Seattle 117, or In Which We Fail, With Style

Once, in the privacy of a living room, a friend tried to teach me to bellydance. Only one other friend was present, learning also. We did some warm-ups, then basic moves. After about ten minutes, I got stuck. My hips seemed to disconnect from my eyes and my brain. Next to me, my other friend was struggling a little, but got it fairly quickly. I called it quits, went to the bathroom and washed the tears out of my eyes.

When I came out, my friend looked at me with kindness, and a fleck of impatience. "Dude," he said, "if you're so scared of looking bad, you need to take up juggling. Two months of dropping balls will shut that up quick."

From a writer who regularly publishes half-baked work on the internet, and a kindergartener who only sort of cared about coloring in the lines, one might be surprised to bump up against my perfectionist streak. The streak sounds something like this "You are lumpy, awkward, stiff and weak. Lumpy, awkward, stiff and weak. Lumpy, awkward -" it's got great, paralyzing rhythm. Sometimes, it looks like a fear of something else.

Today, it looked like a fear of heights. I had the fantastic opportunity to take a class at Emerald City Trapeze, a giant barn of ropes and rigging just south of downtown. I went because I love to fly; because I needed an excuse to turn my body, if not my life, a little upside down. And besides, I was going to trapeze class. Even saying it sounded badass.

I expected it would be fun - I was right. I expected it to be fairly easy, since they advertise that anyone can try. I thought it might be like the first day of learning a new language, when you learn to say Hello, and Goodbye and My Name Is, and walk away feeling pretty proud of yourself for having begun.

Take a minute, giggle. You should.

Our class began with some on-the-ground instruction about safety, then some time on a low-hanging trapeze to get the idea of the trick we were going to do: a knee hang with a back flip dismount. Done fairly correctly by a beginner, it looks like this:

I clambered to the top of the ladder, hooked into my harness, and went. Boom. Did okay, but messed up the back flip, lost momentum, and had to be slowly lowered to the net, instead of flying down on my back. Second try: got the flip, but took too long to hook my knees over the bar, messed up the timing. Third: Got my knees up, but took too long to let go.

And so on, and so on. By the end of five tries, I hadn't completed the trick perfectly, or even well. My arms shook, my hands were raw, and my anxiety was sky-high. I climbed the ladder again. My teacher saw me sweating, told me to take a minute. "Don't look down," she said.

"No," I answered, "it's not the height, it's the fear of not doing it right."

She nodded, told me to take all the nervous energy and focus it. I took a bunch of deep breaths, settled in, and waited for the universal circus call of hup! that cued my jump.

The trick went well - not perfect, but well enough to feel each >pop!< Basic physics: on the outside of the swing (when you're at your highest) you're weightless. In the middle of the swing (at your lowest), you weigh up to two and a half times your body weight, making it difficult to do anything. When you execute a trick correctly, at the outset of each swing, it feels like a Rube-Goldberg machine - each piece falling exactly into place at the right time, creating a quick burst of adrenaline. My body knew.

I yelled "YES!" as I fell neatly back from the dismount, and heard the cowbell ring. The cowbell is an ECT thing - when you've done your trick correctly enough to earn a turn with the catcher, it's sounded with the bell. I rolled off the net, feeling the triumph endorphins soar through my body. I was a little bit hooked. The little-girl-who-wanted-to-be-a-gymnast came racing back through my fleshy, curvy body and said "whoa. We just flew."

I took a rest before my turn with the catcher - I was pretty tired, and wanted to be sure I had enough energy to pop it out perfectly. The trick with the catcher is the same as without, except it looks like this:

I bent my knees, waited - hup! - and took off. Immediately, I could feel something was off. I had my knees bent too much, creating drag and slowing my swing, which threw off the ever-important timing. I could hear my teacher trying to get me back on track, but it was over as soon as it started - I could feel the catcher's hands scraping mine, then let go as I went down, yelling "NO!"

They told me to come back next time. Try it again. I schlumped out of there covered in chalk dust and near tears. But I want to go back. The flying - when it happens, when I can feel the pop - is exhilarating. And I'm convinced that failing in public is good for me. Eventually, I might even take up juggling.