There's only one real skill that first-time flyers need to succeed
in trapeze school: the ability to listen. While your body wants to
do one thing, the only way to fly safely and successfully is to
follow the instructions shouted up to you. In trapeze, timing is
everything. You become a living physics experiment.
I take a small hop off the platform. For a split second, I am just
falling. Then, as I become engaged with the bar and start to swing
in an inverted arc, I feel every fiber of the grip tape pressing
into my fingers. My arms are stretched as far as they can go. I
hang straight down, my toes pointed. I feel like gravity is
stretching me instead of pulling me down toward the ground.
Mr. Malcolm has been pushed out of my thoughts completely, as I now
have much greater issues to deal with. As I get to the top of the
arc, clear on the other side of the tent, I hear another "Hep!" I
let go and fall backward, my legs together and pointed toward the
front of the room, my arms in front of me, and my eyes looking
ahead so that I fall in a sitting position. The bar falls away and
I drop into the net. And then everybody is clapping. I am not dead,
after all.
During the next 90 minutes, I take four more trips up the ladder.
Each time, I swing a bit longer. It turns out that, with the
thrills of the initial leap and dropping to the net, I could
happily swing forever. Though my hands sting like I have been
gripping a tennis racket for an entire summer's worth of matches
and I never really fully get over my ladder issues, the swing's the
thing - even though I am the only student who never makes it to the
upside-down position.
By the end of the fifth flight, I am about as tired as I have ever
been. With each trip up, the adrenaline goes full tilt and then
drops as you await your next turn. It's a supercharged sugar rush,
no dessert necessary. I will fly again.
The Trapeze School sends people flying in three cities. Depending
on the day and time of the class, a two-hour session costs from $47
to $75.