Rigging and Training at Home

Training Aerial Arts at Home

The Aviary’s top priority is the safety of our students and staff, and we are so happy that you are seeking advice on how to safely train at home.

The short answer:
Ask your instructor if you are ready. Until you can confidently execute everything on your own, without any cues from them, you are not ready to practice solo. If you don’t have an adequate mat, safe equipment, and appropriately rated rigging, you are not ready to practice solo. This is a mistake that beginners in many other industries can get away with because their level of potential “catastrophic failure” is much lower. With aerial arts, worst-case scenarios include permanent injury, paralysis, and death. Training at home is possible with the right precautions, but we encourage you to think critically about your safety before making a potentially life-changing purchase.

Aerial Yoga

Aerial/circus arts and yoga come from different traditions and histories and are often taught very differently. The important thing to remember is that gravity doesn't care. It simply is not safe to begin training in the air at home unless you have enough experience and instruction to know how to do it safely – and this includes knowing what equipment is safe and appropriate.

Circus and yoga are very different. Aerial yoga, “yoga trapeze”, and sling-assisted stretching are not aerial work. They are yoga, which is a great thing on its own, but not the same as aerial arts. Aerialists and riggers can be touchy about this topic as there has been great disrespect for aerial arts and the training required for it amongst many in the yoga and festival communities.

Because of this, people often think that experience with aerial yoga, etc., qualifies them to skip levels in aerial training or that it is less serious and requires less care. It is also more commercially available and leads to many more accidents. More “aerial” accidents and inexperienced instructors at yoga and dance studios give the professional aerial community a bad name. Professional aerialists and aerial instructors have gone through extensive training to learn how to practice, perform, and teach this art form safely.

Rigging at Home

Before attempting to rig an apparatus at home for aerial arts or aerial yoga, please consider the following…


REQUIRED TRAINING
If you are a beginner, you are unlikely to know how to rig properly. This means determining the forces involved, selecting the correct equipment, installing it, and maintaining it.

FORCES INVOLVED
While you may weigh only 60kg/130lb (for example), the act of simply pulling up on a rigging point will exert MORE than your body weight on that point. Any movement on the apparatus will also exert more force than you realize.

If you have a bathroom scale, you can try this experiment: Step onto the scale gently, and you will see that the display will ALWAYS shoot past your actual weight and then settle back down again. So, any movement you make using the apparatus will be over your body weight and will be transmitted to the rigging point repeatedly. This is why rigging points need to be so strong and to withstand repeated loading, as things often become loose over time.

DOORWAY RIGGING
Doorway moldings are not designed to carry heavy loads and are rarely high-quality timber. They are usually only nailed onto the studs behind the molding—nails don't have large heads, and the head can tear through a molding very easily. Due to their width and height, doorways don't give you enough room to move around on an apparatus.

Over-the-door rigs are NOT an acceptable option for this because of the forces generated by human suspension. Even the simplest movements while hanging can double or triple your weight in dynamic force, and most pull-up bar rigs can be dislodged by any sideways momentum.

CEILING RIGGING
When mounting "from a ceiling", you need a structural engineer to determine what load your ceiling type can withstand.

For example, ceilings (with wooden or other rafters) are designed to hold load above them, not below them. A wooden trussed roof comprises triangular beams that spread the load of the tiles/metal sheeting/shingles/etc. If you drill through a beam, you weaken it.

Domestic ceilings are rarely high enough to enable all movements on an apparatus.

Exposed wooden beams are often decorative and not designed to support point loads (loads hung from a single point).

WALL RIGGING
Attaching loads to walls is possible, but you MUST seek professional advice. In short

  • Screw-in bolts can tear through the material they are mounted in, especially screw-in bolts into masonry, brick, or concrete.

  • Masonry walls are designed for loads to be vertically down, not horizontally or outward from the wall.

  • Besser block/215s/the grey, hollow concrete bricks often used in industrial buildings or basements are not safe to rig from. They are simply not strong enough.

  • Poured concrete or concrete slab walls MAY be suitable IF the correct fasteners are used - these are usually expanding bolts with a chemical cement that prevents the fastener from pulling out. They need proper (professional) installation.

TREE RIGGING
If you are reading this, chances are you are not qualified to rig a tree. While it is possible to rig from a tree so that it is healthy for the aerialist, bystanders, AND the tree, only a professional can do it safely.

Tree rigging should always start with a proper inspection. The inspection process needed for assessing a tree for use in aerial arts is a high-end inspection usually reserved for trees that are worth a LOT of money. The definitive and in-depth tree inspections needed are a specialty skill within the arborist community, and it’s not an inspection that most arborists are qualified to do or one that is practiced by many arborists. Large, high-end tree care companies may do one or two of these inspections a year. Many, if not most, smaller tree care companies will have never done this level of inspection.

INSURANCE
Even if you contract a structural engineer to ensure your house structure is safe and you contract a rigger to install the attachment point(s), your home insurance will usually not cover using the building structure for "aerial" purposes. As there are many insurance policies on the market, it is worth checking yours for appropriate coverage.

If you are renting, it is unlikely that your landlord's insurance would cover such modifications.

GENERALLY POOR OR UNKNOWN QUALITY OF EQUIPMENT SOLD ON AMAZON, EBAY, OR AT HARDWARE STORES.
Amazon has a known problem with counterfeit products. Products from hardware stores are rarely rated for lifting or supporting people. Some legitimate aerial equipment manufacturers have shops on eBay and Etsy, but you must be sure that the store/listing is operated by the real manufacturer.

Equipment for performing or training in the air (including rope, cable, chain, fabric/silks, yoga hammocks, aerial apparatus, swivels, carabiners, and other mounting hardware) must be rated for aerial use.

In simple terms, rating means that the hardware's failure point has been tested and certified by a laboratory that pulls the hardware apart until it breaks. The rating is less than the actual breaking point. The rating, with some exceptions, should be at least 10 times the working load – in the case of aerial arts, YOU are the working load!

Other Excellent Resources for Aerial Rigging Safety

Portal Aerial Rigs

If your instructor has cleared you to train on and rig aerial apparatus at home, these are the rigs recommended.