Sunday, April 05, 2009

Belly Acres part IV - Circus Workshops

We were invited to stay on the condition that we would leave once the aerialist workshop arrived. They had rented the whole place and there would no longer be any space for us. We made arrangements to stay with someone nearby, but a few days before the workshop began, Graham invited us to stay up at his place. It worked out that there was an extra Jungalow available for Becky and me, and Melissa stayed in Graham's spare room. Our new Jungalow was even better than the last two. It had electricity and a kitchen and ceilings high enough to throw triples. Fancy.
So we stayed and we worked, largely methinks, because Melissa was working at rebuilding their website (which is totally beautiful! LOOK), but also because we are hardworking and charming individuals.
It was great for us because we wanted to be around for the workshops, aka The Hawaii Circus Retreat. It is becoming an annual event and the ladies who run it are amazingly warm and talented. They're from Toronto and are accomplished teachers and performers. We became friends with them and they invited us to do some work/trade with them so we could participate in some of their workshops despite our empty pockets. They scheduled a few circus workshops with the children in the community and asked us if we would teach the juggling component in exchange for picking whichever focus of theirs that we would like to learn. I chose the trapeze class and went up on the swinging trapeze for the first time in my life. It was fun, but boy does it hurt. All of that climbing, and hanging, and swinging in the air stuff hurts. I'll stick to juggling.
They also invited us to tag along on an excursion they were taking with their group to Waipio Valley. We weren't blessed with the greatest weather, but it was beautiful and we had the opportunity to work on our team building skills. To get to the long stretch of beach we aimed for, we had to ford a river. It was difficult for me and even more so for some of the other members of our party, so on the way back, we built a human bridge (more of a human hand-rail system really). It took us a little while, but it was fun and made everyone feel a lot more secure.
It was a great experience and I'm already trying to figure out how to make it back next year.




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