>Mark,
>
>Welcome back! And let me be the first of probably many to say, please
>feel free to tell us more about your circus training. I must confess
>to having harbored a secret fantasy in that direction for a long time,
>and I'd really like to know what it was like, where you did it, and so
>forth. Thanks!
You are the first but not of so many (but enough to convince me to post
this to the group)
I did my undergrad degree in Canberra (Australia) and moved to Hobart to do
my PhD. As is usually the case a move to another city is accompanied by a
change in lifestyle and hobbies etc. I met up with some circus people in
Hobart and began my circus career not long after moving here. It started
with juggling and quickly moved on to all sorts of circus skills. I loved
it all, probably because I was very quick to learn new skills (much to the
disgust of people who had been trying the skills for a long time and then
see me do it first go). I soon learned that to maintain friendships I had
to pretend to stuff up a bit. Even so I managed to aquire the nickname
"First time Mark".
After 6 months in Hobart I took on a possition of assistant trainer of the
Youth
Circus here. After a year I was THE trainer. Now, 4years on, I am still
training kids and still trying to finish my PhD. My skills are very varied
- I specialise in unicycling, juggling, tumbling, balancing/adagio,
slackrope walking, handstand work, and to a lesser degree in chinese poles
and hoops, and trapeeze. I'm sure I've missed something but you get the
picture.
The training I was just doing was in Albury, a small town on the border of
NSW and VIC, in Australia. It was a two week project (which is run once a
year) for people dedicated to circus performing or training, with a wide
range of skills offered by highly accomplished trainers. This years
trainers included Mr. Lu Guong Rong A gold medal Chinese acrobat, Valodya
Ovdokimov a gold medal Russian acrobat and a few Australian experts to
cover a wide range of skills. The skill level of participants was
surprisingly high. One guy was juggling five clubs with a ball bouncing on
his head. He could juggle 9 rings, do all sorts of amazing stuff with four
and five clubs. There was a floor tumbler there who was doing roundoff flip
twisting layouts (he was just a little better than me). There were people
doing great balances and fantastic trapeze work. I was the best unicyclist
and slackropist there and was up the top in the tumbling and balancing, so
I had a good self satisfactory time which resulted in a swolen head now and
then :-)
While there I had an interview for a possition training the Flying Fruit
Fly Circus (the Albury based kids circus, "ordinary kids doing
extraordinary things"). It is for a one year long trainer traineeship where
I would learn teching techniques and also have a chance to improve my own
skills much more. Something I am very keen to do. I hear about my success
or failure within the week.
Well I think that just about covers my circus training.
peterp@foe.co.uk (Peter Philip) wrote:
>There was a reference to you in your absence - someone was wondering if you
>could do cartwheels on your uni. Perhaps you could enlighten us...
>
>Peter
I haven't tried them. Probably for a good reason. I'm sure they'd be quite
hard. For a cartwheel you have to push off with one leg so you'd have to
hang onto the uni with just one leg. I do a handstand with the uni where I
just bend over and put both hands on the riding surface then press up into
a handstand with the uni between my legs. I can walk around like that then
lower the uni down and ride off. Seems to impress people. I doubt a
cartwheel would look very gamely with the uni.
Thanks for the welcome back. It's good to be back.
Mark
Mark Sands o o
o
E-mail M.R.Sands@iasos.utas.edu.au o o
IASOS/CRC Ph: +61 20 2941 Fax: +61 20 2973
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Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies o @_/
CRC for Antarctic and Southern Ocean Environment \/|
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