Road trip flying trapeze

With Leap closed, I'll have to travel to other rigs to try my hand at flying trapeze. This Thanksgiving, there was some warm weather, so I drove 2.5 hours north to flying trapeze in Blue Ridge.

Road trip selfie

This is currently the closest rig to my house—though the owner is trying to open in Atlanta. An hour drive is much better than a 2.5 hour drive, so I have my fingers crossed that will work.

After I survived the drive through the North Georgia mountains (seriously, why are mountain roads so curvy? They were S-shaped for 20 miles with a speed limit of 25 that I happily followed.)

The rig was set up in the yard of a pretty house—and overlooking a lake. It's run by a husband and wife, and their nanny was working the board. (Can I have a trapeze in my yard? They're living the dream. GORGEOUS!)

It was the second rig I've ever been to. All in all, I'd say it was run very much like the rig I was used to.

The safety belts were a little different.

The net was much bouncier (can we do net tricks next time? That would be fun.)

And getting off the rig was a little different.  (No ladder, which is fine with me.)

But the calls, the direction, the board, catching—everything was very similar. (Yay, all in all. I had a great time.)

It was a smaller class—five people. We went for two hours and got a lot of turns. The owners said we could go as long as we wanted, but we were too tired after two hours. And two days later, my lats are still killing me.

The owner, Colby, gave really good critique after you're done. He too pointed out that I need to work on my take off (more back and in a 7 position) and we worked on my swing for a lot of turns.  (The swing is so frustrating.) I'd been working on my full swing from the front. Colby had me starting the swing from the board—and this change (and not having flown in almost a month) threw off a lot of my turns.

I feel like I need to work on my take-off for a whole class. There's so much that goes on in a take-off. I need to roll my shoulders back before take off (His wife Kristy helped me with thi.). I need to throw the bar up more when I take off. I need to jump up and back and not down. Except, I'm still going above the bar and doing almost an uprise over the bar. (Been doing this as long as I worked on my swing.) It's so much to remember.  (And it was kind of nice to hear the same critique from Colby, who I've never met before the class, as Kaz and Shain. He definitely knew what he was talking about.)

And then in my swing—I'm still not getting that third position. He told me to do forward, backward, hang loose and straight and long—to relax and not kick back. (Which is exactly what Kaz has been telling me.) I need to go to trapeze every day for a week just to get these things.

It's so difficult to get new skills when you're not going every day and it is so easy to forget skills.

For the session, I was really being hard on myself. I had a couple of garbage turns—where I should have been doing a trick when I was expecting to swing longer, or I just didn't do what I was supposed to do. I'm at that weird intermediate place in trapeze—where I've outgrown the easy tricks, but am just not on an advanced level yet, and I'm frustrated I'm not there. But everyone goes through that.

But the class was fun. The weather was gorgeous. The owners were nice. I got some practice in. I worked on my backend split. And I had the first catch of the day!

And by the end, it had turned into a dog and baby party. The owner's dog was outside with us. Some of her friends came over. We were playing with the dogs–until they decided to play in the mud. And the owner's baby, and her friend's baby were outside. Her son was hilarious. I feel like he's cheering for me in one of my videos. (I liked the distraction. It was good to get out of my head and make funny faces at a baby.)

I'd definitely go back.

Preferably, with a carpool.

The owners were talking about sharing a house rental with a group of friends and doing a trapeze weekend with two-a-days. That does sound tempting. I feel like a need a camp or trapeze vacation to get my swing solid.

I'm not sure I'll get to fly any more in 2015—being that the weather is getting cold, but we'll see. I'm still thinking of what friends and relatives I could visit that are located near flying trapeze rigs.

And the mean time—COLBY please open a rig in Atlanta. There's enough of a following that you could have enough business.