A Question of Equipment

There is a tiny little circus tent just past the Nanterre Prefecture RER stop. There they offer classes and free training for professionals. I had been there once before maybe a year ago, and was invited back for some training by a friend of mine. After the Trampoleze fiasco, I thought this would be a welcomed change.

Noctambule has quite a number of trapezes hung up, all at varying heights and all uncomfortably close to one another. Like the small school on Circus Island, they too are padded with bits of velour that are too short, and rarely of equal length. The ropes are synthetic because of the humidity, and as a result tend to be more painful than necessary. And these points do not bounce. In fact, they do not give in the slightest. The Trampoleze may have bucked me off like a mechanical bull, but at Noctambule, the trapezes seem to smack you around just for daring to get up on them.

I wear leather gaiters for protection and even still, felt the bruises forming after running a trick only three times! The experience on the Trampoleze left me feeling a little scared and the equipment at Noctambule did nothing to soothe my nerves.

Which begs the question: Is it worth training on sub-par equipment?

On the one hand, if you can execute your skills in such conditions, when you have access to your own professional level equipment, you should be able to knock your skills out of the park.

On the other hand, isn’t it counter productive to train on equipment that leaves you feeling scared to do your skills? I want to practice them so I don’t lose them, but I don’t want to go back to Montreal and start at square one because I’ve developed all kinds of mental blocks because I was training in an environment that left me feeling unsafe all the time.

When I look at the people at Noctambule, they all seem to be just fine training there. They all seem to be doing good skills, though maybe not the same skills that I do. Am I being a snob? A chicken? Is it wrong to want to train on good equipment? Or do I need to just get over myself?