We are visiting our MIT friends here in the Boston area. Some weeks ago, we got asked if we wanted to take flying trapeze lessons with some of the kids. Cyndi and the kids said yes, I kind of blew it off. So today, I went with them to watch, and to be ready particpate in case Arianna chickened out. This is a link to the trapeze school.
Sure enough, Arianna bailed when we got there, so I got the call. First, there was ground school, where we we took turns on the bar very near the ground and practiced hooking our legs around the bar with an instructor. After we strapped on the safety belt, we climbed several flights of stairs to the flying trapeze. An instructor up there connects the safety belt to the flying wires, brings the bar close, hangs onto your belt, and tells you to lean out and reach the bar. This is the scariest part, because you are leaning out over space and the only thing keeping you from falling is her grip on your belt. Sure, the flying wires really keep you from killing yourself if she loses her grip on you, but you really have to trust her. For us engineering types who need to be in control, this is very difficult to do. Ahem.
Then she says “ready, HEP!” and you take a very small leap and fall with the bar into a very long arc. It’s amazing how much space you cover with this thing. At the end of the arc, you have to pulling your legs up and hook them on the bar. By now, you’ve swung back to the launch pad, and now you have to let go of your hands and reach out, hanging by your legs. This is catch practice. Now you have to reach the bar again and release your legs. A couple of well timed kicks, and you do a back flip and land in the net, hopefully on your back. Cyndi said it best: “some parts are a lot easier than I thought, and some parts are a lot harder.”
Then, we did catches. Well, only I did. For some reason, the boys chickened out, and Cyndi was getting sore, so it was up to me to honor the family name. There is now another instructor on the opposing trapeze, who starts swinging, and when he says HEP, you damn well better GO. One arc, legs up on the bar, second arc, hands out, third arc, CONTACT, he’s got your wrists and you release the bar from your legs. WOW, this is soooooo cool! He swings you one arc, then back to where he caught you and says SIT, and you let go at the apex, and hopefully fall into the net in a sitting position. Not so with me; no matter what I did, I face planted into the net.
I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW COOL THIS IS!!! I had so much adrenaline pumping through me. I am afraid of heights, and sometimes have trouble trusting people, but there is this indescribable feeling of liberation when you leap off that platform and go, then the backflip into space, then finally, the catch. Not only do you have to be there to understand, but you have to actually do it. WOW! This may become a regular thing for our Boston trips…
You’ll have to wait until we get home to load pics of everyone, and try to load the short movie we took of me doing the catch.
Ground School, Adam:
Video of Eddie getting caught: