Early last Sunday morning (7:15am!!) myself and teapig Amy (along with our supportive fan base) made the epic journey from West London to Woolwich to have our first ever lesson on the flying trapeze!
We knew very little about what to expect – apart from terrifying ourselves watching a few youtube videos, so when we arrived at the venue we were pretty nervous.
After warming up with the rest of our class, we saw the pros demonstrate the trick we were (hopefully!) going to achieve – we don’t know the technical terms, but a novice would describe it as whoosh on the trapeze, then flick your legs over the bar, take your hands off, reach behind and get caught by the person on the other bar. Sounds easy right?! We are terrified!
Time for a practice run on the low level bar, which involved getting used to how to grip the bar and having a go at hanging from our legs. I don’t think any of us actually believed this could be possible once we were 20 feet off the ground and doing it for real..!
Before we had time to worry about things too much, we had the long and scary climb up the ladder to the platform. After being hooked in by the instructor (to save us from an unpleasant landing…) it was time to trapeze! Hold on to the side with your left hand. Reach out and grab the bar with your right. Reach out to grab the bar with your left. Straighten up and hips out. And then…jump!
I’m sure teapig Amy will agree that the feeling of whooshing off from that platform hanging by your hands is something out of this world – a heady mix of adrenaline and fear, and boy, do your muscles feel it!
After two goes, Amy and I were amazed that we both managed to get our legs over the bar, release our hands and just hang there way up above the net below. What a feeling!
Sadly, we didn’t make it through to bootcamp – we weren’t quite good enough to try the full trick, but 3 others in our class made the cut and were perfectly caught by the instructor – proper circus performer stuff and amazing to watch!
We had such an amazing morning and won’t stop talking about it to anyone that will listen. Gorilla Circus have indoor classes all throughout winter, and they even take it outside to Regents Park during the summer months. Check it out and have a go, you won’t regret it! (Word of warning – this is a workout like no other, you will feel it the next day. And the next. And the next. Owwie!)
