Athlete of the Month: Meghan Schech
As fitness continues to grow every year, more and more people are starting to look for alternate ways to work out. Many seem to wander into the world of the aerial arts such as silks, hoop and pole fitness. CircoFit has become widely known around Edmonton for its classes offering anywhere from silks, straps, rope, hoop and even circus bootcamp classes as well as the occasional contortion workshop and trapeze. With 6 coaches running these sessions, they’ve continued to grow and build a very warm community. We had the greatest pleasure to sit down with Meghan Schech, the owner of CircoFit and aerial artist herself.
WD: Hi Meghan! Tell us a little bit about yourself, what got you started with the aerial arts?
MS: In high school a friend of mine invited me to his circus show. I was expecting it to be clowning, but actually he was performing on aerial rope. It was amazing to me that “real normal human beings” could do these incredible acrobatic feats. I always assumed that you needed to be born into the circus or something - which actually would have been the case a decade earlier. So I started taking classes and it became my main hobby for about 2 years. After my gap year I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I knew that I liked doing circus, so I took all of the money I had saved for tuition and went to live and train in San Francisco at The Circus Center. In 2015, Reaper in Rouge, a rock band that I was very much involved in ended, and I knew EXACTLY where to channel my energy, and later that year I launched CircoFit.
WD: What is one of the most challenging things you face when it comes to silks/ropes?
MS: Making the time and energy to train while running a business. I know a lot of yoga and pilates instructors that struggle with the same thing: the more you coach the less you want to carve out time for your own practice.
WD: As a pole fitness instructor myself I can definitely relate to that! So do you participate in any other sports?
MS: A few years ago I started weight lifting. I really enjoy Powerlifting specifically, though I still consider myself to be a novice. I have no ambitions to compete but I enjoy it, and it helped me to become stronger overall and therefore aerials became easier.