Someone has asked me "What's up with the trapeze thing?" and well, I just want to be a middle-aged swinger. So I've started taking aerial acrobatics classes at a circus school. I know, first there was the feminist Karate Cult (Yes, Sensei!). Then there was the rhythm tap beatnik world-wide tap dance cult located in Soho. And now I am swinging from ropes or silks or a trapeze and I must say it is fun. I'm in beginning aerial acrobatics (I can do the splits, upside down, swinging!) and we're coming to the end of the semester so everyone is supposed to be working on "Short Choreography with at least three tricks." When I was in first grade we had a school show and my class had to be bunnies and I had to get a pail and long red false eyelashes and we skipped around in a circle with out eyelashes and pails and sat on the pails and did other things appropriate to the coordination level of five year olds. I remember the eyelashes and the pail so well. And sitting down on the pail. This is about my only performance so I remember it. Well I think this choreography with three tricks is pretty funny, about on a par with watching five year olds with eyelashes. But all the teachers and students are very serious about it and they are picking out music and practicing.
So I decide that I'm going to do my piece on the trapeze and not the silks and that it will be about (drum roll here) bent legs and straight legs. And while I was practicing one of my teachers said "Well before you do the Cross, you should do a Reverse Straddle and hang upside down and mirror the angles you've been doing with your legs with your arms. Then roll back up into the cross." Imagine sitting on a trapeze with your legs hanging down and your hands on each side of the rope. Now imagine stretching your arms strait out sideways and sliding your hips off the trapeze bar. Now you are supporting yourself with your arms against the rope and your legs are together pointing and you look like you've been crucified. Hence the name Cross.
Well I didn't know how to do a Reverse Straddle so after I got that down, I flipped back over and off the trapeze into the cross and hit it wrong and got tangled in the ropes. And you can see the results. On both right and left sides - six inch bruises.
