Abs Work Out

Sky Candy Austin offers circus-style workout

Not everyone who swings through the rafters at Sky Candy Austin dreams of one day performing under the big top.

Some, it turns out, sign up for the group's classes in circus arts for the workout. And they get a good one.

Drop by the cavernous, un-air-conditioned warehouse it shares with two furniture makers in East Austin almost any day and you'll find athletes gracefully cavorting on fluttering, silky sashes, ropes, bars and rings suspended from the ceiling.

Sky Candy's founders say they're tapping into a growing trend. In New York, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Boulder, people are happily channeling Cirque du Soleil in classes that teach them how to swing on a trapeze and dance on long, flowing columns of fabric.

Here in Austin, Trapeze Austin teaches classes in trapeze and silks, while Blue Lapis Light focuses on silks. Volve, a Meetup group for people with circus talents, has staged impromptu gatherings outside the Long Center for the Performing Arts.

At Sky Candy, which opened in July 2010, anybody can sign up for a class in ropes (or "corde lisse"), aerial hammock, the static trapeze or lyra, a sort of steel hoop that hangs from a rope. Classes in stilt walking and juggling might eventually join the lineup.

"We saw a gap," says Winnie Hsia, one of the founding members of Sky Candy Austin. "Austin had places that just taught trapeze or just taught silks, but there was no place that taught multiple apparatuses. We're more circus-oriented."

Eager to hone a new skill set that involves swinging through the air hanging from my knees, I have decided to pop in for the Intro to Aerial Skills class.

As fans buzz in the background in an attempt to keep the sweat to a minimum (a move to an air-conditioned warehouse is planned for early fall), students Meghan Miller, 26; Caroline Coblar, 26; Macy Nelms, 10; and I warm up with some yoga stretches and abdominal exercises led by Hsia.

"It's a great workout, but it doesn't feel like you're trapped in a gym," Hsia says. "You're doing something that's beautiful, a work of art. You're not a hamster on a wheel."

She unfurls navy and black strips of silky material tethered to the ceiling. She loops the material through her fingers, wraps it around her ankles and daintily pulls herself up and down the billowing mass.

"You're just going to pull yourself up," she explains from 15 feet up, and then slides gracefully back down to terra firma.

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