So yesterday morning my friend Michelle, her family and a couple of the other friends went to learn how to trapeze for her sister Marisa's birthday. Let's just say it was quite the experience!

The place itself in out in the boonies of Escondido where you feel a little like you are driving to the shooting location for Jeepers Creepers or The Hills Have Eyes. The trapeze rig is at someone's "house" in the middle of nowhere. I put house in quotes because it is pretty much just a round of mobile homes. Then we walk up to the actual rig which is surrounded by old dirty, torn-up couches and pieces of random carpet. It was quite the scene.

The flying itself was SO fun! The scariest part was climbing the ladder up to the platform because we weren't connected to anything to prevent us from falling - hard - for that part. But the people working there were really good and it was easy to trust them...even if they were a little forceful with their commands and criticism. The leader guy was a bit like Bela Caroli (<--I don't know how to spell his name...the crazy gymnastics coach).

We learned three different tricks. The first was pretty much just to jump off the platform, swing and drop - not much to it but we certainly found out those of us who don't follow direction well very quickly! The second was to jump off the platform, lift our legs up and around the bar, hook our knees then let go with our arms and swing by our knees then grab the bar again, take our legs off the bar then do a backflip to the net. That took a go or two to get it right but I did get that one. The third trick was another story - and kinda frustrating as I was the only one that didn't complete it correctly. :( We had to do the same as trick 2 up to the point where we are swinging by our knees then we had to be caught by someone and swing on his arms. I had multiple excuses why none of my attempts succeeded but it was really fun and I did get a "Peter Pan" flying move in there!

I would definitely do it again. And I actually found out last night that one of my friend's from my MBA program knows all the people who taught us today personally and goes up there all the time. I'm there for the next trip!

Here are some pictures of my third attempt on trick 3: