Auburn is an ever-changing community that never ceases to keep its students on their toes. Whether it's by adding a fleet of food trucks to campus or spontaneous raves in the library, Auburn students are always experiencing new things on campus.
The Auburn University Acrobatics Club is one of these new things that has been added to Auburn's campus.
Anna Caudle, junior in ESA performance, had experience with acrobatics in high school and decided she wanted to do something similar at Auburn.
New this semester, the club already has approximately 25 members just from students who heard about it by word of mouth, Caudle said.
"It's been even more successful than I thought it would be," Caudle said.
The group only practices once a week, Fridays from 2 - 3:30 p.m., in the upstairs dance studio of the theater building.
Caudle said she leads the practices, starting off with some exercise.
"We start out each class with a 30-minute intensive workout because a lot of the stuff we do requires a lot of muscle and a lot of endurance," Caudle said.
After that, they stretch and begin learning new tricks. Most of the tricks they learn are done with partners, but juggling has recently been added to their skill set.
"We started out learning just basic moves, like little flips and stuff like that, and as we got a feel for who our best partner was, we've been able to move on to much more advanced tricks," said Jordan Lunstead, sophomore in musical theater. "One of our dance professors is supposed to be getting certified in stilts this summer. So, hopefully, we will be having stilts classes next year."
Teddy Childers, junior in biomedical sciences, said they usually learn three to four stunts a day. Childers' favorite stunt is called the fallen angel.
"I have a girl in front of me, and she jumps, and I am holding her [...] by the small of her back over my head with one hand," Childers said. "That seems to be the most difficult."
Lunstead described another trick, where one acrobat throws another into the air, where latter does and is caught in the middle of a split.
Caudle said she thinks the coolest move involves two people on the bottom as bases and one flyer, the person who gets thrown in the air. The two bases hold onto the hands and feet of the flyer and flip them into a backbend in the air.
"It's definitely a high level of intricacy," Caudle said. "It looks incredible."
According to Caudle, they have never had an injury at practice.
The club uses gymnastics mats the members lay out before they start practicing tricks.
"We only ever do partnering tricks one at a time so we can have people actively spotting the people that are doing the tricks in case anything goes wrong," Lunstead said.
The group has already had a few performances and hopes to have more in the future. Anyone who is interested in joining the club can contact Caudle at acc0027@tigermail.auburn.edu.
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