Welcome to Fly Girl Yoga
“Do you see that girl? She’s a Fly Girl!”
My first memory of “Fly Girl” comes from The Fly Girls dancers on the early 1990s show In Living Color. They performed in a unique, synchronized hip-hop style, wearing eclectic and individualized street clothes. It was active, vibrant, expressive, and energizing. Several songs have venerated the Fly Girl.
Being in aviation, I’ve come across a few books with this same title—especially one highlighting the aviatrix pioneers from the early decades of the 20th century. I’ve been in aviation for about 25 years, having served as an airline pilot, flight instructor, aviation professor, and aviation safety policy expert.
While researching my yoga branding, I learned that FlyGirl is the call sign of Vernice Armour, a fellow Marine. Our service years overlapped, though I don’t think we met during our time in the Corps. This fly girl is the first African American female naval aviator and the United States’ first Black female combat pilot. I was likely also a first in Marine Corps aviation. She flew the AH-1W SuperCobra attack helicopter; I was a Door Gunner in the back of the CH-46 Sea Knight.
I also discovered a Flygirl superhero in the Marvel and Archie comic strip worlds. While these flygirl versions gain their ability to fly from insect superhero powers, I felt another connection to the term. I performed and taught in the circus as an aerialist and flying trapeze artist for about 15 years. Looking back on those years of floating, leaping, twisting, and flipping, there were moments when I felt like I had wings as I soared through the air.
But what most drew me to the expression Fly Girl is its modern definition. Beyond the lyrics of those songs, a Fly Girl is more than an object of affection. The Urban Dictionary defines a Fly Girl as someone “who knows what she wants and goes for it.” A Fly Girl is confident and striking. Committed and carefree. Determined and hip. Cool and hot. Artful and cunning. Elegant and streetwise. Uncompromising and resilient.
She’s not only empowered to always be her best self—she uplifts those around her to be their best selves, too.
While I had many personal connections to flying, it was this bold definition that drew me in. Yoga is more than movement, more than fitness, more than body. It’s more than mind and spirit. Yoga is the integration of body, mind, and spirit—and the empowerment to be your best self.
Welcome to Fly Girl Yoga…let’s soar together.
flygirlyoga.fit 