Baby Dragons · Learn Baby Acro With Us

Before you start

Watch these in order.

Everything in this series was built as a sequence of very small progressions, starting when our twins were much smaller than they are now. None of it started where the newest video is, and none of yours should either.

Every session is led by the babies. If they aren't in the mood, we don't do it. Some days neither of them has it, and that isn't a failed session, it's the method working. A qualified adult base, a soft floor, and space for the failures come before any skill on this page.

Questions are genuinely welcome. Ask them on any of the posts and we'll answer properly.

The progression

Start here · what a session looks like

One real session, start to finish

Seven and a half minutes cut to three. The warm-up spins, the skills they ask for, the lifts that don't land, and the point where the base is completely done. This is the shape of the thing before we break any of it down.

In this one

reading their signals
the base does the work
space for failures
when to stop

The first skill · tension, not height

Comfortable off the ground

Where everything else on this page starts: her hands around his fingers, off the ground, on her terms. He never pulls; she grips, he waits, and the tension gets made between them, hands first, then feet, a little more upside down each time. She brings a lot of tension of her own here, and a baby who just hangs there grinning is the skill working too. The goal is never height: full arm extension, full weight through the shoulders, their own tension steadying them for their base.

In this one

co-created tension
no jerk, no pulling
a little upside down at a time
done means done

Lesson three · folds before lifts

Learning to fall

How does a throw get safe? By never coming first. Elevated tummy time opens this one, support underneath so that lifting his head and organizing his spine in odd positions is already normal. Then the drops, because all of it is practicing the folds before the lifts: him getting used to his own weight falling through space, the base getting used to exactly how fast he falls. Only then the first unsupported fall onto something very soft, the first true throw, and the spins that ask his eyes to hold the base while the room turns. Every fall lands face down on purpose, the safer shape at speed, and the point of all of it is a baby watching himself fly and finding it hilarious.

In this one

elevated tummy time
folds before lifts
face down, always
eyes on the base

Lesson four · backflips

Borrowing a reflex

The most impressive one to watch, and the one that starts with something the baby is already doing. Every baby puts their hips back and their feet up by their ears, and the whole skill is that fold, allowed to finish. On a soft surface it finishes against the feet placed behind them, with the base doing nothing but turning them over while they do the work. In the air it asks for nothing new: legs back, pelvis leading first, and the base's thumbs on the backs of the shoulders, which is where the movement actually gets directed and caught at the top. This one also keeps the session where both of them decline, because a baby who won't play ball usually isn't a baby who dislikes it, it's a baby who doesn't yet know what you're asking. And the floor repetitions are for the base as much as the flyer: how fast that body moves, where its weight and center of gravity sit, how much tension it holds. None of that gets known airborne. If they come round curled in a tuck, that's right, and the legs come out in their own time.

In this one

hips back, feet up
the floor version first
thumbs on the shoulders
a tuck is right

Lesson five · the vertical toss

One hold at a time

The toss everyone films is the top of a ladder, and this is the ladder. The first hold asks only that they can sit themselves upright and extend from the pelvis, and before they can sit there is a version with their bottom against your chest, leaning forward, holding the extension through the upper back. From there the hands walk down the body one position at a time. The pelvis, then under the arms and down to the hips, which is where you start to feel their weight slide through your hands, and the instruction is to keep contact all the way down rather than pulling your hands out to catch. Then armpits and knees, then ankles and shins, then one hand flat under the feet. Nothing moves up a rung until the one below is genuinely easy, and that is the safety case rather than the catch. The last hold rests on ankle stability, the ability to pull the foot up and press it down, so that gets played with directly: stood in one hand, given something to push back against, for as long as they can hold it. And when falling backwards becomes the game, that becomes the game.

In this one

extension from the pelvis
keep contact as they slide
armpits, knees, ankles, feet
the ankle decides the last one

Lesson six · no fear of falling

Fun is the success

The tricks look dangerous because adults can see the risk. The twins can't, because a fall they have never had is not something they can imagine, so what they experience is flying through the air and being caught. The base works the same way. The smooth, easy tosses come from him feeling his way into each catch, with preventing a fall nowhere in his head. The risk is real and it sits with the adults, who decide which risks they are willing to take. For the babies the measure is fun. When she won't stand up in his hand and falls backwards instead, laughing, that counts. There is no pressure on either of them to land a particular move, and the whole point is experimenting with what their body can do and feeling it while they do it.

In this one

the risk sits with the adults
feeling into the catch
fun equals success
no move has to be landed

Episode seven · why we do this

A felt sense of safety

After the series reached a lot of new people, some of them were worried it endangers the twins. There is research and purpose behind every part of it. The physical skill is one piece. The larger aim is the twins' nervous systems and their felt sense of safety, and everything we do as parents is about preparing them for the world. We are a real family, both trained in this work, and there is a reason behind what can look like internet madness. Tell us what would help you most: how to catch a baby safely, how to toss with more safety, or how to read the cues that say your baby wants to play and when they are done. Comments or DMs, either works.

In this one

research behind every move
the nervous system first
reading their cues
tell us what you want next

Episode eight · three concerns

Heads, elbows and connective tissue

Three concerns come up most about how we throw and play with our babies. The first is shaking the baby's brain. They have practiced for a long time and have great head and neck control, and the brain and the tissues around it are not that fragile. The force behind an acceleration-deceleration injury, the kind seen in sport, is outside anything produced here, and every catch absorbs the force so their heads never stop suddenly. The second is nursemaid's elbow, one of the most common musculoskeletal reasons toddlers go to the emergency room. We build tension with them from the trunk outward, a pressure wave through the large trunk muscles that lets them contract their own muscles, so the catch is smooth with no jerk and no stress on the joints. The third is the idea that babies' connective tissue is fragile. It is more elastic, more flexible and just as strong as an adult's. What differs is the growth plates and the attachments and muscles around them, and we accommodate that in how we produce force through and with their bodies.

In this one

head and neck control
absorbing the catch
tension from the trunk out
elastic, strong tissue

Episode nine · standing in palms

From the pelvis to the feet

Once a baby can stand, keeping their balance in your palms mostly comes from the ankles. As the base, you are helping them make sense of what is happening in their feet, and unstable surfaces at home do a lot of that groundwork: the Nugget, crash mats, foam, the bed. They learn to keep their balance when the surface is super unstable, like a hand. The holds go in order. First from the pelvis, where they learn to hold their head and spine upright, and you can feel the glutes, the hamstrings and the rest of the back of the body switch on as you tilt them. Then from the knees, a narrower stance, with enough challenge that they start to tire. It is progressive overload for babies. Then the ankles, and finally a steady base under the feet, where you can see how much work Caleb's hands are doing. Take breaks, and switch babies, which is optional unless you have twins. Some days they are just not with it, and if he wants to go backwards, let him go backwards.

In this one

balance comes from the ankles
unstable surfaces at home
pelvis, knees, ankles, feet
progressive overload for babies

Who's doing this

Caleb and Victoria

Caleb is a functional neurophysiology expert and the base in every video here. The lifts are foot positioning, hand placement and his strength, and there is always a get-out position available to the babies.

Victoria is a UK-trained clinical expert and twin mom, and is almost never in frame, because she is far too much of a distraction to two babies who are supposed to be concentrating.

We started as complete beginners with a lot of nerves, and grew into this together as a family, over months.

counteractmethod.com
Follow the series on Instagram @mrsvictoriagreer