But, it’s super addictive! Once you’ve tried aerial fitness, it’s very difficult to give it up. On top of that, you end up trying out other disciplines and you end up being sucked into the circus scene. With London being one of the most expensive cities to live in, here are some tips for pursuing aerial / circus fitness on a budget.
Smaller studios
Flying Fantastic is one of the more established aerial schools in London so naturally the prices are higher. One credit costs £26 but it’s cheaper if you buy in bulk: 10 credits is £200 meaning each class costs £20. These credits can be used over 3 months.
London Dance Academy is one of the smaller studios but have classes from £17.50-£21, depending on length of the class (60 min or 90 min). The studio is lower but if you’re just starting out it’s probably more reassuring to be closer to the floor! Personally, I aspire to go to Flying Fantastic, but probably when I have a larger budget and when I feel like I’ve levelled up enough to make the most out of it!
London Dance Academy is one of the smaller studios but have classes from £17.50-£21, depending on length of the class (60 min or 90 min). The studio is lower but if you’re just starting out it’s probably more reassuring to be closer to the floor! Personally, I aspire to go to Flying Fantastic, but probably when I have a larger budget and when I feel like I’ve levelled up enough to make the most out of it!
ClassPass
ClassPass is also not a cheap membership. The price can be up to £65 a month so by all means I’m not saying this is cheap at all. However, when compared with the cost of buying blocks of classes directly from the studio, it does work out to be a lot cheaper – in some instances around 50% cheaper! It’s worth trying this out and it also gives you flexibility to try different disciplines. There’s also the option to downgrade to a £35 subscription, which gives you fewer credits per month, but the classes still work out cheaper than if you were to buy direct or as drop-in.
Usually if you buy classes in blocks, you are tied to those course dates. So, if you can’t make the class or you want to go on holiday, you will waste that class and your money. With ClassPass, you just book when you need to go, so it’s much more convenient and works better for your schedule. Read more about some of the studios I tried with ClassPass in my blog post about my week of aerial fitness.
In the end, I set up an alert on Gumtree for people selling their gym memberships. Quite a lot of people sign up for the 1 year contract to get the better deal or because they had corporate discount but end up changing their mind before the contract is up. I luckily came across someone selling their founding membership which meant that the membership was just £65 a month! I say “just” like it’s such a small amount. It is of course very expensive – I definitely call Gymbox a bougie gym! It took me a long time to just go for it and get the membership.
But again, this is much cheaper than if I were to get classes elsewhere, plus I also have access to a load of different classes on top of aerial! I would absolutely recommend watching out for people selling their membership on Gumtree and swiping up a good deal. Usually the membership price can go up to £100s so knowing that I was saving about £40 a month made me glad I didn’t sleep on this ad. They’re opening up a lot of new branches so if you can get in there on a founding membership, it’s so worth it! They also do a lot of promotions for a month free, or no joining fee, or corporate discount (speak to your HR department), all worth keeping an eye out for if you’re interested in this!
Usually if you buy classes in blocks, you are tied to those course dates. So, if you can’t make the class or you want to go on holiday, you will waste that class and your money. With ClassPass, you just book when you need to go, so it’s much more convenient and works better for your schedule. Read more about some of the studios I tried with ClassPass in my blog post about my week of aerial fitness.
MoveGB
I haven’t tried MoveGB yet but I think they have some pole classes… I will update with more info once I’ve tried it out. However, in terms of budget-friendly aerial fitness, they are doing an offer where you can try out new classes for £1 per week (caveat: you can only attend that class once). Definitely will give this a try!Gymbox
This is the route that I opted for. Since Gymbox offer aerial hoop, trapeze and circusfit classes in their Aerial series, it meant that I could attend as many of these classes I wanted. On top of that, you get access to their awesome gym. I had my eye on Gymbox for a long time but it’s a bit difficult to actually make the move with them. Everytime I enquired about prices, they would not really tell me outright how much the membership cost. It takes some coaxing for them to send you their price table, which I found quite shady and annoying at first, to be honest. There’s a lot of different prices depending on different factors as well like location, student discount, length of contract etc. I also had to make sure I picked the locations that offered aerial classes because not all the gyms have the same classes.In the end, I set up an alert on Gumtree for people selling their gym memberships. Quite a lot of people sign up for the 1 year contract to get the better deal or because they had corporate discount but end up changing their mind before the contract is up. I luckily came across someone selling their founding membership which meant that the membership was just £65 a month! I say “just” like it’s such a small amount. It is of course very expensive – I definitely call Gymbox a bougie gym! It took me a long time to just go for it and get the membership.
But again, this is much cheaper than if I were to get classes elsewhere, plus I also have access to a load of different classes on top of aerial! I would absolutely recommend watching out for people selling their membership on Gumtree and swiping up a good deal. Usually the membership price can go up to £100s so knowing that I was saving about £40 a month made me glad I didn’t sleep on this ad. They’re opening up a lot of new branches so if you can get in there on a founding membership, it’s so worth it! They also do a lot of promotions for a month free, or no joining fee, or corporate discount (speak to your HR department), all worth keeping an eye out for if you’re interested in this!