Yes, there will be pictures

(But, of course, I left my card reader at home.)

Yeah, the aforementioned trapeze is located at The Circus Space, which has a four hour(ish) Introduction ot Circus Skills class.

Started with a 30 minute warm-up that nearly killed me.  (I was doing fine until the bit where we were running around in a circle, and then she'd yell something out and we'd have to drop a palm to the floor, or jump in the air or something.  I was pretty wiped after that.)  Of course, they promised that the warm-up was the most difficult part of the day -- which it turned out to be.

We had four different "Circus Skills" to learn.  The first was ... I forget what it was called, but it was basically a bunch of sit back-to-back-with-three-other-people-link-arms-and-push-yourselves-up business, followed by building some human pyramids.  (There will be photos of this.)  There was much laughter and (thankfully) not much falling down.

Second was "flying trapeze."  I'd been a bit afraid that they'd make us do a basic catch (after all, they made the people on Amazing Race do that), but all we actually did was grab the trapeze and swing around on it.  (There will be photos of this, too.)  Much safety equipment was involved -- and I think the person with the hardest job at the whole place was the woman on the other end of the pulley attached to our safety harnesses, as she had to hold each person's weight in a controlled descent when we dropped from the trapeze.  This was terrific fun though -- scariest part was climbing the stupid ladder.  Second scariest part was reaching for the trapeze.  Once you grabbed it and stepped off though:  totally excellent experience.

Third skill was juggling, which was also good fun, largely because I already know how to juggle.  But I haven't done it in a long time, and have apparently gone back to my old habits of throwing slightly forward.  Which basically means that, if I'm going to keep juggling, I'm going to be walking forward as I do it.  Our instructor told me to try to stop walking if I could, but NOT to stop juggling -- he'd rather I get the practice of keeping the balls in the air.  The end result was eight of us standing in a Circle, with two experienced jugglers next to each other trying to learn how to juggle together, five people trying to get the whole juggling thing down (and making a few good throws before the bean bag balls hit the ground), and me as the Travelling Juggler, walking around through the Circle (and often dangerously close to other people) while I tried to keep up with where I kept throwing the balls.

Fourth skill was tightrope walking, about which the least said the better.  OK, I'll say four things.  First thing:  this instructor wasn't nearly as good as the others.  Second thing:  at one point she made me go first -- I am not good at going first (I am terrific at going second, but I need to see someone else do it first).  Third thing:  There was one other person in our group who fell off the (about a foot-high) tightrope as much as I did, and she, too, had just flown in from America.  She very generously suggested that, after flying, the whole inner ear/balance thing was out of whack, which may have explained why we sucked.  I'm not sure about the science of this, but I am willing to accept it.  Fourth thing:  The teacher, rather annoyingly grabbed my hand and walked me across the rope (while she'd let everyone else hop back on and keep trying themselves, even after numerous falls).  My last time across the damn thing, I said, "you can let go now" and managed all of about four steps unaided to the final platform, which, when all is said and done, I consider some sort of success.  There will be no pictures of this.  Actually, nobody in our group took tightrope photos, which should give you some idea of exactly how ridiculous we looked even when successfully walking across it. 

Totally, TOTALLY fun morning.  Although, when I was sitting on the underground train heading back to the hotel, I started noticing the muscles I didn't even know I HAD felt sore.  Serious workout.  So I followed this up with tea and scones and did not feel the least bit guilty about it.  :)