I love teaching my aerial circus kids, their classes are one of the highlights of my week. I train them quite hard though and push them through a pretty gruelling 1 hour of strength and conditioning each night before skills training. I always do the conditioning with them though so I know when I've reached the point that I think is enough for them. Tonight as one of my youngest students (who's 11) collapsed exhausted on the mat, I commented "come on, I'm three times as old as you!". At that moment the whole class stopped and I think there were simultaneous gasps of shock. "YOU'RE 33?!" they asked. "Well not yet but I'm not far off" I sheepishly replied. And that was that - the deception was over! Prior to this the class all thought I was a groovey 19 or 20. I always joked that they'll never find out my age, I guess I didn't want them to think I was too old to be their cool circus teacher. But their response was reassuring, "WOW!" they said with what I thought were looks of awe. I guess it's true, age doesn't really matter. When I was their age I probably thought that once you hit your thirties you probably wouldn't be capable of doing something as physically challenging as aerial circus. But the truth is I feel stronger and fitter now than I ever did in my 'younger days', and I feel like I can only get better. Sure there will be a time when my joints are shot and my recovery time is longer but I've seen my 'older' circus tutors still teaching and training into their 50's and 60's.
It's great to be a source of inspiration for these kids, the majority of them are at that age where they look for a life role model and that person could either be a good or bad influence. I'm lucky that they all love circus because I think I am where they strive to be. At the same time these kids are such a pleasure to be around, their enthusiasm and constant effort is such a reward for the time I give for them.
