We CAN swing from a trapeze and climb silks and do hand stands (we might just need some help learning the basics and getting our - ahem - more mature bodies used to the movements). The Sellam Circus School in Biddeford is just the place to learn.
Yoga Trapeze helps you stretch your body - including stretches that keep one foot on the ground and stretches where you're totally inverted, your body supported by the fabric and your head and arms dangling toward the floor.
The closure of Circus Maine is a real bummer. But there are still places to learn aerial silks, trapeze, and the art of handbalancing with Apparatus Dance Theater, Sellam Circus School, and The Circus Haus.
Circus Maine offers several classes for grownups: adult fitness, intro aerial fabric, tumbling, hand balancing, Chinese pole, mime, clowning, and wall trampoline.
Aerial yoga helps improve flexibility and strength with a series of poses and breathwork, only now there's a silky-fabric hammock involved and you get to hang upside down.
While mastering aerial silks takes years of practice, you can still gain some basics and do some pretty impressive moves your first time. I mean, just hanging upside down is pretty damn fun!
For anyone who's ever watched performers gracefully climb and swing and dangle and dance on an aerial hoop or silks and thought, "holy wow, that looks amazing, I want to do it but I could never..." I say: Yes. You can. You must.