oh my goodness

so training is stepping it up these days. swimming 4 times a week, biking 2, running 2, on the stairmaster for 1 and core 3 times. its adding up and i can see myself getting faster by the second. ok, so the stairmaster is to build leg strength but also to get my butt to look goooood. the swimming has actually been pretty fun. i have been waking up every weekday morning in the 5-530 range which i think has helped but also i think the PT stuff has really helped. unbeleiveable. or maybe it was the 600 yards of bilateral breathing we did today? i don't know but i feel good and i am pretty darn psyched.
so on MONDAY night i got a phone call from a good friend and former coworker. i don't normally get phone calls from him, especially not in the evening, so i was a bit concerned until he said his wife was going to go to Emerald City Trapeze the following night and wanted to know if I would like to go along. to this i said HELLS YEAH.
the next day at work i was a mess. i was so freaked out. Annie sent me a link to a write up about the place that had some videos. while i read and watched, i didn't get the nervous feeling in my stomach like before races but instead my hands were just dripping in sweat. it was crazy and really gross.
finally the day was over so i headed out and made it to the SODO with plenty of time to spare. i was out of gas so i drove around and found a gas station and can i just say i am SUCH a suburbanite now. first off you can't pay at the pump. so i had to go in and the lady had to tell me how they don't take credit cards. so i had to go back to the car to get my debit card. while fidling in the car a police car drove up and grabbed a guy who was hanging around outfront, i think just loittering, but i don't know what the real deal was. back in i went and the lady had to explain how to do the whole pay in advance thing to me. ???? i was totally embarassed, but she was super nice.
when i finally parked at the trapeze place i sat in the car and played bejeweled blitz on my phone for a while then finally went it. i was so nervous that i totally tripped on the cement stairs and almost ended my circus career right there.
the building is amazing! totally breathtaking!!! super high ceilings, i can;t begin to guess how high. the floors are stained plywood, the building is narrow but long and the trapeze area is the main focus - lots of net!!
annie got there and helped to ease some of my fears. then another girl and one guy who was quite advanced joined us as well. i was the only first timer so they demonstrated hanging from your knees from a static trapeze that was like 8 or 9 feet off the group - i had to jump to reach it. ok, so just getting up and hooking my knees and then aaaak!!! letting go was hard. it was crazy. then the guy helped me down and said, ok, you are ready. i was like what??? he fitted me in a safety belt which cut off about 20% of the oxygen to my brain, and one of the other girls went first so i could watch her go. then it really was my turn. now there were lots of super freaky things about this whole thing but one was how they just throw you into it. i figured i'd get to go up there, swing around, drop and then try it again. but oooooh no! i was going to attempt the knee hang on my first try. i was pretty sure they were all crazy but whatever.
i went over to the ladder, the guy attached me to the a line next to the ladder. he explained how the line lets you go up but not down. he joked that no one had ever fallen off the ladder and of course i got totally worried and how embarrassing if i were to be the first! but where! i totally made it to the top although it took prolly 20 minutes to get there. once at the top you hold onto the support while the girl up there unhooks you and then you manuver to the middle of the platform, the whole time holding on for dear life with both hands. once in the middle, she hooks you up to the safety lines. clip, clip and there, all safe. you keep holding on with your left hand. she then put her hand into the back of the belt so she could have a good hold and then she pulled the bar in and i grabbed it. it was heavy and i totally let out a akkk! she laughed and said yet it was heavy. the whole time i DID NOT LOOK DOWN. i looked straight ahead. I didn't even look at the bar for fear i might accidentally look down! then, she told me to let go with my left hand and grab the bar, which was totally freaky!!! i definitly let out an akk then! but she was holding on tight, and she explained to lean forward with my hips pushed out and shoulders back. then she said ready, i bent my knees, and then "HEP!" and I jumped!!!! down i went!! flying flying flying! the guy on the ground started shouting out orders - hook your knees and ah, i missed it! he said i'd get it on the next swing through and then i swang out and again came the command. i pulled my knees up and had them hooked. next the guy yelled out to let go of my hands! are you INSANE!!! so i did it! and i swung back and forth, next he told me to gran the bar again and pull my legs down. i swang back and forth and then it was time for the dismount!! you kick forward, backward, then forward again and let go!! and somehow magically you totally do a flip! it was crazy!! i landed on the net and just laid there. it was a total - what just happened moment. !! i crawled to the edge of the net, and he gave me instructions on how to flip off the net. and then i had to go sit down because the was totally insane!!

so, i did that a few times. it was fun and each time i gained a little bit more confidence. until the girl at the top told me we were 35 feet in the air! Yikes!! while i practiced my knee hang, annie learned a new trick where she kind of hung upside down from her arms and then flung herself out, and the other girl was doing an upside down split. the guy was way advanced and didn't use the safety lines and was learning all kinds of stuff.
i did start to get tired. i sat out a rotation and then it was time to do a catch!! the freakiest part about the catch was that all the people changed places! the girl came to the ground to call out the orders, the guy who would attach us to the ladder went to the platform to hook us in and send us off and the guy who had been on the ground calling the order and holding the safety lines was now going to be swinging on the other trapeze and he was going to catch us!
what i learned is that as long as you do the knee hang correctly, the catch is super easy. your arms are already out there, and you aren't really grabbing at anything - its the catcher's job to find your hands and arms and grab on. so i climbed back up. the guy at the top had a totally different way of holding on, it seemed looser but it was fine. you really just have to trust them. he then called out what i was doing, and the guy on the other trapeze started swinging, he got all upside down, and yelled ready, HEP! so I jumped. the girl on the ground yelled out the commands, i did them, i arched my back, had my hands out, saw the guy, he yelled grab my hands, straighten you legs (ok apparently he had to tell me that twice - you can even see in the video how we kind of stop right when the catch is happening) and next thing you know i was hanging from that other guys hands just swinging along! then he told me to push down and let go, and i did and bop! right on my butt into the net. the video is of my very first try at the catch.

OMG. i was so pumped afterwards. I hurried home to tell eric all about it!! i wanted to tell everyone i knew and i practically did. it was so insane. annie sent me the videos and i have watched them a hundred times. i can barely believe that that is me doing that!
eric has since been signed up to try it! and we have signed seamus up for the children's circus performance series. she will go for 8 weeks and learn aerial (static trapeze, rope, silks, hoop), acrobatics, acrobalance, juggling, and trampoline and then she will perform in a show! she starts on sunday. she thinks she would like to try the trapeze but she isn't quite sure, so we figured we'd start her with this first and see how she likes it! now we just need to get sirus up to speed and then we can go on tour!!!