|
|
|
Learning to Fly, and I Ain't Got Wings
|
|
Claire Trageser
|
|
October, 22 2007
|
|
|
|
|
I'm standing on a platform 30 feet above the ground. My toes are curled over the edge, and my right hand is holding a trapeze bar. I am leaning forward into the air while my instructor, Simon Rowston, anchors me to the platform by gripping the canvas belt fastened around my waist.
“Now take your left hand, reach out, and grab the bar,” Mr. Rowston says. I look at my left hand, which is still clutching onto a post on the platform. And then I look at the trapeze bar, which hangs in front of me. I am sure that the only thing keeping me from falling off the platform is that left hand. |
Claire Trageser, the writer, learns to fly Photos: Jacob Fensten
I'm standing on a platform 30 feet above the ground. My toes are curled over the edge, and my right hand is holding a trapeze bar. I am leaning forward into the air while my instructor, Simon Rowston, anchors me to the platform by gripping the canvas belt fastened around my waist.
“Now take your left hand, reach out, and grab the bar,” Mr. Rowston says. I look at my left hand, which is still clutching onto a post on the platform. And then I look at the trapeze bar, which hangs in front of me. I am sure that the only thing keeping me from falling off the platform is that left hand.
“Reach out and grab the bar,” Mr. Rowston says again. “Um. No,” I say. “I’m sorry, I can’t do it.”
Somehow, I have ended up in a Sunday morning beginner’s flying trapeze class at Trapeze Arts, a circus school in West Oakland. I am one of more than 12,000 students who have been brave enough -- or stupid enough -- to try the school’s flying trapeze, according to Lili Gaudreau, who started the school in 1994 with her husband, Stephen Gaudreau. She says the school was the first of its kind in the United States.
“It’s a dream come true for us that we had this vision to share these activities that we love with people, and it’s taken off,” she says.
Mr. Gaudreau took his first ride on a trapeze when he was 19 years old. He was working as a chef at Club Med, the French vacation resorts company, and began spending his free time in the club’s trapeze classroom. He quickly realized he was a natural, and switched from cooking to teaching trapeze arts, learning the techniques even as he taught others. Six years later, Mr. Gaudreau embarked on his professional trapeze career and eventually earned a spot as the lead swinger in Circus Circus in Reno. He performed the show-stopping triple somersault in 13 shows a week.
“He’s the professional, and I’m involved in the school through marriage,” says Mrs. Gaudreau, who also works as a nurse at the Children’s Hospital in Oakland.
Mr. and Mrs. Gaudreau originally began teaching on an outdoor trapeze in Sonoma, and moved to Oakland in 2000. They chose the building they’re in-- which looks like a giant barn-- at 1822 9th Street, just off the 7th Street exit, because it was one of the few spaces big enough and tall enough to accommodate a flying trapeze.
They haven’t had to regret their decision. Seven years later, the school is flourishing. More than a hundred students regularly attend one to three classes a week, which cost $40 for a single group class or $275 for 10 classes in 10 weeks. Trapeze Arts also hosts two to four parties a weekend, which range from birthday parties to bachelor parties to bar mitzvahs. These events cost between $150 and $880. The cheapest option is a trampoline party for six children under the age of six, while the priciest activity is a flying trapeze party for up to 18 revelers.
The school also offers about 20 corporate team experiences a year, which bring in employees of companies like Microsoft, Genetech, American Express, and Pixar to bond through high-flying activities and team-building exercises.
For most people who visit the school, signing up for trapeze arts is a way to try a new thrill. “People have done rock climbing and bungie jumping, so this is the next logical thing to try,” Mrs. Gaudreau says. “It’s fun, and it’s a way to get exercise. It’s physically challenging, mentally challenging, and it beats the Stairmaster.”
The Stairmaster certainly isn’t as terrifying. During the hour and a half that I spend under the tin roof of Trapeze Arts, I bond with fellow beginner Matthew Sanner, 41, who came to the class because of his girlfriend. “I want her to go rock-climbing or ice-climbing with me, so she said I have to come here in exchange,” he says.
Matthew Sanner gets ready for his jump.
Mr. Sanner’s girlfriend, Lisa Tanimune, 37, has been swinging ever since she got on a trapeze during a Club Med vacation seven years ago. She comes to classes once or twice a week, and it shows. She can swing out on the trapeze, spin herself around, and land back on the platform -- instead of falling awkwardly into the net like the rest of us. By the end of the class, she is soaring through the air, pushing her body up and over the trapeze bar, and grabbing the arms of Jake Kimball, an instructor swinging on another bar that hangs about 30 feet from the platform.
“It’s a stress release,” she says. When I laugh at that concept, she adds, “Well, when I’m up there, I can just concentrate on physically what I’m doing, instead of whatever else is going on.”
Lisa Tanimune flies through the air. Jake Kimball instructs.
Ms. Tanimune, who works as a physician’s assistant, says she has no professional trapeze aspirations. However, according to Mrs. Gaudreau, the school has transformed many students from complete beginners to professional performers. “We have people right now who are performing in Cirque du Soleil’s Ka show in Las Vegas,” she says. Advanced students also get to perform with Mr. Gaudreau in professional exhibitions put on by the school.
Our other classmates are five young, fit, and pretty girls. They each take turns launching off the platform, twisting their legs in different configurations around the trapeze bar, and then grabbing the arms of the swinging Mr. Kimball. Once back on solid ground, they watch a video recording of what they just did, so they can improve their technique in the next attempt.
Mrs. Gaudreau says that the school attracts a variety of people, because unlike other sports, almost anyone can use the trapeze. Mr. Kimball confirms this, saying he has done the same tricks he did with the girls in our class with people who weigh 240 pounds.
“There’s no norm, no average, no one kind of person who does it,” Mrs. Gaudreau says. “We have every age, economic level, and level of education. We have CEOs, students, mommies and daddies, gym nuts, retirees, and professionals. It appeals to everyone for different reasons.”
This variety is part of the Gaudreaus’ vision for their school. “Ultimately, I’d hope that everybody at some point in their life could come and take a swing on the flying trapeze,” Mrs. Gaudreau says. “Even if they never do again, it’s something everyone should try once.”
Apparently, that vision extends to me, because my instructor, Mr. Rowston, is not backing down. “You can do it, just reach out and grab the bar,” he says, firmly but gently.
I look down at my belt, which is attached to two long ropes that hang from the ceiling, and realize there’s no way out. I lean further off the platform and force my left hand to slowly reach out and grab the trapeze bar. Mr. Rowston lifts me up by my belt and then lets me go. I shriek, and then I’m swinging through the air.
Unfortunately, I’m so scared that I forget the trick I’d practiced on the ground. My instructors want me to lift my legs over my head, hook my knees around the bar, let go of the bar with my hands, and hang upside down, all while swaying 20 feet in the air. They’ve got to be kidding.
But somehow, three tries later, I have the trick mastered. Or at least I can do it well enough that now they want me to reach out and grab Mr. Kimball’s hands while I’m swinging upside down. I hang off the platform, holding the bar with two hands, and watch Mr. Kimball swinging on the bar across from me. “Ready, knees bent, hep!” he shouts. This means, “Go!” in trapeze language. I swing off the platform, and literally feel the wind rushing past my body. I awkwardly lift my legs, and after a little fumbling with my feet, get my knees hooked over the bar. On the next swing, I let go with my hands, arch my back and reach my arms out. I see Mr. Kimball swinging towards me, see his hands grab my arms, and see my hands clutch back at him. Somehow, my legs unhook from the bar, and I find myself hanging from Mr. Kimball’s arms.
One more swing, and then I drop safely into the net. I’m sweaty, scraped, shaking, and my back hurts. I tell myself that I will never have to do this again.
When I tell Mrs. Gaudreau that I completed the trick, she cheers for me. “You have grown because of this,” she says. “It’s something that will always stay with you, and it’s something you’ll remember for a long time.”
I have to admit she’s right. However, I’m very glad to have my feet back on the ground.
TRAPEZE ARTS
1822 9th Street, Oakland
Website: www.trapezearts.com
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
RECOMMEND
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|