Trapeze

Danielle turned 9 yesterday and for her birthday she wanted to go to a trapeze place in Brooklyn. She had been there once before at another birthday and had a blast, but it was the first time I had seen it.

It was pretty awesome.

First you get a safety belt:

Then you practice:

Then you fly:

In two hours, they try to teach you to swing to the end, bring your legs up over the bar after one pass (it’s all timing, if you do it at the right moment your momentum makes it easier), then let your arms down at the end of the backswing of that pass and you fly upside down. Then you bring your arms up and drop.

The goal is to get comfortable enough with that move so that you can actually swing upside down to another guy who grabs your arms and truly pass from one bar to another (again, all about timing). Could we learn that in two hours?

Just getting that first part is tricky. Only a few of us did it. And ultimately I was the only one to attempt the full upside down catch (took two tries, but I got it). But Danielle did do a simpler ankle pass (apologies for the blurry picture)

Seriously big fun for kids and adults alike.