Soaring Through London

I arrived in London around 1am Thursday, August 2. It was nice to be back and for the first time, I was staying at the Olympics’ host city. My days leading up to my August 12 Aerials workshop were filled with the Olympics. I watched so many events on television. In between those moments, I filmed 3 promo videos for Alba Mengual’s new Madrid swing school and worked a rain filled Olympic Live Site with a London Swing Patrol team.

Somehow I managed to pull myself away from the television and practice aerials with Tanya Stephan, my teaching partner for this workshop. We practiced Friday and Saturday, doing multiple repetitions of all the aerials we would be teaching. There was a sizable (i.e. intimidating) list, but our goal was to keep the class environment safe and energized. Quality would beat quantity.

The August 12 workshops started at noon. We ran through my parkour based dynamic warmup, QMing like human beasts. Then we got into basing and jumping techniques. The aerials gradually built from beginner into intermediate and intermediate plus. Each aerial featured down preps, a variety of up preps and going overs. Applause definitely goes out to all the participants, but especially the spotters for surviving all 5 hours. Everyone did excellent work that afternoon.

Thanks again to London Swing Patrol for making this happen. More video recaps will appear within the upcoming week. Tanya and I were too tired to film an overall video recap. In the meantime, you can view and subscribe to my youtube channel here.

London Plankers