I'm Joining the Circus

Ok not really, but I'm pretty sure some of my friends were seriously considering it after our first trapeze class.

A few of my friends, Josie, Rachael, Lucie, Aysia, Claire and I decided to go trapezing a few weeks ago. Yes that's right trapezing, like full on circus act trapezing. Josie's mom went to a class a few months ago and said that it was really fun. Josie brought up the idea a few weeks ago and we all wanted to go. Everyone was so excited because how many chances are you going to get to pretend you're in the circus?

For those of you who don't know what trapezing is... (photo credits)

We all met up and headed down to the trapeze place. We got to the class and it turns out we were the only ones there (yay private lesson!) . We went through training at the beginning of the class. It was fairly simple stuff, like how to jump off, how to hang from the bar, how to dismount. Well, it seemed simple at the time (before I was forty feet off the ground). 

Since, Josie's mom had done this before, she went first. She climbed up the forty foot ladder and trapezed. She made it look easy enough. 

I went next and honestly the scariest part was climbing the ladder. Note to self: don't say that the ladder is shaking because the instructors WILL come and shake the ladder even more. I made it up to the platform and then the guy swung the bar over to me. All I had to was grab it with my right hand, while holding onto the platform with my left hand. The guy was holding onto my harness, so I didn't fall. Anyways, I grabbed on to the bar with my other hand and jumped off the platform. 

There was another guy at the bottom yelling commands to you like "legs up, hands off, hands on, legs off, forwards, backwards, forwards, let go".  I would say my first attempt was moderately successful. I mean other than when I face planted because I tried to land on my feet (apparently you are supposed to try and land on your butt or back, I was not aware of this).  

Everyone else went and we all got to go a few more times before we learned how to do a "catch". A catch is when you hang upside down and the other person (the instructor) catches you. I was slightly terrified that I either wouldn't let go or I would jump at the wrong time or the guy would drop me. But none of that happened. It actually went pretty well. I let go and the guy caught me. End of story. It just wasn't incredibly graceful or as cool looking as the picture above. 

Anyways, I would highly recommend going trapezing at least once in your life. It was so much fun (once you got over the initial fear of dying) and I would totally go again! This was honestly one of my favorite activities that I've done with my friends and the instructors were really nice and funny. My favorite quote of the night was "Trapezing is a lot like dating, just keep your legs together and everything will be just fine".

I went trapezing!!! (video courtesy of moi)

- Claire