Don’t fall, senior Andrew Woods thinks to himself. With his hands and feet firmly situated on the metal bar suspended ten feet above the ground, this thought preoccupies Andrew’s mind as he prepares himself to perform his next trick. Using the support of only two ropes hanging from the ceiling, he crosses his leg over a rope and uses the strength of his abdomen to hoist himself up and over the bar. As he stares down at the ground, his brain flickers with thoughts of an agonizing fall that would result in him meeting the mat with a hard smack. However, Andrew’s nervousness is overshadowed by his confidence, and he successfully flips himself up, extending his legs vertically, adjacent to the rope. Satisfied with his performance, a sigh of relief overcomes him.

 Woods has become accustomed to heights and the possibility of hard falls since he has been performing tricks on the trapeze for five months now. Woods began attending classes at Lucia Aerial Performing Arts at Town Center Plaza in the fall after being introduced to it through his mother, Wendy Woods, and his sister, Blue Valley High freshman Brookelle Thomas. Both of them perform on the trapeze and on other aerial apparatuses.

 “At first I thought [trapeze] was going to be stupid (because I don’t really want to say that it’s for girls) but it’s not,” Andrew said. “Guys can do it too. [Brookelle and Wendy] kept asking me to do it, and I was like, ‘No.’ But then I ended up going and it was actually really fun.”

 After two months of learning tricks and perfecting his technique on the trapeze, Andrew was approached with the opportunity to perform doubles trapeze, meaning he would be working with another trapeze student. While he enjoyed singles trapeze, he found that it wasn’t something he was too committed to, and he would sporadically attend classes on and off. However, after he started practicing doubles trapeze with his new partner, Liberty High senior Madi Mathews, he discovered that he really loved the activity.

 “When my mom came to me, and I hadn’t been going to classes for a while, she was like, ‘Madi needs partner, and I was like, ‘Who’s Madi, and what are you talking about?” Andrew said. “She told me about partnering for trapeze, so I decided to give it a try and ended up liking it. [Doubles is] a lot more fun because it’s more interactive with people instead of just doing tricks up in the air.”

 Andrew assumes the catcher position when performing with Madi. As a catcher, Andrew switches into different positions in order to hold Madi while she is performing tricks. While Andrew said that Madi now trusts him not to drop her, the trust had to be built over the course of their practices.

 “Andrew is a quick  learner,” Wendy said. “When he’s taught how to do something, it doesn’t take any time at all for him to pick it up. I think the thing that I was worried about more than anything with Andrew was the fact that he was going to have another person he was going to have to not drop. His biggest concern was that he was going to drop Madi. Thankfully he didn’t, and I don’t think he will. He  very cautious.”

 Andrew said that one of his favorite components of trapeze is that he gets to work a different group of muscles than a typical athlete regularly uses. Along with attending trapeze class once a week, twice a month he takes a two hour aerial conditioning class, where he does circuit training strength exercises to build the immense abdominal and arm strength that is needed to perform on the trapeze.

“It’s all really difficult,” Andrew said. “Some of the guys will be like, “Yeah, I can do [trapeze] easily; it’s just like doing pull-ups. But if you go to a conditioning class, I bet you it’s harder than your weights class. It takes a whole other group of muscles that you’ll use.”

 Participating in trapeze is a unique activity for Andrew, as it is an interest he shares with his family. After seeing a trapeze show during a family vacation in Branson, the whole Woods family sparked an interest in aerial performing. Wendy and Brookelle both perform on the trapeze and silks, and Brookelle also has experience in lyra, which involves performing tricks on a large hoop. Wendy’s oldest children, twins Chris and Leah Woods, 19, also occasionally perform on the trapeze and lyra, respectively.

 “When [the activity is] something that everyone enjoys and everyone is into, then it’s just something that’s easy to do,” Wendy said. “With my kids, with anything they do, I ask that they give it a try and stick with it as long as they’re enjoying it. The key to fitness and staying healthy is to find activities you enjoy doing, so we like trapeze and some of the other aerial apparatuses. If you enjoy doing it, you should keep doing it, and that’s what I ask my kids to do.”

 While Wendy and Brookelle have more experience in aerial apparatuses, as they have been performing on them for around two years, Andrew has enjoyed growing his skills along the sides of his family. Their shared interest in aerial apparatuses has allowed to them to bond.

“I usually don’t [perform] with him, but I love being able to talk to him about [it] now because he always used to be like, ‘Oh no, that’s for girls,’ and I’d be like, ‘It’s not; you can do it,” Brookelle said. “But now that he’s doing it, it’s really fun to see him grow and see him learn with me and my mom.”

 Brookelle’s longtime involvements in aerial apparatuses lead her to joining the Lucia Aerial Performance Company, which consists of 18 students and professionals who perform at events such as charities and the Crossroads District’s First Fridays. While Andrew hasn’t had quite the experience to join the performance company yet, he said that that is a goal of his in the future.

 “One of the things about being in the Lucia Aerial Performance Company that is unique is that their membership in the company is not based on skill alone,” Andrew’s trapeze instructor and Lucia Aerial Performing Arts founder and owner Jenny Prohaska said. “They also must show strong character and support others in being better artists. They must also maintain a positive and healthy attitude toward each other.”

 On March 7-8, the Lucia Aerial Performance Company put on a performance called ‘Aria Coda’ at the Kansas City Ballet Bolender Center. The show included acts of all apparatuses, including both single and double trapeze, silks, contortion, rope, handloop, lyra and dance pieces. The show focused on the transitions in the atmosphere as days progress, beginning with a frozen morning and ending with dusk and then nightfall. Brookelle and two other performers opened the show with a routine on the trapeze.

 “[When you’re performing], you’re nervous,” Brookelle said. “You have a lot of adrenaline, so a lot of the time you’ll go faster than you’re expected. You’ll do moves that when you were practicing you couldn’t get them because you’re so tired, but when you perform you’re like, ‘Where did that come from? I didn’t expect that.’”

Both Andrew’s instructor and family said that Andrew has learned and furthered his skill in trapeze remarkably fast. He is an eager learner and is able to pick up new tricks with ease.

 “Andrew never backs down from a challenge,” Jenny said. “He learns really quickly. It also helps because he is quite strong and athletic. Trapeze requires an enormous amount of upper body strength. Luckily, Andrew already had that even before classes.”

 In the future, Andrew hopes to join the performance company and eventually perform with Madi. Andrew suggests that trapeze is an activity that anyone can get involved in and that fears shouldn’t prevent someone from starting.

 “I like how [trapeze is] different,” Andrew said. “Not everyone does it. It’s a good workout, and it builds strength. I just enjoy it overall.”