The first aerial pole trick I learned was the figure-four layback, also called the crossed-knee layback. It soon became a comforting place, a kind of home for me. I could return to it and lose myself in the suspension of it. I could hold something in my hands while doing it (a book, a hair tie, my top, etc).
Layback with a book:
Layback while taking my hair down:
As someone who has lived in so many places that people question if my parents were in the military (they were not), I regularly seek out the unfamiliar feeling of home. I don’t long for a hometown. I’ve been disappointed when I’ve claimed specific locations as my home. I’ve had to leave places I loved, and places I once loved became places I could no longer love. I long for a feeling of being in place, in situ. Grounded. But in the air. I’m not disappointed by the feeling of climbing up eight feet and releasing into the aerial layback shape.
I learned this shape twice, in very different venues, and at very different times in my life. Coming back to it, right after I installed a pole in my apartment, was a way of holding on to the best—or at least better—part of my former life. Revisiting the layback after several years of having my own pole, is a way of holding on to my sense of self. Getting into this shape—focusing on my body rather than my mind—is a doorway to muscle memories and flow. It is a portal fantasy, where I can enter a real home, unbound from location. I’ve visited this physical, embodied home in different cities, different states (American and mental), different decades.
And the layback is not an advanced trick. When life (injury, illness, etc) causes me to regress in physical ability, the layback is something I can still do. It isn’t a jade split or a brass monkey. The figure-four layback is that episode of a favorite show that you’ve rewatched a million times. That movie script you’ve memorized from seeing it over and over. That perfume that immediately transports you to times of artistry and community—dance performances.
(more videos of my beloved layback home can be found in my notes)