Filipina mom’s aerial dreams take flight in Georgia
Just when you thought you were done at 35 … and with two young kids, in a foreign country. Nope, don’t write yourself off just yet. Anything is possible.”
That’s how a Filipina named Avy (at her request, her full name has been withheld) sums up in a Facebook post her victory at the Asian Aerial Gymnastics Games. It was held on Feb. 22 in Georgia, which is home to her, her husband, and their two children. It’s also her message to women like her who gave up a lot in building a family and, at some point, lost herself.
“This concept of putting others first before yourself is natural for women, especially in Filipino culture, where self-sacrifice is very ingrained in us,” she tells Lifestyle in an online interview. “But I think we should leave something for ourselves, like what can you give from an empty cup?”
Avy adds, “It’s important for women to have a fulfillment of their dreams, or something that makes them alive and more of themselves. So that their cup becomes full and they have more to give to people around them.”
Her personal solution: “Just do a little something every day that will make you feel alive and make you more in touch with your inner self. Not who you are after you became a wife and a mother but who you’ve always been and what you’re good at. It can be God’s gift to you that will be a shame if you just keep it in the closet and not share to the world.”
Advanced levels
For Avy, doing aerial arts makes her happy, especially when she sees her skills continuously improving. She started doing this type of performance art that combines acrobatic and dance principles long before she met her husband Denis in June 2018.
At that time, she had already reached the advanced levels in performing on suspended apparatuses like silks, hammock, and hoop, which is also called “lyra.” She had also completed her yoga training in India while on a mandatory leave from her job at an international banking institution.
She recalls her life taking a different turn after getting married in June 2019 and moving to her husband’s native Russia before finally settling down in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi. They’ve discovered their current home base is favorable to freelancers like her husband, who works as an online private tutor.
“I thought I’d get a job easily,” she says, considering her MBA degree and midmanagement work experience. “But the reality is, if you’re in a non-English-speaking country, it’s tough.”
She and her husband decided it was best for her to stay at home with their children, who were born in March 2020 and February 2022. Occasionally, she’d get what she calls side hustles, from writing technical research papers to teaching yoga classes.
“Another reality of living abroad is, you have to sort of reinvent yourself,” she points out.
Return to aerial arts
Two weeks after Avy gave birth to her second child via C-section, the war broke out in Ukraine, which is geographically close to Georgia. She and her husband then decided to fly to the Philippines with their children to ease concerns on security. The unplanned trip gave her the opportunity to reconnect with friends, including those from the aerial arts community.
The once avid aerialist reluctantly gave in to the invitation of aerial hammock teacher Kate Cometa at the Beast House studio in Pasig City. To her surprise, she didn’t do as bad as she feared she would at five months postpartum. That gave her the confidence to hopefully rekindle her passion for aerial arts.
When Avy and her family returned to Georgia in June 2022, she found a studio that’s a 15-minute walk from their residence. But she felt her body wasn’t ready yet for regular training, as evidenced by the spasm she’d experience around her abdominal area while doing yoga poses at home.
A year later, she finally set foot in the studio despite her doubts: “I wasn’t so fit. I couldn’t lift my butt up in the air to do an inversion. It was a bit of a struggle, but I regularly attended classes for maybe two times a week and then three times a week. The improvement came with regular practice and experimenting with different things.”
Skill-based
Around June 2024, Avy was asked by her teacher to join the annual European Games in Aerial Gymnastics. She gave a self-deprecating reply: “No, I’m not good enough.” Another student in the studio, also a mom of two, accepted the challenge and won. That got the Filipina thinking that maybe she could do it, too.
By November, Avy was once again encouraged to join a competition, this time at the Asian Aerial Gymnastics Games. She was more receptive to the idea, but she needed validation, so she told her teacher, “If you think I’m good enough, then I’ll go for it.”
Avy went on preparing for her first-ever aerial arts competition. She began by taking a more practical and tactical approach. She took note of the fact that young girls with a gymnastics background easily outnumber the adults in the studio and therefore dominate the competitions.
“Here in Georgia, aerial is marketed as a sport, like gymnastics,” she points out. “So the popular moves are hard and static, not so much on spinning.”
She goes on explaining, “In the studio, there are many apparatuses and for an hour, they’re all yours. There’s no choreography. It’s either you ask the teacher for the tricks she’ll teach you that day, or you can show the teacher what you’ve seen on YouTube and she’ll help you learn that trick. It’s more skill-based.”
Realizing that aerial silks and hoop are the preferred apparatus of students, she decided to go for the least popular ones, such as hammock and straps. She ultimately chose hammock after acing all the tricks taught by her teacher-turned-coach and failed one on straps.
For two solid months, Avy trained hard to prevail in the qualifying round held last January and finally won a gold medal in the main competition a month later.
“My daughter was with me during my competitions and when I received my medals,” she says with pride. “I hope it will inspire her to reach for her dream and work hard for it. She’s athletically inclined. I made her try gymnastics, though she still doesn’t have the discipline for it yet. But I think she could do good.”
Avy’s husband is likewise supportive of her pursuits: “We have very different interests. When I show him my aerial videos, he appreciates though he doesn’t understand. Whatever will make me feel better and fulfilled, he completely supports me.”
Soon, the youngest member of the family will start schooling. This will give Avy more time to find better job opportunities while continuing her creative and fitness goals. As she puts it, “Doing aerial arts makes me feel good.”
