She flies through the air with the greatest of ease...

The daring young girl on the flying trapeze. 

Ok, so maybe not with the greatest of ease, but I certainly flew on the flying trapeze.  Literally.  When my friend Julie asked me to join her for trapeze class, I'd be lying if I told you that I wasn't a little aprehensive and almost flaked out on her.  However, I figured I would never have another chance to say that I flew on a trapeze, and you're only young once, so, eh, I went. 

I was pretty nervous.  I promised myself the whole way to Brooklyn that I wouldn't let my fear of looking ridiculous get in the way of having fun.  First thing, we had to have a belt put on us.  It is an understatement to say that the belt was tight.  I felt like I was having a corset put on.  This little blonde thing that worked there was yanking and pulling on it.  I think she tightened it three times before buckling.  I wasn't sure I was going to be able to breathe, but I didn't pass out or die, so I guess I was wrong.

We started on a static bar and learned how to do a knee hang.  Basically, you lift your knees to your chest, thread your legs on the bar, and then let go to lean backward in an arch.  It's kinda hard to explain, but I have video so you will see.  Doing it on the static bar was pretty difficult, I was really afraid I wouldn't be able to do it while flying through the air. I was SO nervous.  My heart was pounding, and my  hands were shaking.  The hardest part was actually just setting up to fly.  You put your toes over the edge of a board, and then you have to lean back with your hips jutting out.  Every instinct tells you to bend backwards to keep from falling. You'll see the instructor in the video push my hips forward so that I am leaning the way I am supposed to.  Then you have to grab onto the bar with one hand, and the weight from the bar pulls you forward (or the direction you are jutting your hips and also the direction where you would free fall over the edge).  Then on top of that you have to remove your hand from the scaffold and grab onto the bar with both hands while jutting your hips forward and leaning back. Then they tell you ready, which is  your cue to bend your knees, and then they say "Heht!," which is your cue to jump! It is scary!  I didn't let Julie film me the first time, but here I am on my second attempt...

Ok, obviously that's not me.  That is one of the frequent fliers (har, har no pun intended). But the next one is me on my second attempt...

So far so good...

So we did that a few times.  I was feeling pretty good because I was one of about 3 or 4 of the first-timers that got the knee hang down. Poor Julie lost her grip on her second attempt and ripped her hands, so she had to sit out the rest of the time.  I know that was driving her nuts.  She was itching to keep trying. I promised her that we would go back again so she could try again.

And then they tell us - very nonchalantly, mind you - that we were going to try a catch.  In other words, one of the employees would swing from another trapeze, we would do the knee hang, and when we arched backwards, he would reach out and catch us.  We would then let our legs go off of our bar and go flying through the air while hanging from the employee.  My first attempt was a dud.  I was so nervous about doing the catch and trying to remember and focus on when he would grab me that I couldn't even get my knee hang down.  I was so disappointed.  But they let us try again, thank goodness.  I told myself to just focus on the knee hang, get that down, and then worry about the catch.  And I did it!!! Here is my second attempt at the catch...

This was definitely a colorful experience with some colorful language.  One of the first-timers was a Dutch girl who yelled some things in Dutch during her attempts.  She did divulge the meaning of some of the words and they were...well...colorful.  It was terrifying at times, but so much fun!  I know my muscles are going to be screaming at me tomorrow, but I am so glad I went.  I hope you all get a chance to try this some time.  I will let you know how it goes if we go back.