Circus skills
Not only did we watch the circus, we got to try performing ourselves. Monday afternoon (after kayaking, tennis, arts & crafts, and lunch), Jen and I headed to the circus tent to learn some circus skills. First, we tried out the cloud swing.
Jen went first. Moments before this, she was sitting on the rope. Then she threw herself backward, catching herself with her feet while hanging upside down.
Next she tried a much harder trick - the heel hang. Hanging from your heels is tough, especially when you shoe starts to come off.
I did the Cloud Swing as well. I was worried my knee would cause me problems, but it was fine. My fear of heights was a bit more of a problem, but I got through it.
Here’s my heel hang, though I couldn’t hold it any longer than Jen.
Next, we headed over to the trapeze. I was still a little shaky from the height of the cloud swing, so I decided to skip the trapeze. Jen, however, was ready to try it. Here she is doing a flyaway.
On Thursday, we headed back over for some more circus skills, and Michelle and Jeremy joined us. This time, we were outside the tent for the flying trapeze. Since we aren’t actually trained in this, we don’t get to fly or grab onto other people as we swung, but we do get to swing and hold out our arms as if someone was going to grab us. Here’s Jen showing us how it’s done.
Michelle and Jeremy followed suit. I was going to sit this one out due to the height, but eventually decided to give it a try. I succeeded at climbing up and swinging, but failed miserably at the actual acrobatics. By the end I was happy to be back on solid ground.
The adults weren’t the only ones to try their hands at circus acrobatics. The kids all got to do them with their groups. Molly got to do circus stuff Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Sadly, I was never around to photograph her, but she did the same sort of stuff (and much more) that we adults did.
Leah and her cousins did circus skills that weren’t quite as extreme. Here’s Leah on the ladder swing moving way too fast for my camera to freeze her.
Leah got to do the cloud swing as well, though from a much lower altitude than the adults and big kids.
Hooray for the circus!
