My daring hour on the flying trapeze

By Selma Chalabi
BBC South East Wales

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It's not often you get given the opportunity to go on a trapeze, so when No Fit State Circus rolled in to town and offered journalists the chance to have a go, I flew at it.

No Fit State Circus started its life in Cardiff in 1986. More than twenty years down the line it is now an internationally acclaimed touring company.

It's back in town with its new show Tabu, a mixture of performance theatre, festival-style bizarreness, and incredible tricks.

Forget clowns, animals, and ringmasters. Think instead of tightrope walking in heels, and bodies pinging out above you and then being thrust back on to a vertical wall.

This is 'contemporary' circus, and the audience is encouraged to be part of the show by walking around and under the action.

Of course there are classics like the trapeze, and it's thanks to No Fit's Adie Delaney that I got the chance to fly through their big top in Cardiff Bay.

How can I explain what's it like to be hoisted up through the air and plopped on a bar several metres above the ground? Terrifying, yet exhilarating.

The ease with which Adie performed her act when I saw the show a few nights earlier disguised the reality of what it feels like to be that high up above the ground.

When Adie then asked me to stand on my tip-toes, I couldn't believe my ears. By the end of my session, I was swinging by my knees.

I can't begin to capture the feeling that flying upside down gives you. You feel free, you feel as though you're using every inch of your mind and body to stay on the bar, you feel alive.

When I asked Adie what she most enjoyed about her job, I wasn't surprised to hear her talk about a sense of freedom.

Imagine the feeling of weightlessness you get on a roller coaster, only take away the queasiness and add in that you're using your own body to control how you move through the air.

I would go so far as to say that being high on a bar has given me the biggest high I've ever had. By the time I came back down to earth, I couldn't stop smiling. Even now, writing about it and remembering the experience, I'm smiling.

Luckily for Cardiff, No Fit State Circus has always run a strong programme of circus workshops and training sessions. If the company get their way and can raise enough money, they may soon have a state of the art circus school.

I hope they do it. What Cardiff needs more than anything is for an alternative scene to grow and flourish, and here it is in spades - home grown, yet widely travelled and mature.

In the meantime, I'm going to book another trapeze workshop at their temporary base.

I must admit, by the end of the session my arms and shoulders were shaking and I had to finish earlier than I wanted.

But according to Adie, it's not about strength, it's about catching the momentum of the swing. Next time maybe.

Tabu is showing in Roald Dahl Plass until 27 September - tickets are avaialble from the Wales Millennium Centre .

Workshops and classes can be booked via No Fit State Circus .

Thanks to Nia Davies of the Wales Millennium Centre for taking the photos.