I first started on the static trapeze in 1999. My then yoga teacher handed out leaflets in her yoga class advertising some absolute beginners static trapeze lessons in Glasgow and I was excited and intrigued. After my first lesson in an amazing large space - a church hall with vaulted ceilings, 2-3 trapezes and a couple of ropes - I was hooked.
Static is the usual entry point into aerial circus. You start off there and often progress to rope/corde lisse, hoop/cerceau, silks, swinging trapeze, flying trapeze and a whole host of cool stuff. You are less likely to kill yourself when you don't know what you are doing and have limited upper body strength if you are on a static trapeze bar.
When I moved to London in 2000, my priorities were find place to stay and get place on static trapeze class. I was fortunate to cover both of these off by the time my new job started. After over 5 years training weekly with the fabulous Lorraine and a varying classroom/studio of cool and strong people, I was at the peak of my physical fitness and trapeze abilities but had come to the point in life where motherhood called. I took a year off for my pregnancy, then managed a year's training before I was off again for two years during and after my second baby. Aerial had to take a back seat to my growing family.
This year I've been slowing getting back into it. After a haphazard start, I finally found an amazing space to train in - My Aerial Home. Convenient, friendly, relatively cheap, lots of rigged trapezes and ropes. I've been training there for a few months now and love it to bits. It's going to take a long time for my skills to fully return but I love being able to head there on Monday practice nights and go through my conditioning and then work on whatever I like.
For the last few weeks, I've been playing about with a small sequence of moves for a 'Trapeze Tag' section of a performance we're putting on for Bromley Arts Council Fete. It's exciting and terrifying to think that I'm going to be up on a trapeze in front of random strangers. It might even be outdoors! I've only ever performed to invited family and friends at Circus Space 'aerial' days. The fact that I have this opportunity amazes me. I'm full of questions and concerns but I don't have the time to actually stress about any of it, which is handy. We've a full rehearsal this weekend and then the performance on the last Saturday of the month.
Update 2/9/2010 : At the rehearsal I found out that I either had to do a full routine or nothing at all because the rest of my 'Trapeze Tag' colleagues had failed to show. I decided to go for it and used all the tricks I could think of to make my short sequence last the length of the music. It worked well in rehearsal but when we got to the venue on the day, rigging restrictions meant I had to ditch my big finish (a hocks dismount). My routine went well but I finished with lots of music left and had to busk it a bit to the music end. I don't think anyone noticed. It was fun performing again and being outside doing it was a great laugh. However my kids decided that the bouncy castle was much better than all the boring trapeze.
