Set Whips

I took a solo vacation to New York last weekend to visit family and take some trapeze classes.

Our first class was Friday night, just a few hours after I landed at JFK and took the subway to my sister's apartment.  The class wasn't full, so we were able to take a lot more swings than usual, which was fun but perhaps not the best timing considering that we hadn't been up on the rig in almost eight months.  After getting our bearings, we both learned a new trick called the Set Straddle Whip.  Margaret did really well with it, but I had some trouble.  Here's a video of how it's supposed to be done.



After falling out of this trick a few too many times and feeling like I just didn't have the strength to complete it, I moved on to a different trick called the Set Whip.  You'll notice that my feet are between my arms, whereas Margaret's feet were outside her arms.  I was able to catch the whip that night, which was a great feeling for me.



We left the trapeze tent feeling exhilarated and very tired.  I was also covered with bruises on my feet, knees, elbows, wrist, and chin from a few unfortunate landings in the net.  I looked like I had been in a fight, and the next day was even worse since every muscle in my body was sore.  But we couldn't wait to get back to our next class two days later.  Stay tuned!