Monterey County’s first aerial silks class drops (and twirls and contorts) into Sand City climbing gym this month.

Jillian Coombs’ long pink hair fans about like the cape of a magician as she twists between two purple sashes hanging from the ceiling. In a flash, she transforms from a spread-open spider to an upside-down bat.

Coombs is performing for an acrobatic movement class called aerial silks. She and co-instructor Cyn Currie are the first in Monterey County to lead such classes, which started earlier this month.

“It’s a fusion between the upper-body strength of climbing and the flexibility and precision of dancers,” Coombs says. “It makes me feel beautiful.”

Coombs, 25, was a bit of a tomboy as a kid – riding dirt bikes, rock climbing and accompanying her father to his construction sites. She loved pushing her physical limits, but she didn’t have any female athletes as role models.

In 2009, she was attending the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque when she saw a flier for a circus school. She went, not quite knowing her focus, and tried the trapeze but wasn’t into it. Then the school offered a class in aerial silks.

“The instructor also had a climbing background, and I ended up melding with her,” she says. “[Aerial silks] uses climbing to produce a very feminine expression.”

The class was in Santa Fe, an hour-long drive, too far for Coombs to travel more than once a week. She wanted to practice more, so she bought her own silk rig – two glossy lengths of fabric, a few feet wide and about as long as four bed sheets laid end to end – and set it up at a local park, improvising new movements. The silks are knotted and secured by a carabiners at the top.

Years later, Coombs moved to California. She needed a space to practice, but local arborists weren’t keen on her potentially damaging trees at Veterans Park in Monterey. After going to a friend’s birthday party at Sanctuary Rock Gym in Sand City, she had an idea.

“I approached them and asked if I could hang my silks, and they liked it,” she says.

Climbers took notice of the wild, pink-haired Coombs swinging around. So did the gym’s manager, Charles Schrammel, who in March approached her about teaching an aerial silks class.

“It’s good cross-training, because of the coordination and upper body strength needed for climbing,” Schrammel says. “It is a way to expand gym activities and offer a more diverse level of classes.”

The decision was also personal: his 8-year-old daughter, Teagan, got into aerial silks last fall. Before the local class started, Schrammel used to trek her up to Santa Cruz to train.

Teagan loves it. “It’s cool how you can do so many things on two pieces of fabric,” she says, swinging in the silks. “You can hang upside down by just one piece!”

At the beginning, though, it was a bit scary. “When I first fell back and hung upside down, I sort of lost my breath,” she says. “But when I realized I was being hung up, I was OK. I’m going to do it as long as my parents let me.”

Teagan is one of few kids Coombs teaches, but her students range in age from seven to their 50s. Coombs says aerialists are typically women, but she does have a few male students.

Monterey-resident Mila Rich, 18, takes the class as cross-training for climbing. “It uses a lot of core strength and is great conditioning,” she says. “It’s a unique sport, because it forces me to focus all my energy, and it’s a different kind of adrenaline rush.”

For Coombs, it’s more than a workout – it’s a fusion of grace and motion with a mental challenge. “I see it. I like it. I do it,” she says. “It’s not about just getting up there and being strong enough. You have to implore your brain.”

On the physical front, Coombs says, aerialists need a lot of arm strength and endure heavy pressure on body parts wrapped up in silks. “It’s tougher that it looks to stay up for five minutes,” she says. “There are moves that pinch you quite tightly around the waist or the feet.”

Then there’s the choreography: “You have to make it look like it doesn’t hurt. You have to keep your showmanship.”

Although she’s skilled enough to teach, Coombs aspires to get even better. “The one limiting factor is my flexibility, since I never danced. It makes some poses easier, and even possible,” she says. “It’s great to see some of my students be more flexible, because I can push them in ways I would want to push myself.”

As aerial silks take hold – in sports centers, at outdoor festivals and even between trees – Coombs hopes more people let themselves be embraced: both physically, by the glossy lengths of silk, and mentally, by the powerful feminine within.

Beginner class/$30, intermediate/$20. Contact Sanctuary Rock Gym for more info on pricing and class times. 1855 East Ave, Sand City, www.rockgym.com, 899-2595.