The Fall

It was the end of the run of shows in Zurich. There were about three and a half weeks left of the tour. We were all tired by this point, almost eight months on tour with only a three day holiday will do that to you. But we had to keep going, so keep going we did.

I remember feeling tired that day, like when you don't sleep very well. That tiredness that is not only physical, but mental as well. And that's when I screwed up.

I was doing my act and things were going well until the salto. To do a front salto out of the German wheel you have to duck under the cross bar and then jump up, pushing off the plates, to execute the flip. Only I didn't clear the bar. Not even a little bit. I jumped head first into that bar but my body was in salto mode, and I tried to rotate automatically.

I remember things going white for about an instant, then thinking that this was really embarrassing. I realized I was not going to be landing on my feet and tried to break the fall as best I could. Apparently, in that moment, the best I could do was landing right on my sacrum.

I tried to get up and for the first time in my life, was unable to. That was worrisome. At that point I resigned myself to the fact that I would not be finishing my act that day and would need help getting off stage. I don't think I was in shock. Maybe I was. At any rate, I was very calm and simply waited.

The only problem was that the musicians were still playing. I remember laying there thinking "If you don't stop playing, no one will know to come for me..."

Because the Universe can sometimes be kind, my boyfriend was the first one at my side. He was doing the lights that night and had run down from the booth. He knelt down beside me and said "There's blood..."

My act was one of the only ones in the show where there is no one else on stage. I later learned that the artists realized something was wrong when my wheel rolled backstage and hit someone who was standing near the curtain.

The circus director, his son, and one of the jugglers appeared by my side. I felt okay until they tried to move me. It was excruciating. I thought my sacrum was going to split in two. The put me on a board, not a spinal board (they really should get one of those) but one of the big planks that they use around the site.

I think that's when I started crying. I felt humiliated as they carried me offstage. I kept appologizing.

There was a doctor in the audience (and also a famous Swiss writer whom the workers are convinced will incorporate my accident into one of his books) who came backstage to check on me. "I'm a pediatrician!" he said, "But still a doctor!"

He was super friendly, held my hand, stroked my hair...

The police arrived and started asking all kinds of questions. They photographed my wheel and wanted to go photograph things on stage. The circus director was furious and refused. The show, after all, was still going on and the public had already been traumatized enough.

Later the police would ask if my wheel had been sabotage. "No, no. It was entirely my fault." I also had the first breathalyzer test of my entire life.

I was taken to hospital by ambulance. They gave me pain killers that made the ceiling move. With great difficulty, they managed to get my costume off ("How do you even get this on?"), but were unable to remove my bra. After what seemed like a million years, I went for x-rays. I told the x-ray tech that I still had my bra on. The doctor, a cocky Italian chap, replied, "I can get it off."

He could not.

The x-rays came back clean, but I was unable to sit up. Worse, when I tried to stand, I couldn't put any weight on my left leg. I couldn't walk.

I went for a CT and that came back clean too. By this time, it was about 4am.

I spent the night at the hospital. The director of artists kept texting to see how things were going. She asked if she could get me anything. I asked for a time machine.

Remember how my boyfriend mentioned that there had been blood? I though he meant a trickle. As it turns out, I left a small puddle on stage. Only no one realized it at the time and so the next scene saw all the artists dancing through my blood. I'm told it was horrible. I believe it. Someone had to come on stage and wipe up my blood. Meanwhile, I got the first stitches of my entire life.

I went back to the circus the next day. I could barely walk, but I would be okay. My hair was still matted with blood and when I showered, it looked like the scene from Psycho.


For a while, it was unsure whether or not I would even be able to make it back into the show. But I did. Oh, but I did...

Ice Capades

By now, we've done a lot of shows. We're talking 200 shows plus. You would think that by now, nerves would be playing a minor to nonexistent roll, right? That's certainly what I though. But this was a special night. It was the premiere in Zurich. And the premiere in Zurich is no joke.

The workers had been busting their butts for three days to get everything ready. There was an extra tent, complete with beautiful chandeliers, that would serve as a restaurant. Then there was the VIP tent. Red carpets were laid out, extra lights were hung up. And don't even get me started on some of the more ridiculous tasks, like blackening the tires of the sanitary wagon...

Needless to say, we were nervous.

So imagine my joy when I discovered they had repainted the stage for the occasion. The last time they painted the floor, it was a matte paint that did not slide, even if you wanted it to. In the most epic over-correction of all time, they appeared to have painted the floor with lubricant based paint.

Now PM had been told the floor was being painted and had been tasked with spreading the word.

She didn't.

As such, I only found out they had painted the floor a couple of hours before the show was set to start. That left pretty much zero time to properly adapt to the floor. And boy would I have to adapt. I have never in all my life been on such a slippery surface. It was near impossible to execute my spirals. Normally, one spiral will see you face a third of the ring. So if you start facing the center, after three spirals you should be able to come up toward the middle. The floor was so slippery that the wheel would slide out just a little every rotation so that I would stay exactly in place. That should not happen.

If I tried to change the angle of the spiral to control where I was going, especially if I needed a lower angle, the wheel would just slide out from under me. At one point I didn't even manage to finish one spiral before the wheel slid out from under me. To make matter worse, normally the wheel will slide when your weight is in front (and your hands are toward the ground) but form some strange reason it kept sliding out by my feet so I would end up going backwards!

I was terrified to even do freehand spirals. Having the wheel slide out when you're only attached by the feet was not an attractive prospect.

This being the premiere, with a packed house, loads of newspapers and television present, not to mention Swiss quasi-celebrities like the past two Miss Switzerlands, the current Miss Switzerland, and a former Mr Switzerland*, the stakes were pretty high.

I was in tears. I was on the floor, my wheel and I defeated, with a vision of utter humiliation on the horizon.

At dinner, some of my non-artist friends on the tour as well as my boyfriend took up the battle as their own. They came to the tent with me and tried to find a solution. We tried scouring one of the floor panels of the extension to see if it would make the surface rougher. A good idea in theory, but the space was so small there was no way to see if it would work.

Then, A said that a friend of his who does cyr wheel puts rosin on his wheel when the stage is slippery and that it tends to help. I was pretty skeptical. Rosin gets sticky with heat. How was it supposed to make my cold metal wheel sticky?

But we covered the wheel in rosin anyway and to my great surprise (and relief) it worked like a charm. I could scarcely believe it and wasn't sure if the rosin would last from preset to the actual appearance on stage, especially since my wheel is covered by a cloth beforehand. But it was the only solution I had.

The premiere went brilliantly and my wheel, with the help of the rosin, triumphed over that floor. Admittedly, doing wheel when the wheel and your hands are covered in rosin really isn't very enjoyable. It is, however, a million times more enjoyable than continually falling on your face.

Thank goodness for A. I never in a million years would have thought to use rosin. He totally saved the day.

 Only 58 to go!


* Am I the only one who finds the number of Miss/Mr Switzerlands present really, really funny?

Facepalm

I had just come up from the opening spiral sequence when I noticed a rather large puddle on stage. This made absolutely no sense as it hadn't rained a drop in days. Then I looked up and noticed a very sheepish looking woman remove her half empty beverage from the ring curb.

Way to spill your drink on stage, lady. In the future, please refrain from using the ring curb as a table.

Yeesh.

Blast from the Past

Here is some wonderful footage from a news broadcast about German wheel from 60 years ago! At the end of the clip there is also an appearance by the original *ahem* “cyr” wheel. Enjoy!

New Records!

Is there anything more satisfying that breaking a record? That all depends on the record, I suppose.

We've been  breaking all kinds of records in the past few days, mostly of the heat related variety. Although I also broke my German wheel shoe lace record, the previous record being six uses before the damn thing broke. The new record being the very first use. Yippee!

But back to the heat records...

For a long time, the hottest the tent had been for a performance was 33°C. We broke that with 34°C only to break that record the following day with 35°C. The hot hot heat has also created a new record for consecutive performances in a tent above 30°C. We're at five in a row and counting! Even the night shows offered no relief. The temperature only dropped to 31°C.

Needless to say, we're all pretty miserable at the moment. Bring on the mountains! Bring on the fall!

From Russia with Love

One night after a show, a man came up to me speaking a language I didn’t understand. Seeing as my German is pretty weak, this is not surprising. Only this man wasn’t speaking German, he was speaking Russian.

Naturally, the first thing he asked me was if I was Russian.

I swear, they always know… “Niet Ruski, my family… Ukrainski.”

After a nod of understanding he took my both my hands in his and kissed them. Then he kissed his own hands in a gesture that is universally understood to mean “magnificent”. He went on trying to express a few more things but then simply settled on taking my hands again, offering a small bow, and then kissing them one last time.

Needless to say, I was a little overwhelmed. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone bow to me and kiss my hands before.

I guess he liked my act.

German Wheel World Championships 2013 - The Results!

After an enthusiastic start, my coverage of the 2013 World Championships kind of fizzled out. Such is the risk when you're on a busy tour with questionable internet connection.

But I just wouldn't feel right if I didn't wrap it up somehow. So here is the link to all the results!

Special and HUGE congratulations are in order for Canada's own Paul Perrault for bringing home a bronze medal in the first ever Mono Wheel World Championships!

Congratulations, Paul!

The “Poor Me” Pity Parade

Warning: This post is long and ranting due to an accumulation of months of bullshit.

It was a show like any other, and then an event of a cataclysmic scale rocked the backstage. My wheel did not get up onto the ramp to get on stage. Well, one of the rims didn’t. And so, I tipped over a little. From the inside, it was all very slow and gentle. One of my cast mates struggled to right me, I came to rest against the décor, and eventually was shifted back on to the stage. While unfortunate, this was not the cataclysmic event…

When I got off stage after my act, I expected my cast mates to see if I was okay and then we’d all have a good laugh about what had happened. But no, that was not to be. The disaster of disasters had occurred.

Apparently my wheel smashed PM in the face and then her head was smashed into a pole that holds up the shelving units. It was all about P now.

PM, I should mention, is always hurt. There’s always something. It might be her thumb. It might be collapsing in a heap backstage after her act, right where the most traffic is, because it was too hot/hard to breathe/other. It might be one of her myriad dietary restrictions that is somehow upsetting her. She might just be off brooding. And this? Getting hit in the head with my wheel? This was the End Times.

Of course it was entirely my fault. At least, so it was according to her. Wow did she ever rage about how I never do my marks correctly and never do anything right! Except for those other 115 shows that came before. I have no doubt that after I had set my marks that the carpet was readjusted. Our Artist Director had decided that, in order for the workers to better dig the trench around the big top more efficiently, she would pull the carpets and boards away from the perimeter of the tent after they had been placed. It was the first time she had done that. I usually do my marks before the trench gets dug. Once the carpets were put back, they were kind of a mess and full of scrunches. As there had never been a problem before, I didn’t bother to check the marks again. But a difference of a couple of cm really can alter the course of the wheel, especially if the angle is changed. Heck, when I roll my wheel from its start position to the ramp to see if it’s correct (that’s about 1.5m) and then roll it back, it never arrives back on the marks. Never. A bumpy dirt floor will do that. It doesn’t take much.

That being said, for two days PM managed to do her act, though she took out one or two tricks. Her friends were there and I suppose she wanted to impress. But then her friends left, and suddenly things got a lot worse. It must be a concussion. Or a brain bleed (seriously). Something terrible anyway.

At this point I should probably mention that I didn’t realize the wheel even hit her. Which is odd considering I can feel the texture of the floor when I’m rolling on it. And anytime I’ve ever hit anything, I’ve been very much aware of it. When you hit something with any kind of force, you feel it in your entire body. It was only three days later that I realized that what I thought was coming to rest against the décor was actually the famous blow. It was about then that my jaw hit the floor because that was about as tame a bump as you can possibly get from a German wheel. Of course it also made sense as far as the series of events went. The wheel was being held up and braced as it fell over. It didn’t just crash toward the ground.

Meanwhile, PM went to the doctor, had her brain scanned and all kinds of tests done and then it was discovered that there was… nothing. Nothing at all.

When you’re the Grand Marshall of the never ending “Poor Me” Pity Parade, “nothing” suddenly makes you look like maybe you might just be seeking attention. Not that that’s every stopped a Pity Parade.

In a tone of suffering, PM would tell anyone who asked how she was doing that there was no bleeding in the brain (there might have been!) and when she was asked if she had a concussion there was a lot of “Well, no, but…” and then a great deal more tales of suffering. Eventually, the answer to the concussion question was transformed to a yes…

That’s when things really started to get suspicious. We were doing a gala when suddenly PM was complaining of terrible headaches. She could then be found sitting backstage, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, now wearing glasses, and the kind of noise blocking earmuffs you would find on a construction site. Three days after the event, the situation had dramatically gone down hill.

It was only after the gala, when I was back in my caravan that I remembered that P had spent the first half of the show plugged into her ipod. Other elements of the story no longer seemed to make sense. Symptoms, actions, and the timeline did not fit together. Whenever the discrepancies were pointed out, the story changed.

For a while I thought I was the only one to see through the charade. But when asked if she would be doing the group acro act, the reaction to her response was one of giggles and rolled eyes. One of the artists could be heard to say “Oh yes, she’ll do it, but not without making sure you know she’s going to suffer through it.” When another artist pointed out that she didn’t look good, the immediate reaction from one of the other artists present was that “Things don’t always look the way they are.”

Naturally, PM was in tears after the acro act and hasn’t done the show since.

What I consider the final word is that from the Director of Artists. She confirmed that the scans showed nothing, that nothing was wrong, and that P had what is known as cranial trauma, otherwise known as, she got hit in the head. I often wonder if the Director of Artists really believed the Parade. I mean, she did say PM could skip her act and the group acro number, but still had her do trapeze for a number of shows. At this point, the DA just keeps saying, if she just does nothing, it will heal faster. Which is probably true, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s not just the easiest way of avoiding the never ending Pity Parade.

All I know is that I’m over it. I’m over asking how she is and feeding the hunger for attention. Any time I have ever offered any kind of advice, solution, or alternative to one of her many problems, I was always met with a sad voice saying “No, that won’t work with me because [insert reason for being different/special/irreparable here]” She doesn’t want to get better. She wants someone to feel sorry for her and to smother her with attention. And I, for one, am done wasting my time and energy on that shit.

German Wheel World Championships 2013 - The Coverage Continues!

Yesterday saw the Junior all-around spiral final, the Senior all-around spiral final, and the mono wheel Compulsories. Today we have both the Junior and Senior vault and straight-line finals (at 10:30am EDT and 5:30pm EDT respectively.

You can continue to see the events streamed live here or watch it below.

For those who are interested, here is the full competition schedule!

 click to enlarge

German Wheel World Championships - LIVE NOW!

Live coverage of the 10th German Wheel World Championships, or Wheel Gymnastics if you prefer, begins in five minutes! Watch it here on Kicking Sawdust, or go directly to the live stream site here!

Watch live streaming video from rhonrad at livestream.com

German Wheel World Championship Reminder!

Live stream coverage starts Wednesday at 11:30am EDT. Get it while it's hot!

Beyond Kawaii

If you're anything like me, there is a severe lack of dinosaurs doing German wheel in your life. Fortunately, the Japanese seem to be getting the situation under control.

German Wheel World Championship Coverage

Are you a big fan of all things German wheel but won't be able to make it to Chicago for the 2013 World Championships of Wheel Gymnastics? Well do I ever have good news for you!

There will be live stream coverage of the finals available for your viewing pleasure! Coverage begins on Wednesday July 8th at 11:30am EDT with the Junior All-Around Spiral final! Woo!

Check it out here!

New Title

While working concessions one day during intermission, a member of the public came up to me and asked, "Sind Sie lady rhonrad?"

Not "Die Dame die rhonrad führt" (the lady who performs German wheel), or even "Dame rhonrad", but lady rhonrad.

As far as I'm concerned, I have been granted a title. And that title is Lady Rhonrad. You may now curtsey accordingly.

First Stop, Hell

After a smashing premiere, the circus packed up and continued on its merry way. Despite not having the faintest idea of what we were doing, the first build down actually went pretty smoothly. It only took us two and a half hours to get everything packed into the trucks. I think that's still an hour and a half longer than it should take, but still!

Sadly, this victory was short lived and did nothing more than fill us all with a false sense of hope as far as the build up was concerned. I'm told the build up should really only take an hour and a half. It took us four and a half hours.

Four and a half hours.

And the only reason we stopped after four and a half hours is because the kitchen is on a tight schedule and we had to get to lunch. The truth is, we were only mostly finished after four and a half hours. There were still little things to do like set up all the backstage and sweep up what seemed like eight tonnes of sawdust.

After inhaling my lunch I ran back to the tent because it was absolutely imperative that I test the floor before the show. That's right, we took a break for lunch an hour and a half before we were to start the first show of a two show day.

When I got to the tent, I discovered that the Chinese pole girls had left their eight million pound pole in the middle of the stage. Unable to move it myself, I tried to set it to the side, only by that time they had to clean the floor, so I still couldn't do wheel. At that point I was told to go put on my make-up and come back. When I did get back, the floor was still unavailable and now everyone was clamouring to do their pre-set.

Eventually I managed to try the floor and sweet merciful crap it was a disaster. It was super sloped from back to front, and also down to the right. In spirals, I was flung back up or driven down to the corner where I would have to end my spirals prematurely or risk falling off the stage or hitting the ring wall. As for straight lines... forget it. In one direction, any effort on my part meant slamming into the decor I was rolling so fast, and in the other direction I had to push with every ounce of strength I had, and even then, I barely had enough height/momentum to complete my figures.

I have never been so miserable on stage. Every second, behind a very plastic smile, I had to calculate how much speed I needed, how much I had to adjust, what was the floor doing, will I make it? And I fell, and struggled, and fell some more. All my technique was useless. It was like I had never done wheel before in my life. Each move had to purposely be done incorrectly in the hopes that it would cancel out the flaws of the floor. And the whole time my mind was screaming "That's wrong! You're doing it wrong! You're going to get hurt! NO!"

It is not fun to be on stage and second guess everything you are doing. It is not fun to be on stage and have to do so much mental math in order to execute your figures that your face freezes in a fake smile and your eyes glaze over. It is not fun to feel humiliated because you cannot even remotely do your job correctly, through no fault of your own, and have an entire audience bear witness.

And there was still a second show to do! But before that, we had a group rehearsal. And after that, I had some solo training time. It was about as disastrous as every other attempt at wheel I'd made that day, but at least I found a few ways to be safer.

From there, I inhaled my dinner once again, then had dish duty, and then had my first break of the day (I worked concessions during intermission and would do so again during the second show). One half hour to myself before I had to be back in the tent.

The second show was just as bad as the first.

Finally, the fifteen hour day came to an end. I was so tired, so worn, so broken, so miserable... If it had been that hard but I could have at least taken pleasure in my work and my performance, it would have been one thing. But the entire experience was just brutal on all levels with no silver lining in sight.

I got back to my caravan and cried. How? How on earth would I make it through the season? That night all I wanted to do was quit and go home. My only comfort came the next day when I spoke with some of the workers who assured me that after that day of hell, they too wanted to go home and wondered what they had gotten themselves into.

I can only hope things get better from here.

Thanking the Past

Wow.

I’ve been reading my old blog posts and reliving my last creation. Sometimes I’m disappointed that I didn’t go into more detail as I don’t really remember the big important thing I was alluding to. With so much distance, I now see just how abnormally difficult that creation was and that, quite frankly, that is not how a creation should be. But most interestingly, I see how much I’ve grown and just how much I learned from that tour.

The other day, in a fit of bitterness, I was thinking of how my time with that company was kind of a waste. Yes, I was able to put some money aside, but artistically, it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing, and that I gave up the better part of my twenties to a company that barely wanted circus in its circus show.

But now, reading old posts, especially those where I’m super defensive about my creative process and so forth and so on… I mean… wow. Wow.

In some respects, I feel like the opposite of what I thought then is now true. I see how I wanted to work then and look at how I work now and see that I’ve found much more efficient and effective ways to accomplish the same things. Also, I’m in much better shape, apparently. But at that time, I hadn’t been working for a few years so it was much more challenging to get through my number. That is no longer the case.

But what really knocks me on my ass, and makes me grateful in the begrudging way that only someone who has had what they stubbornly defended proven wrong can feel, is how their insistence I get out of my little wheel bubble has been ingrained and proven valuable. I resisted opening up so much, was so reluctant to include the musicians, found those placed looks out to the audience so forced… and now… all those things are second nature. Not only am I very much aware that I need to do it, but find myself thinking of how to best include an audience in the round (something new to me) and trying to make sure that everyone is given the focus at least once during my act.

If I needed any more convincing, I only need look back to the day we presented our acts here. The directors were so pleased and made a point of how I already include everyone in the audience and have a connection with them. That it’s perfect and that they don’t need to worry about me. That’s a pretty big deal.

The more I read, the more I find myself thinking "That's good advice, maybe I should try that now."

It's a funny thing to see how much you've grown from your old self, while simultaneously taking the advice your old self has to give.

Hungarian Wheel

Looks like the Cyr wheel has some competition..

Szeged, Hungary

How did I never post this? It was taken in 2011, well after the discovery of the Dutch wheel... Oh well, better late than never!

Safe Travels!

Well, my babies are all packed up and ready to head for the hills. And by hills I mean Alps because this kid is going on tour in Switzerland!

The shipping company doesn't want "personal items" in the crate, which I think is lame because if I'm paying to ship the damn thing, I should be able to put whatever the heck I want in it! As such, I have used very broad definitions when it comes to things like equipment, materials, and accessories... Of course a kettle is classified as physio equipment! How will I boil the water for my therapeutic hot water bottle otherwise?

Get ready, Switzerland! I'm on my way!

It's Official

I am officially an aerialist. While this event is probably what sealed the deal, for me, the moment I truly became an aerialist was the night of my first performance in front of a paying audience.

I should mention that I was a wreck. I was so incredibly nervous it's not even funny. I was literally in tears backstage before I had to go on. I just wanted to get through my act without looking like an idiot. There were one or two moves that I was a little worried about messing up and really, as long as I managed to get through them successfully, I would be happy.

Did I mention that there were casting agents from Cirque du Soleil, as well folks from Cirque Eloize and les 7 doigts de la main? Not to mention a bunch of folks from my alma mater who told me I couldn't be an aerialist. So yeah, nervous.

And then something marvelous happened...

I went on stage, got on my trapeze, and felt amazing. I was shocked when people started clapping after my first technical sequence. I mean, I've been on tour for the last four years. I know that the audience claps. But I'm used to it happening with German wheel. I guess I thought trapeze would be different somehow.

Every trick worked, and artistically, I felt super connected to what I was doing. But best of all, I loved it up there.

I don't know that I can really articulate that feeling. Not how good it felt to be up there, but the fact that it felt good to be up there. Ever since starting trapeze, I've always felt that I would still rather work with wheel. I couldn't imagine not working with my wheel and doing trapeze somewhere instead. It just seemed impossible. I just love doing German wheel so much! And yet here I was, on a trapeze in front of an audience and just having the most wonderful time.

I'm still not too sure what to make of it.

I also did a wheel act in that show and I'm sorry to say that it was a bit of a gong show. I'm not used to doing two high level acts in one show. Usually I do my main act, and a bunch of other stuff. This was two main acts and a bunch of other stuff. Whew! And I'm not going to lie, my mind was on trapeze that night. That was the most important thing for me. I couldn't adapt to the floor where we performed (it is WAY faster than where we rehearsed) and my timing was just all over the damn place. Fortunately, that act was a duo and my partner and I are both super charming and have great presence, so the audience loved us anyway. Seriously, when someone tells you they just wanted to see the two of us make out at the end of our act, you know we did our job.

While I may not have had any of all those casting people come up to me, I did have a lot of people tell me that my act was their favourite, be it wheel or trapeze. And I had a great many Russian artists from Soleil make a point of shaking my hand and telling me that I did a good job. And if anyone knows what the hell they're talking about, it's them. So that meant a lot.

So watch out, world of circus! There's a new aerialist in town!

Oh the Roue-manity!

I have no idea what happened here. I found this image in some dark corner of the internet. All I know for sure is that whatever that monstrosity is supposed to be, at one time it was a German wheel...

Rest is peace, little wheel...