Playboy's Senior Research Editor Ron Motta tried a new experience last week, and fell for it head over heels:

 

 

I stepped to the edge of the barely two-foot wide trapeze platform and peered down.  It may have been a twenty-foot drop, but it might as well have been a mile.  The man next to me hooked the safety wires to my harness, which cut into my stomach and reminded me that I need to lay off the cheeseburgers.  Leaning in with one hand on the cable supporting the plank, I grabbed the trapeze bar that swung towards me.  Brian, the man on the platform, gave me instructions, but I could barely hear him over the Dave Grohl-like pounding of my heart.  I looked down again and bent my knocking knees, ready to take the biggest literal leap of faith in my life.  It’s okay, I assured myself, this is in your blood… 

I’m descended from circus folk.  No, seriously.  My great-grandfather Luigi Motta did what every child dreams of—he ran away with the circus when he was a boy in Italy.  He became a trapeze artist while in his teens and his father attempted to track him down all through Europe in an effort to get him to come home.  But he faced the same dilemma that Eliza Doolittle faced in Pygmalion—how do you go back to the tedium of every day life once you’ve been a part of a more exciting world?  So he traveled until he settled down with my great-grandmother, who happened to be the bearded lady in the same circus (to quote Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, “I keed, I keed”).

When it was suggested that I honor my circus heritage by taking a trapeze class, the first thought in my mind was, where the hell do I find one?  Luckily for me, I discovered a school not ten minutes from my home on Long Island. iFly Trapeze School is located right in Smithtown, NY. The brainchild of two brothers, Marco and Anthony Rosamilia of Franklin Square, NY, the school is now in its third successful season.  Their students are a mixture of both kids and adults from all walks of life—including a senior research editor for Playboy.  I wondered how someone would even think of opening a trapeze school at all, let alone one nestled within the heart of suburban Long Island?

“My brother and I used to work the resorts, teaching trapeze and circus arts,” Marco tells me.  “After working our butts off for other people, we decided it was time to come back home and open a flying trapeze school.  When we were working, a lot of people from Long Island asked us where they could find a flying trapeze school around here.  So, being from the area, we decided this would be a good place to start.”

As I arrived at the school with my loving and long-suffering wife/camerwoman, Jill in tow, I was greeted by the trapeze area itself--a tangled mass of cables, wires and steel.  Beneath the trapeze was the safety net, a foreboding web that looked eager to ensnare any wayward flies.

Before I can begin, I’m handed a one-page waiver that informs me of the risks associated with swinging from a rope twenty feet off the ground.  The waiver basically asks, “Are you sure you want to do this?”  As I hesitated putting my signature to the paper, my mind wandered not to my great-grandfather but to George Plimpton, the revered author and daredevil who, amongst other daring feats, performed as a trapeze artist for one night with the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus (a feat documented in the 1971 ABC television special Plimpton! The Man on the Flying Trapeze).  If Mr. Plimpton concerned himself with waivers, he never would’ve sparred with boxer Archie Moore (albeit lasting barely three rounds), nor would he have played quarterback for the Detroit Lions (albeit for one day in training camp), nor would he most certainly not have soared through the air, if only for one night.  With both my ancestor and my literary predecessor sitting on my shoulders, I jotted my signature on the dotted line, fear and sanity be damned.

After ascending the ladder, I felt assured (as much as one can be twenty feet in the air on a narrow platform) by the presence of Brian Flint, the man who hooked up my safety harness.  With twelve years of high-flying experience, Brian has traveled the world and back again with such troupes as the Flying Caceres and Cirque du Soleil.  When I ask him where he got his start, I’m surprised by the answer.    “Club Med!” he replies.  “Believe it or not, Club Med is the biggest trapeze school in the world.  In fact, that’s where Marco and Anthony learned their craft.  I ended up training in Los Angeles and apprenticed with Cirque du Soleil.  I’m waiting to be cast in their La Nouba show in Florida.”

Down on the ground, JT Gamble, a fresh-faced youngster from Oklahoma, manned the safety wires.  He recalls how he started flying through the air as well.  “Me and my friend were out walking and this trapeze demonstration was set up along this river front,” he tells me in his Okie twang.  “I looked at it and said, ‘I’ve got to try this!’ I just got completely addicted to it.  Four years later, here I am.”

The trapeze flight itself is a trip.  The first time I flew, it was a scene out of the 80s cult classic The Greatest American Hero—the world was rushing by, my body was out of control and my legs were flailing like crazy.  As Marco put it, I did everything I was supposed to not do.  But if there is one thing that the iFly staff does not do is give up on you, no matter how big, small or, as in my case, athletically inept you may be.  They truly believe that anyone can get the hang of the flying arts. After each successive turn, the staff works with me to improve my swing.  You can judge from yourself whether or not it worked from the footage below.  

Unfortunately, the session went by way too quickly.  Even though my body was an aching mass of muscles, I felt rejuvenated.  I don’t know if it was the natural high you get when you do something that extreme or if it was the pride of doing something that I didn’t think I would—or could—do.   Regardless, I felt like I was born again, ready to take on the world. Despite the fact that Jill shot down my suggestion that we put a trapeze in the bedroom, I was already thinking about my next time up there.  

As we pulled away in the car, I thought of the sign Hef had on the door of the original Playboy Mansion in Chicago:  Si Non Oscillas, Noli Tintinnare, which is Latin for “If you don’t swing, don’t ring.”  While Hef may have meant it in the metaphorical sense, iFly definitely means it literally.  I may not be ready to follow in my great-grandfather’s footsteps, I know I’ve found a more interesting way to work out and a way to clear my mind as well.  Everybody should fly on a trapeze at least once in his or her life.  If you think you can’t do it, let me just say that if I can, you can.  Trust me, it’s good for the soul.

i.Fly is located in Smithtown, NY on Long Island.  You can book classes either online at www.ifly.com or by calling (631) 656-8893.