Hey man, now you're really living

Nearly.

THE bad news is that Mum and I haven’t spoken since our snarky email exchange about whether or not I have a legitimate fear of heights (if you were me, would you have blurted out that someone who has a Condition Red panic attack at the sight of a slightly enclosed space ought to be less scathing? I think you would); the good news is I’ve mastered a new twisty move on the trapeze.

After piking on the last two lessons, I turn up to today’s class with dragging feet and a face like a smacked arse.

Always keen to cash in on my own misfortune, last week I interviewed a specialist about the best and worst way to tackle phobias for a newspaper article. The worst, he said, is ‘flooding’ – essentially throwing yourself in at the deep end, like taking a trapeze course. Armed with this knowledge, I just know today’s going to be a shocker.

“Only focus on the clips,” the instructor says when I explain I’m liable to faceplant the floor if I have to look down and fit the harness. His permanently benign expression helps a bit.

Weirdly, this time around atop the platform I’m not sweaty and dizzy, and can concentrate on what I’m doing, even though there’s always a death grip involved. I pull off the usual swings and then decide to go for a new one, launching off with crossed arms, spinning around, swapping hands and trying to avoid smacking back into the platform. There’s a bit of a shriek when I let go at the wrong time and go swimming across the crash pad, but the next time I land on my feet, and the next. Wahoo!

Whatever it was I had, I’m hoping it’s peaked.

Keeper? Seeing that I was hanging onto a pole at the top of the platform at the time, I’m not sure if the instructor’s advice to wee on your hands to heal blisters was a joke or not. Better safe than sorry.

I’M determined to thrash my vertigo into submission, so I’ve signed myself up for a load of trapeze and aerial rope tomfoolery over the next few months.

Instead of hoisting us atop a platform and screaming GO! like the last place, this school coaches you in everything from working out, to throwing shapes, to take offs, to landing. Seems sensible.

On the static trapeze we work through pikes, hocks, hangs and beats, in what’s supposed to be a fluid motion – and probably would be if you were cursed with short, stumpy legs. For the lithe-limbed, it’s quite difficult not to entirely flip oneself over when asked merely to hover upside down in the air.

At the last school there were hoards of acrospunks coaching a big class, but this time there are five girls and one acrodude, whose arms aren’t quite built up enough for my liking. We’re not doing catches this week though, so I won’t worry about it now.

Last time, we swung about over a big rig, but this time it’s a ‘Petit Volant’, which basically means you’re trying to land on your feet on a crash pad instead of on your arse on a net. More worryingly, the girls in the class are expected to hold each other’s weight atop the platform and trust each other to let go/not wobble at pertinent times. Between us there are two cases of vertigo, two of myopia, and one of unbelievable stupidity, but these kinks are presumably hammered out over time.

Keeper: Yep, working on those developing those calluses before I attempt moves like “rear-mount”, “suicide” and “reverse suicide”.

WHEN I first came to Australia and clapped eyes on an ibis, skidding over in a puddle and tumbling into a bin, I knew I had found my totem animal.

While awkward, ungainly and a little brown around the tail on land, in flight the ibis is a majestic bird; and so it is that I find myself signing up at the Sydney Trapeze School, which offers a two-hour lesson for the wet-behind-the-ears, for just $60.

Our class today numbers nine girls and one guy. I look down the row and appraise my ranking. I’m here with Stacey and Laura, who are looking too sure of themselves for my liking, but my friend Kate, I’m pleased to note, has turned up in tight jeans and a dead-eyed hangover that looks to be bordering on The Fear. One down, eight to go.

The fresh meat are shown the ropes by a trio of swarthy acrobats with muscle shirts and smirks. They aloofly corral and saddle us up with the safety gear, stopping just short of a branding iron.

I get up the 8m-high wobbly ladder as fast as possible, like Basil Fawlty having a fit. Once atop the platform, you’re efficiently manhandled into position by one porn star-looking dude, while another barks orders from below. It would be an incredibly hot scenario if you weren’t looking so incredibly foolish.

Heave ho.

“Stop sticking your arse out,” I’m told for the millionth time by the man holding my entire weight with one overdeveloped bicep. I lean into space and grope onto the bar. Surely there’s been some mist-ARGH!

“Knee hang!” another acro-spunk screams disorientatingly as I whisk past him. On my first attempt, I get my limbs tangled up in a snarl of ropes so that I’m flying through the air like a human pretzel, before I’m told to call this one a day. I flip myself off the netting, back onto the ground, to polite applause.

Back in the queue of baby birds, those that have already had a go compare tremoring hands. We’re having mixed results in the air. A few have the fluid, practiced movements of gymnasts and take to it naturally; others don’t listen to direction and try and follow their instincts as to when to change position. One girl thrashes and screams in fury each time she screws up, like Maria Sharapova launching a bum serve.

On my second go, I hook my legs over the bar and flip upside down at great speed, screaming “Bollocks!” as I wend my merry way. On the upswing I see the bloke up top grinning down at me, upside down. This is fun.

This move I'm pulling's too sophisticated for most catchers.

An hour and a half in, the ante is upped dramatically when instructor Jesse takes his shirt off and flips himself onto the opposing trapeze. We powder ourselves with chalk while Tom lines us up on safe ground and gets us all to grip his sizeable forearms to make sure we can remember how to use our opposable thumbs.

Everyone’s gone quiet, contemplating their impending catch, or lack of, but determination suddenly seems to run down Kate in rivulets. Even though she is an English, and only accustomed to gymnastics with a vodka in her hand, she plumbs some primal depths of coordination. We watch her ascend the ladder in awe. “She’s going to do it,” ripples down the line.

Sure enough, just as I reach the top of the ladder, Kate is launching herself forth, executing each manoeuvre perfectly before Jesse grabs her arms. They make one arc together, before he hurls her down into the net like Mr Darcy, Heathcliff and Mick Dundee combined.

Kate in full flight.

We all gasp. The bitch! I momentarily forget my fear of heights, watching from the platform, but she totally puts me off my stroke.

“Hup!” the guy holding onto me yells. I contemplate the meaning of “hup” for a second and then jump off the platform. To perform a catch, you need to hook your legs up on first sweep and have your arms stretched out over your head on the second, or the moment’s passed. I’m not as aerodynamic as I’d hoped. “NO CATCH!” comes the humiliating yell.

Back on the ground, I grab Kate, who’s glassy-eyed and actually quivering.

“Probably a good thing I fucked it up,” I whisper. “I think I would have had an [word removed to prevent future regret].”

“Didn’t you hear me scream?” she returns. And pads off aimlessly.

Keeper? Realistically, the acro-spunks would have guffawed about our flailing limbs and dampening sweatpants as soon as we were out of earshot, but nevertheless, we’re all going back for seconds.

WARNING: Some crowing follows.

IT takes a few minutes of idly staring at a flotilla of jellyfish the size of dinner plates while enjoying a fag on St Kilda Pier to click that I’m about to be in amongst these foul gelatinous beasties. Extra incentive not to fall off, I suppose.

“The wind’s at 16 knots,” our guide observes as we gather on the beach. “You’ll probably get chucked into the pier a lot.”

I’m the only person who accepts a lifejacket (the others are blokes who’ve turned up in schmick new rashies), because while I can swim as good as any English, rips are strangely drawn to me. Also, I have visions of being swept out to sea like my brother was on a lilo one year. Dad was furious: he’d only just bought the lilo from a petrol station.

After a quick tutorial that’s delivered in a thick French accent and largely carried off by the wind, we carry our boards into the shallows and kneel in the centre of them with our legs apart. Paddling out a few metres, we get to our feet, always looking ahead at where we want to be going so as not to lose balance.

From hereon in there’s a cacophony of splats, as the menfolk hit the water heavily, stagger back onto their knees, rock back and forth alarmingly in a crouching position and fall in again. It’s embarrassing. I feel for them, I really do. Clearly all my pillion riding has paid off, as ironically it turns out I’m the only person who doesn’t need a lifejacket. How do you like that? I could have kept my makeup on.

An hour in, a small crowd has gathered merrily on the pier and the men have crimson faces of thunder as I punt around them in a devil-may-care fashion. Look, I wouldn’t fancy my chances in surf any rougher than Port Phillip Bay, but still, I’d like to think I earn the admiration of all around – in fact, I’m quite surprised no one has come up behind me in a fit of jealousy and shoved me in.

Keeper? Bloody love it mate. You may see me paddling sedately down the Yarra in the next few weeks.