Experience

When I first left circus school, a number of things left me terrified. Not having any work, no longer having a coach, the possibility of losing certain moves... this fear left me training 10 hours a week and doing each figure between 5 to 10 times.

One day, an artist I deeply respect and admire (she's also just a wicked awesome person) came up to me and asked "Do you do all your moves every day?"

I told her that I did. And that I trained five days a week, too.

She replied, "Wow, that's amazing. I don't really train at all. Unless I have a contract coming up. Then I may start training two weeks before."

Now, this woman does swinging trapeze. Swinging is all about timing and requires a lot of training. I was flabbergasted. I was terrified about losing my timing, losing my tricks. So I trained and trained and trained. And here's this phenomenal artist and aerialist who typically only goes to train a couple weeks before a contract. Maybe.

Fast forward two years.

After spending a week or so in Italy, I returned home more ill than I can ever remember being. I was so sick I wound up going back to my parents' house to recuperate. Between the time spent in Italy and the time spent festering in my bed, a month had elapsed. Needless to say, I was worried.

My first day back on the wheel, I did everything in a half an hour. My timing was a smidge off and so I wasn't as clean as usual, but the second half hour of training fixed that right up.

WTF?

Did that mean what I do is easy? That circus is easy? That I'm just really good?

The answer, of course, is that I had become more experienced. And with that, more mature as an artist. I like to think of the period after school as being a freshly painted picture. Everything is there, but its not quite set. Those two years allowed my skills time to dry, if you will.

The unfortunate thing about that (but at the same time fortunate) is that I got bored. Which often leads to painting a new picture, be it new skills, a new act, or a new discipline (I started working trapeze briefly before heading off to join my circus).

Fast forward another two years...

I was back in Montreal training at the circus school when I started up a conversation with a girl who had just graduated a few months before. I found myself having the same conversation with her about training, skills and fear only this time the roles were reversed. I was the one who could stop for months at a time without too much worry. She was relieved to know that someday, she would reach that point too. And I was amazed to see how cyclical the circus can be and just how far I've come.