By Peggy Ployhar, Owner, Eternal Aerial Arts
There is a verse most of us have heard since childhood: "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." — Proverbs 16:18. It is one of those truths that feels almost too obvious to mention — until you watch it play out in real life. And in aerial arts, it does not just play out metaphorically. It can play out on a mat, or worse, on a hard floor from ten feet in the air.
I want to talk about pride today — not the healthy confidence that comes from hard work and growth, but the kind of pride that quietly convinces you that the rules no longer apply to you.
The Trap of Progress
Here is how it happens. You have been training for months, maybe years. Skills that once terrified you now feel effortless. You understand your wraps. Your body is stronger. Your drop is clean nine times out of ten. And somewhere in the back of your mind, a thought begins to form: I don't really need to walk that down anymore. I know what I'm doing. The mat is probably overkill at this point.
It is such a reasonable-sounding thought. That is what makes it so dangerous.
The safeguards we practice at Eternal Aerial Arts — checking your wraps, walking down drops before performing them at full height, using crash mats, checking rigging, never practicing alone — were not invented for beginners. They were developed over time by aerialists who learned, often painfully, what happens when you skip them. The fact that you are more skilled than you were six months ago does not mean the laws of physics have changed. It does not mean the fabric cannot fail. It does not mean your focus cannot slip at the exact wrong moment. It does not mean the equipment around you is perfect. The world is imperfect. Our bodies are imperfect. And the aerial disciple we love is a beautiful, demanding thing that requires our consistent respect.
Progress is real. Celebrate it. But do not let it convince you that you have graduated past the need for care.
The Log in Your Own Eye
Jesus addressed this same pattern of blind confidence in Matthew 7:3-5: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
This passage is usually taught as a lesson in judgment, and it is. But there is something deeper here that speaks directly to the trap of pride. The person with the plank in their eye cannot see clearly — not because they lack intelligence or skill, but because something is blocking their view of their own blind spots. Pride does exactly this. When we become convinced of our own infallibility, we stop examining ourselves honestly. We stop asking the hard questions. We stop checking.
And here is the beautiful promise hidden inside that passage: once you remove the log — once you honestly reckon with your own tendency to be shortsighted, your own propensity for error, your own moments of carelessness — you gain something. You gain wisdom. And with that wisdom, you begin to see others making the exact same mistakes you once made. Not so you can judge them. Not so you can feel superior. But so you can come alongside them and say, "Hey, I know where you are right now. I was there too. Here is what I learned."
That is the culture I want to build at Eternal Aerial Arts. Not a culture of fear, but a culture of honest, humble excellence.
What Pride Looks Like in Practice
It is worth naming some of the specific ways pride can show up in an aerial practice, because it rarely announces itself. It tends to whisper.
It whispers when you skip the verbal wrap check because you are pretty sure you wrapped it right. It whispers when you decide not to straighten the mat because this is a skill you have done dozens of times and you are certain you won't need it. It whispers when you practice alone because you are just going to run through a few things quickly and it does not seem worth the hassle of finding a buddy. It whispers when you rush a student through progressions because they are talented and seem ready, even though the systematic foundational work is not fully there yet.
Each of these compromises feels small in the moment. That is the nature of how accidents find us — not in the moments when we are obviously careless, but in the moments when we feel the most capable.
A Note to Parents
To the parents of our students: thank you for trusting us with your children. That trust is something we take seriously every single day, and I want you to understand why our safeguards exist so that you can reinforce them by talking about them at home when encouraging your student to follow them at the studio.
Aerial arts is genuinely challenging and genuinely joyful — and it is also genuinely dangerous when shortcuts are taken. Everything we do at our studio, from the time it takes to move through progression levels to the requirement that students walk down drops before performing them, is rooted in one thing: your child's safety. Building skills through deliberate progression is not about holding children back. It is about ensuring that when they do perform a skill, their body has the strength, the muscle memory, and the knowledge of their wraps to do it correctly — every time, not just when conditions are perfect.
Here is what I ask of you at home and at performances: remind your children that aerial is a discipline that rewards consistency and humility. Encourage them to welcome the checks, not resist them. Cheer for their patience as loudly as you cheer for their drops. And if you are ever watching your child perform and an instructor stops them mid-performance because something was not done right— please know we will step in and stop them, even mid-performance, to ensure they are wrapped safetly. A paused routine is nothing compared to a preventable injury.
A Note to Fellow Aerialists and Instructors
To my fellow instructors and to any aerialist or aerial educator reading this: we carry a particular responsibility. Our students watch how we treat the safeguards. They watch whether we use the mat when we think no one is looking. They notice whether we check our rigging or assume it is fine because the morning rigging check was done and the previous instructor who hung the apparatus should have done it properly. Our habits become the culture of our studios and our community.
If you have slipped into some of these patterns — I say this without judgment, because I have caught myself there too — it is not too late to reset. Make the check a non-negotiable part of your practice again. Walk the drop down. Use the spotter. Be the person who models that excellence and humility are not opposites; they are partners.
The most skilled aerialists I have ever known are not the ones who stopped following safety protocols. They are the ones who consistently did.
Staying Safe Is Not a Step Backward
Let me be clear about something important: no safety protocol guarantees a perfect outcome. We live in a broken world. Even the highest quality equipment can fail, injuries can happen even when we do everything right. But the goal of our safeguards is not a guarantee — it is significant risk reduction. When we check our wraps, use our mats, train with a partner, walk down our drops, and honor the progression system, we are not performing empty rituals. We are doing the hard, humble work of taking our art seriously enough to protect it and ourselves.
That is not weakness. That is wisdom.
"Before a downfall the heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor." — Proverbs 18:12
Fly high. Stay humble. And never stop checking your wraps.
With love, faith, and hope, Peggy Ployhar Owner, Eternal Aerial Arts
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