Holding On

Recently, I joined a beginners Intro to Circus Skills. This was done in an effort to get out there, have a new experience, and meet new people. The commitment of a class also requires me to leave work at a decent hour and helps to fill my TV free and when he is out of town, husband free evenings. I’ve completed two lessons so far and let’s just say that I won’t be quitting my day job anytime soon. The class is held in a huge warehouse with a rig on the ceiling holding all types of equipment to help students become aerial circus stars. Just think Cirque du Soleil. Over the course of the class we’ll be learning trapeze, aerial hula hoop skills, aerial silk, regular hula hooping, juggling, and acrobatics. (www.aerialize.com) Sounds like I’m highly qualified for the class, huh? In my defense there were no prerequisites but there probably should’ve been, like I don’t know maybe upper body strength, at least some upper body strength. Have I mentioned that I don’t really have any upper body strength??

The studio also has other classes including Chinese pole climbing and stilt walking. I could’ve used the stilt walking class about 12 years ago . . .not much use for it now. For those of you who don’t know I was the mascot for my high school my senior year. We were the Texans and I was the Long Tall Texan and had to walk on stilts in western wear. Honestly, I wasn’t that good on the stilts because I was just too fearful. During windy Friday night football games I refused to get on them for fear of falling over. Also, I was also concerned with standing too close to the sidelines because if a player came out of bounds then I just wasn’t fast enough to get out of their way. The decision for deciding the mascot wasn’t based upon tryouts, but an election instead. I may not have been great on the stilts but I did have a lot of pride and school spirit. Who knows, maybe next session I’ll take the stilt walking class and redeem myself.

Anyway, enough of embarrassing high school moments. This blog is focusing on my embarrassing adult moments. So I go to my first circus class all excited and nauseous/nervous and I’m acing the first hour. The first hour was a name game (important to know everyone’s name in case you need to yell at them to move before you fall through the air and land on them unexpectedly) followed by a warm up. I was so proud of myself thinking the whole time, “I’ve got this and I’m going to be just fine.” The first hour ended and that’s when the fun and games were over. Our next task was the aerial ribbons. You know the ones….girls climb up, wrap themselves into the fabric, and do all this amazing acrobatic stuff causing you to ooh and ahh. I was stunned. Was this not the first class?? What happened to the name games? I’m awesome with names! I kept thinking let’s go back to the names – I’m successful at that. Instead I repeatedly attempted to mimic the instructor and several students (so highly advanced that they must have taken a class before or are just freaks) by wrapping myself into the fabric and hoping that I’d miraculously ascend towards the top. The instructor kept telling me, “It’s easy . .just hold your body weight.” Ugh!! Does she have any idea of the amount of body weight I’m carrying?!?!? Within five minutes of the second hour, I felt absolutely defeated and wondered how/if I would make it the remaining seven classes. Memories of being the fat kid in elementary school trying unsuccessfully to climb the rope in gym class came flooding back to me. I was crying on the inside but really trying to laugh it off. Remember, this whole endeavor is really an attempt to make friends. To make matters worse about that time Paul ended up walking into the gym. I know many of you are thinking how sweet of him to be there to support me and all that stuff. Well, I was mortified. (They should at least have the “parent window” with blinds like the dance studios do instead of just letting anyone in.) First off, he was there WAY too early, but was curious and had been really kind and rented a car to take me home so I wouldn’t have to ride the bus. The thing is that it’s one thing to make an ass out of yourself in front of complete strangers, but to have your husband there watching it???? No thanks. I may have chosen to spend my life with him, but that doesn’t include my most embarrassing moments too. So there I am making pssst noises and doing a head nod towards the door the whole while attempting to be nonchalant and pretend like I don’t know him and he’s just sitting there .. aloof. Great time for him to be clueless as I’m having my own internal emotional meltdown. Eventually, after several dirty looks, he got up and left. Finally, after repeated attempts and mild fabric burns I was able to hold my own body weight in the fabric and I hung there proudly . . .about one foot of the ground. Others around me were advancing to backward flips and other weirdly named tricks, but I just held on and the fat kid inside me cheered.

This past week we focused on the aerial fabrics again and I might have improved . . .a tiny bit. We also tackled hula hooping and learned some tricks. I realize that I am an okay hula hooper (I kept my hoop up for over 5 minutes!) and am pretty proud of myself. To encourage our practicing at home the school sells hula hoops (for $30!! I told you Australia was expensive.) and all the students were buying one. I was completely pressured into it, but at least I got to pick my own colors for tape to wrap the hula hoop. I’m sure I won’t get any weird looks taking the hula hoop home on the bus. Maybe the other passengers will think I’m a highly talented hula hooping street entertainer. Sounds like a good story to me!

We also began trapeze skills and concentrated solely on the hangs. If I had monkey bar experience in my past then I probably would’ve been more successful, but we all know that fat kids don’t hang out on the monkey bars. You know, gravity and all. Actually, I didn’t do all that bad and I’m looking forward to improving. . . hopefully. I figure I can’t be any worse than I already am. I have taken an outdoor trapeze class in the Austin Hill Country with Paul a couple of years ago. I might have shed some tears that day on the platform, but this trapeze wasn’t nearly as tall nor was it outside in the wind so I felt much more comfortable. I’m not sure what circus skills we’ll learn this next week, nor does it really matter. Whether it be taking a silly class or moving halfway around the world, these days I’m doing all kinds of things that are pushing me out of my comfort zone. Some days are definitely better than others and I just have to remember to hold on.