American Circus Educators Magazine Spring 2018 (Issue 1, Volume 12) | Page 24

P o i n t o f // A C R O
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My acrobatic career began five years ago when I got
into AcroYoga. I have been an athlete my entire life
and at the time I had been practicing a lot of yoga, so
I picked up the acro side fairly quickly. Like a lot of
people at the time, I learned from YouTube without a
coach. There were few—if any—teachers making the
rounds through the Southeast teaching workshops in
those days, which bred an attitude of self-reliance
among us. I would travel to workshops and learn as
much as I could there, but most of my early learning
was through simple trial and error.
Matt Fields-
Johnson
When I met my partner Liz about 4 years ago,
my skill level skyrocketed. Her background in
gymnastics made a lot of new things possible
for me as a base. We quickly learned that
circus acrobatics would challenge us to a
higher level, so we made it our goal to push
ourselves as far as we could and to train with
whomever would coach us. As an athlete, I
wanted to become the best I could be. As a
teacher, I really wanted to learn safely and
correctly so that I myself would be passing
down proper technique.
Toward these goals, we started traveling more.
We both attended the first Acro Revolution
teacher training in Harrisonburg, VA. We also
trained with Niko Douwes at Pitch Catch Circus
in Boulder, Colorado. Eventually we settled
in California to train at the San Diego Circus
Center with Jean-Luc Martin, and we also
go to Montreal to train with world-renowned
hand to hand coach Jerome Lebaut, among
many other teachers.
PHOTO CREDIT: MAT T FIELDS-JOHNSON
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