Circus art aficionados climb, swing - and burn calories - Haaretz

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Last update - 22:35 16/07/2007

Circus art aficionados climb, swing - and burn calories

By Danit Nitzan

Miki Yones, a 26-year-old actress from Tel Aviv, mounts the red aerial tissu (an elastic fabric used to perform aerial exercises) suspended from the high ceiling of the Florentine Circus tent. She climbs, holds on, begins to turn upside down, winds the fabric around and hangs on her side; she releases a hand, a foot and then rolls around, wrapped in the fabric. Each exercise continues for a few minutes and looks charming. Only when Yones descends from the rope, perspiring and red-faced from the effort, rubbing her hurting palms, does one understand that how strenuous the exercise is.

"All the muscles in your body work in an amazing way," says Yones. "Your whole body, including your stomach, your back, everything takes part in the effort to grab a hold, to maintain balance, to climb. When you release one hand, the other hand works harder. When you release a foot, the entire body works harder."

Yones, like many others, likes to exercise her body but doesn't like sports. "I hate to run, I hate aerobics, I hate fitness clubs, I hate spinning," she says. "But it's important to me to be active and strong. When I discovered the circus arts course I knew I had found what I was looking for."

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Yones trains in the adult course at the Florentine Circus. There are also courses for children and teenagers, and the circus operates regular summer workshops and camps. In all of the courses, they teach elements of circus art, including floor and aerial acrobatics, trampoline moves, walking on stilts and on a rope, riding a unicycle, juggling and balancing exercises.

The work in the circus arts course is divided into three areas, explains Yones. "Aerial - meaning trapeze, tissu and rope exercises; acrobatics - flipping, somersaults, cartwheels et al; and acrobalance - exercises for balance and strength performed in pairs or in groups, with one person climbing on the other's shoulders, standing upside down on one another and all the work you see in circuses, of constructing pyramids or jumping."

It is no accident that she calls this activity "work." "It's hard physical work, but it's very rewarding. You become strong, you control your body and your movements, you learn how to overcome fear, and the feeling is amazing." Yones emphasizes that "the hunger at the end of the training session is also amazing."

Kiryat Motzkin is home to the School for Circus Arts, established by Dagan Dishbak, 29, of Kiryat Bialik, and Itamar Elzair, 33, of Shavei Zion. "From an early age I was attracted to special activities such as rock climbing, diving, surfing, motorcycle riding," says Dishbak. "After I was discharged from the army, I worked at Club Med in Eilat and Achziv and there I became familiar with the circus for the first time. During the course of my work at the club, I gained experience with the trapeze, and afterward studied at a school for circus arts in the U.S. At the end of my studies, I joined a circus that performed in Turkey, and I also started to study there."

At the circus in Turkey, he met Elzair, and when they returned to Israel, they decided to start a circus of their own. "We found an area big enough for setting up the trapeze, an area about the size of a tennis court, which belongs to a country club and was not being used," says Dishbak. "We began with one-off activities. Now there is a standard course for adults, and some people who come for half a day to try it out. We're very open."

This activity is very challenging, and not many succeed at it, says Dishbak. "Anyone who tries and fails and then tries again and succeeds, discovers he has confidence and determination. That's already a good lesson. Besides, the trapeze improves basic physical fitness, fine motor skills, concentration and overcoming fear. Not many people want to climb up and swing at a height of eight meters."

Efrat Herbst, 23, is someone who travels from Tel Aviv to Haifa in order to do just this. She is a student of biomedical engineering at Tel Aviv University. "I'm very frenetic, and an ordinary gymnastics class twice a week isn't enough for me," she says. "So I do aerobic exercises four times a week, and once a week I travel to the circus arts course in Kiryat Motzkin."

And what is the added value that justifies the effort?

"It gives you flexibility and fitness and strength and balance. It's tremendous fun, the adrenaline that flows in your body when you fly in the air is an amazing experience; you're tied with ropes and with a strap, there's a ramp from which you jump and do aerial exercises like splits or turns, until you land. You really have to concentrate on the movement and on control, and when you do that you feel that you're in a different league."

Einat Amar, 31, a mother of two from Moshav Liman, began to train in the Kiryat Motzkin circus in order to lose the 30 kilograms she had gained during her second pregnancy. "And they came off easily," she said. "The work is so hard and the body makes such an effort, that without feeling it, you become stronger and lose weight."

But that's not the most important part, she emphasizes. "Training for two to two and a half hours twice a week make me a different person. When a woman becomes a mother, your behavior changes, you become more cautious in your conduct, your driving, everything. And aerial activity gives a sense of supreme liberation, of courageous behavior, which I wouldn't exchange for any sport in the world."

Not only Amar benefits from her elated feeling after each training session. "My husband says that it's a shame that I don't go for a session every evening, so I can be calm and serene when I come home."

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