a while back and by the end of it, I really liked it. Maybe I'll try to add this when I get back from holidays. There you have it folks. Simple, but do-able. Tracking: 1) Water 1/7 0/7 0/7 0/7 0/7 0/7 2) Stretching 1/7 0/7 0/7 0/7 0/7 0/7 3) Cleaning 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1

Well ok I'm not really taking a chill pill, I actually have loads of fun things planned!! I have class 3x/week (handstands, contortion and circus), open training on the lyra and I'm going to keep up with my bouldering. Since I can't predict how hard the classes will be each week I don't really feel it'd be a good idea to set any particular fitness goals. Instead I want to make sure my recovery is good, which means eating, drinking and chilling. I do have lots of fun skills to work on, so I'll keep posting about them in my challenge thread, but I won't grade any of it. There might be video though. Goal #1 - Cooking Last challenge I had a cooking goal where I wanted to try 5 new recipes/week, which failed spectacularly. I want to try this again, but on a slightly smaller scale. Also cakes don't count this time. Rather I want to make sure that I eat properly even when I get back late from training or work. To do that each week I will find one recipe that's suitable for batch cooking and one pre/post workout snack recipe. +2 WIS for batch cooking recipes (6 in total) +2 WIS for snack recipes (6 in total) Goal #2 - Recovery I not only need to eat, but I also need to make sure I get enough protein in me. I'm kind of hoping that by tracking my protein intake I will also keep my calories in check as I could really do with losing some of my excess weight... The second part of this goal is to drink enough water. Lately I've been getting random muscle cramps and the first thing to try is to make sure I stay hydrated. And not through tea, to which I confess I have a terrible addiction. I have no intention of stopping my excess tea drinking though, but I can at least make sure to drink 1 big glass water for every cup of tea. And coffee, but I drink max one espresso per day so that's less of a concern. +2 CON 100g protein/day +2 CON 1 glass of water/cup of tea (or coffee) Goal #3 - R & R This is a bit of a weird one, and it has more to do with habits that I find annoying. Like compulsive phone checking say checking my blog roll even if I have no intention of reading the articles at that time or playing on my laptop while watching a movie. It's just a waste of time and makes me feel all over the place. Similarly if I'm tired after work I should rest properly instead of distracting myself online, or by going on a sugar and/or caffeine high. For example watching a show is not really resting, but listening to music or taking a nap is. I also find just switching off doing nothing is a great way to relax, having some me-time and get the brain juices flowing. I'm not sure how to grade this as it's more of a general mindfulness goal but I'll give the following sub goals a subjective grade each day or something. +2 CON Rest properly +2 WIS No mindless browsing on the phone Goal #4 - Video Well I did say there might be video. I want to record some of the handbalancing exercises we do in class, partly as a progress video and partly to share some ideas with the fellow handbalancers around here. +3 CHA Yep, this is a quiet challenge, no shiny things, no fun theme, just trying to make sure I stay on track and keep up with life.

Two weeks until the next challenge? Challenge accepted! MAIN QUEST To neatly pack my mental baggage for the next challenge period... Strip my calendar and HabitRPG of low-priority activities. Replace them with my current schedule of training [including blocked off times to train at home] and add to fill holes in practice. Ensure there is one day of recovery.Define goals in aerial hoop, contortion, and dance. Write daily homework to approach each of these goals (and if not already doing, start), brainstorm positive reinforcement reward systemsTake daily notes (even if minimal) in order to get into the habit of checking in with the world. Take pictures/video to illustrate SIDE QUESTS Life: Take photos - I require more pictorial evidence for alibis, progress tracking, promotion, and pleasureStudies: Continue studying ambitious rigging standards for weird, life-supporting art projectsFitness: Self-care - daily foam rolling, monthly massage/PT appts, hot packs MOTIVATION Haley Viloria, Sabrina Aganier, Bunny Holmes, Seanna Sharpe, Mike Estee, Karl Gillick Be the freak you wish to see in the circus

Hi all This is my first challenge. Fitness was never a pleasure for me when doing it for it's own sake.I am naturally lazy. Dance was my first love! A few years ago I discovered pole dance and aerial silks/hoop/trapeze.I found myself wanting to do pushups/V ups/leg raises and running so that I could get better at my sport! My body type is not naturally agile, however I gain both muscle and fat easily. I wish my starting race was an elf..but I'm more like a cross between a dwarf and an orc?I am naturally quite flexible and if I was a superhero I would be Elastigirl!I used to say I had the weakest arms ever, but noticed improvements in strength after all my circus work! This year I've had a number of injuries/barriers to training this year-disc injury to back,broken nose and recently bereavement in that order. MAIN QUEST My aim is to get back on the horse!!Have enough stamina/strength etc to last 3 hour class again. SMALL GOALS FOR MAIN QUEST 1.Do one core workout per week/one cardio and one strength 2.Take stairs at work every day (5 flights) 3.Up iron intake!(I am vegetarian,don't like eggs and avoid dairy-except for cheese!I forget to take my supplements and end up being anaemic.This does not help with training) LIFE QUEST I'm skipping the life quest since I have a tendency to burn the candle at both ends. Can you do an anti-quest?If so it would be to relax more and slow down! Once I've completed this quest I would probably like to join the assassins guild. Although I'm a druid by nature (even in WOW),my training is more assassin focused. Wish me luck!! Angelyn

Current stats 5'4" 171lbs 25 years old BMI 31.1% Current Fitness Goals The most important is that I aim to improve my quality of life Bring BMI down to 23% with in 1 year Increase strength to improve my abiulitie to do things like areal and hiking Increase stamina, I would like to be able to jog 5 miles with out stoping or having an asthma attack with in one year Improve flexibiltie, maybe one day I will be able to do a split Today I did areal for the first time in over two months, and lyra for the first time. I did a total of two hours, about split between the two. Im sure that two hours was a bit of over kill but I work out with a friend and we split time, spotting each other as we work on the fabric or hoop so its more like an hour tiem total plus time spent warming up and stretching. If you have no idea what I am talking about yous hould look up areal and lyra, they are both fantastic forms of excersize and a lot of fun. Areal is the silk fabric acrobats you see in ciquise de sole, and lyra is the metal hanging hoop. You do acrobat type stuff with each one and they both take a lot of core to keep your movements controled, you use a lot of back and arms to pull your self or support your weight well getting in and out of positions or "tricks" and legs to climb, support your weight both well going up the fabric, getting in to positions and well in leg/foot/hip locks and doing drops or hanging up side down. Its an amazing all over work out but as much fun as it is you have to do a lot of working out to get your muslces to be able to support your weight well doing these things. that was a bit more then I planed on tryping any way its all a lot of fun!!!! Tomorrow i have strength training ar 7 am, wooo. I am not a morning person so im not really looking forward to getting up at 6:45, Im also going to try and get to the gym at least once between thursday and saturday for the mundaine cardio routine.