It’s tempting, that whole run-off-and-join-the-circus business.
I’m not quitting my day job just yet, but after spending an afternoon learning a few basic moves on the flying trapeze from three former circus performers, I can see the lure.
Imagine. I stand on a platform 24 feet in the air. I grab the trapeze bar with my hands, hop into thin air and swoop forward in an enormous arc. (Thank goodness for the safety net because this isn’t as pretty as it sounds.)
And that’s just the first part of the lesson. With a little luck, these guys will have me executing a midair transfer before the day is done. Could someone crank up the circus music, please?
Peter Gold, director of Trapeze-Experience, calls the authentic, circus-caliber trapeze a “laboratory of self-discovery.” The trapeze is set up through the end of May at The Crossings, a spa and wellness center near Lake Travis. In the 20 years he has been teaching trapeze, this New Yorker has helped more than 30,000 people “fly.” About 70 percent are women, most in their 30s to 50s. But anyone age 6 and up can try.
“Oddly enough, flying through the air on a trapeze really helps ground people,” Gold says. “It became clear to me that there was a profound magical effect on these people.”
More than a full-body physical workout, Gold says, zinging back and forth on a trapeze can boost confidence and self-esteem. It also can teach lessons applicable to personal and professional life — make you feel a little more fearless when you speak to a group, a little braver when you head into an important client meeting.
Gold says his is the only company offering real trapeze lessons in Texas. He travels around the United States, stopping in cities for weeks at a time to give lessons. At The Crossings, you can take private or group lessons and multiday workshops. Classes start at $60 for a two-hour group session.
Gold, who is married to a circus contortionist from Mongolia, teams with two other trapeze experts. Together, Gold, Tony Steele and James Gibson are a trio of zany instructors, cracking jokes and making you forget you are swinging from a flimsy metal bar high above the ground as you live out your fantasy of soaring, perhaps someday under the big top in a star-spangled leotard.
Wake me when I’m flying
OK, so I left the sequined outfit at home. Instead I’m wearing a pair of loose pants, a tight T-shirt that won’t flop over my head when I’m upside down and, because it is chilly, a snug jacket.
The trapeze at The Crossings is set up on a hillside. From the platform, you can see for miles into the nearby Hill Country. Buzzards swirl ominously overhead. I silently wonder if they are waiting for me to crash and crumble.
Before we begin, the trapeze guys lead me in a stretching routine. Then I remove my shoes and practice a few arm swings and knee hangs from a low-rise trapeze. This involves a lot of abdominal work. You can’t progress without making mistakes, Gold tells me. He also reminds me that incredible upper-body strength isn’t necessary in trapeze work.
“It’s not about conquering fear, but learning to stay operational while fear is present,” Gold says when I tell him I’m scared of heights. “It’s a feeling of being alive and very present in the moment.”
I keep that in mind as I shimmy up the swaying ladder to that bird’s perch in the sky, my legs quaking a little. At the top, I rub chalk on my hands as Steele attaches safety lines to the harness around my waist. He’s a calming force up here, where I’m clinging to a pole like I’ve got Velcro on my belly.
Steele tells me about himself: He ran away and joined the circus 55 years ago, when he was just 15. He went on to become one of the world’s top flying trapeze artists from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. Now he teaches others because he loves watching the transformation the students undergo.
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“It’s just a passion, the most fun you can have with your clothes on,” Steele says. “Would you rather be stuck in a car in gridlock traffic or swinging through trees like Tarzan?”
Making like a monkey, obviously. With that, I lean forward, grab the bar and swoosh away. When I reach the farthest point, I hoist my legs up onto the bar and turn upside down, so I’m hanging from my knees. I drop my hands, arch my back, and swoop back and forth a few times. Finally, I pull myself back up so I’m hanging by my hands again, then let go of the bar and flip onto the safety net below.
And it’s so much fun!
On my fourth trip up to the launching pad, it’s time to try the midair transfer. If all goes as planned, I will whip back and forth by my knees, then reach out and let Gibson grab me. We’ll swing, linked together, in one giant arc, then I’ll let go, push him away, turn around and catch my original trapeze bar.
And you know what? Things go as scripted — almost.
I swing into Gibson’s arms, he clamps on in a deathgrip, then grins at me and says, “Hello.” As I swing back, I push him away as instructed. Except that when I spin around in midair my bar isn’t where I think it will be. I fall, like a spent shotgun shell, into the net.
No matter. I scoot to the edge of the net, slide down the fireman’s pole to the ground, and high-five everyone I can find. Then I scamper back up the ladder and try it again. Sadly, I never did catch the bar on the rebound. Maybe next time.
This is when I start to formulate my own run-off-and-join-the-circus fantasy. It’s also, I fear, when I use my ab muscles just a little bit too much.
Till we meet again
Later, I watch 11-year-old Susie Schmank of St. Louis take a lesson while her mother and aunt look on.
“I’m nervous,” Susie says as Gold buckles the 4-foot-11-inch wisp of a girl into a harness. She slips off her pink and brown Vans and flips her brown pony tail before climbing up to the platform. On the first try, Susie doesn’t jump off on command, and can’t get her feet up and legs hooked onto the bar in time. But she’s still smiling when she comes off the net.
“I thought I was going to fall,” she says a little sheepishly.
She climbs back up to the platform, and you can see on her face that she’s a little less timid this time. After a few tries, she gets her legs hooked, and swoops back and forth in an imitation of a circus star.
“It’s hard the first time, but then it gets easier,” she says. “It feels like a roller coaster.”
We compare notes and agree that it’s more comfortable to swing by your knees than your hands. I can imagine the palm calluses I’d have if I took this up as a hobby.
Finally, it’s time to go. “In the circus we never say goodbye. We say, `See you down the road?'” Gold says, waving as I mosey to my car, smug and proud of my accomplishments.
It isn’t until the next morning that I re-evaluate my circus dreams. I feel like I’ve done a hundred crunches.
I can’t laugh without pain. I grimace every time I stand up or sit down. My husband thinks it’s hilarious. Oh, the agony! I lay on my back with a heating pad stretched across my belly.
If this is what it takes to be a trapeze star, I think I’ll pass.