by Anna Shinn, staff writer
How many 17 year olds can say that they were on national television, traveled all around the world to compete, and ranked nationally in a sport? Not many, but River Hill senior Hannah Silverman can.
Acrobatics may not be as popular as soccer or football, but it is respected just as much. It is a sport whose elements include tumbling, balancing, and dancing all combined into one routine.
One feature that acro is known for is the unimaginable poses acrobats achieve while balancing as many as six people on top of each other. This skill takes incredible strength, flexibility, and dedication to be successful in.
While still in high school, Hannah reached the finale of America’s Got Talent with an acrobatics group called Acro Army, competed globally with acrobats around the world, and has been ranked nationally and globally for the past six years.
Although Hannah has accomplished a lot as a teenager, success has not come without many sacrifices. Including spending time with her friends, eating certain foods, and being a “normal” high school student.
She explains, “I had to watch what I was eating and I had a hard time with that when I went out with friends, so I had to just say I couldn’t hang out just in the fact that I wasn’t allowed to eat the foods that they were allowed to eat.”
Restricting what she ate and how much she ate was difficult for her also because she is small to begin with. Her diet mainly consisted of chicken, eggs, vegetables, and sometimes fruit but not much of anything else.
There were never many cheat days because her coaches needed her to stay small. It was important for her to stay light because she is the one who is being lifted and thrown in routines.
Playing a sport during high school is already a demanding task, but having practice everyday year round along with the demands of high school classes can take a tremendous toll mentally and physically. Because Hannah’s schedule for acro and school never matched up, she decided to switch to home school for junior year.
However, home schooling was not the best for her either. Hannah reveals, “It was definitely a hard transition going from public school to homeschooling Just in the fact that they are two very different ways of learning. I am more of a hands on learner so it was hard having to do everything on the computer.”
One big sacrifice Hannah had to make was her social life.
“I was never really able to hang out with my friends outside of school because I had practice every day.” Hanging out and talking to her friends are all really important to her as she is a very social person.
When Hannah stopped acro and decided to come back to public school for senior year, there were just as many cons as there were pros.
She enjoyed coming back to see her friends and to spend time with them before they leave for college, but she also didn’t miss the long classes. It was a challenge for Hannah to sit still for long periods of time because she gets antsy and jittery. She would have to be constantly moving her leg or hand.
Apart from acro, Hannah’s personality has truly been the reason why she showed so much promise.