I ran off to join the circus – here’s what happened

“If you throw, you have to catch.” It seems like a good rule. Except Lisa Whitmore is talking about people. Her job, as the term begins, falls into the category of simple, but not easy: convince fresh students to trust each other with their lives. To demonstrate how this begins, Whitmore, head of acrobatics at circus school Circomedia, asks her colleague: “Are you willing to be a table for me?” 

She then invites me to sit on that colleague. Whitmore then calls Sophia Hall, one of Big Issue’s deputy digital editors, over from behind the tripod where she is filming the scene, and invites Sophia to stand on my knees, while I remain seated on her colleague. 

“You’re going to try and stand up, just like stepping upstairs,” Whitmore says. “Sure,” replies Sophia. “Step up nice and tall, and then once you’re up, you both lean out together,” says Whitmore. 

Nobody gets hurt. 

At this point me, Sophia – and probably you the reader – are wondering why this is happening. Trust is the reason.Listen to the culture wars, the talking heads, those decrying the breakdown of law and order, and it might feel as though trust has completely broken down. Statistics tell a more prosaic story.

Granted, we don’t particularly trust politicians – a recent YouGov poll found 67% of Brits believe politicians are primarily out for themselves – but we do trust each other. As of 2022, trust among the UK’s population was at its highest level since 1980, with 46% saying most people can be trusted.

Internationally, we rank third for trusting people we’ve met for the first time, behind only Sweden and Norway. We’re joint top for trusting people we know personally. 

But that trust drops off among younger people: Millennials and Gen Z are the only generations where fewer than half of people say they don’t trust people they’ve met for the first time. So Circomedia, a circus school based in Bristol, feels the natural place to come to discover how trust is born. It’s where the next generation of performers meet as strangers and quickly get comfortable enough to fling each other in the air, knowing that – no matter what – the person will catch them. 

From being two weeks away from collapse during the 2020 Covid lockdown, the circus industry appears to be thriving. Equity, the union for performers, says it has more than 3,000 members on its books who are circus performers or use circus skills in their work.

The union tells me there is an “impression” that circus work is increasing in settings such as festivals and cabaret, with only a slight increase in typical touring tented operations. 

Nicole Pearson, Circomedia’s head of aerial, tells me it’s come a long way since she began over two decades ago. “It’s bigger than it’s ever been, because of the rise of the internet. When I started there was no YouTube, there was no Instagram, nobody had a website. I was sending out my promo on VHS,” she says. 

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Circomedia courses range from diplomas and foundation degrees through to a full three-year BA. For students on, say, a philosophy degree, the faith you place in fellow students is largely limited to hoping they won’t go full Lord Lucan the moment a group task is assigned. Here, the stakes are higher. 

“I met my acro partner last year, and I have had to go from knowing him as a complete stranger to literally trusting him with my life,” explains Maya Allenby-Byrne, who is about to begin their second year. “I’ve never trusted someone this much in such a short amount of time in my life. It was like the world’s most intense relationship. You go from zero to everything.” 

Nobody’s going to die, I’m fairly sure, if I drop one of the juggling bean bags Owen Reynolds has given me. He’s the kind of man who takes mistakes lightly. Allows them in. Doesn’t permit them to bother him. “We’ve got a drop out of the way,” he says as one of my first throws hits the floor. His job title is head of juggling and manipulation, which sounds like the kind of thing you’d change an ex’s name to in your phone.  

Reynolds’ tutorial takes us on a tour of juggling lingo. Passing the ball quickly from one hand to each other is a “zap”, he says. We “zap” behind our backs, around our heads, trying to keep the ball going in a circle. We throw a ball up, zap the other ball to the throwing hand, and catch with the other. “Because you’re both doing so well, I’m going to keep giving you more information,” he says, talking us through as it gets harder. “Right zap-zap catch, left zap-zap catch.” 

We’re learning to trust ourselves. “If you’re working on your own there’s a lot of resilience to keep going and not be too put off by the errors,” he says. “Sometimes there can be a bit of a block with failure.”

It’s not unlike gymnastics, where the “twisties” led to superstar Simone Biles pulling out of the 2020 Olympics, or the “yips”, where a phantom loss of confidence and consistency can end the career of cricket bowlers. 

“There definitely are situations where jugglers kind of lose their throw,” says Reynolds. “If you think about the accuracy needed when you’re juggling seven objects – the speed you’re throwing them out and how accurate they need to be – then sometimes that becomes a
mental game.” 

When trust is lost, it’s about building back slowly, hitting milestones. As our crash course comes to an end, it’s time for the big finale. No more zaps – it’s time to get three balls going at once. You might think this is called juggling. In fact, you’ve got to learn to flash first. That’s three throws in a cycle. Two flashes – now that’s a juggle. I don’t quite get there. 

You learn to believe in yourself – but probably not as much as Ruby Lestrange does. Up in the silks – which look like a pair of bedsheets hung from a hook but made from specially rated fabric and costing £180 a pop – Lestrange wraps her legs, turns upside down, and plummets. Using her legs to generate friction on the silks, she catches herself, nose close enough to smell the mat below. All the noise has gone out of the room, all eyes on Lestrange. It’s her favourite trick. 

“I’m very risk averse in normal life. But I do also have that circus addiction of wanting to put myself in those positions where I have to trust that I’m just going to catch it, that I’m going to figure it out,” she says. 

“Circus got me through nine years of a debilitating chronic illness that I wasn’t sure I was going to live through at certain points. Even if I couldn’t get out of bed, I would still think through the routines in my head.” 

When Lestrange gets a new partner, she’ll build up, taking it slow until they’re doing crazy stuff. “You’re putting your life in somebody else’s hands. That’s a lot of trust. If someone doesn’t catch you, you can get really, really hurt,” she says. It can go wrong, but that’s where you’re really learning. She recalls one risky move: “It went pretty wrong, and I was going down headfirst, he just grabbed me and we both fell and it was OK. He saved me in the perfect way.” 

I found my way to Circomedia via Big Issue Invest, the social investment arm of Big Issue which has invested £100,000 in the organisation this year to prepare it for more sustainable growth. 

As well as the circus skills and confidence, it can also offer a different environment for learning to what’s been on offer until the age of 18 (If you or your organisation feel you would benefit from BII visit the website to find out more).

“It is not necessarily even about not being academic. It’s just not thriving in an environment where you’re sitting down all day with pen and paper, and this just gives them a new way to learn,” says Pearson. “For me, it really kind of rewired my brain in terms of problem solving.”

There is another thing the circus changes: anybody flinging themselves about in mid-air is absolutely ripped. Getting strong enough to do these tricks takes time. But learning to trust can be a boost to your wider health too. Research has shown that trust and wellbeing go hand in hand: those with high trust levels tend to have happier lives, while people living with a higher sense of wellbeing usually become more trusting as time goes on. It’s a two-way street. 

Allenby-Byrne seems testament to that, taking the lessons of circus into wider life. “I am so much more confident and comfortable in myself as a person as well,” they say. “I found it easier to socialise with people.” 

Is there a lesson here? A big realisation? Short of all becoming circus performers – an on-the-nose realisation of our national identity – I reckon there’s something to be learned from how the teachers and students learn to trust. You don’t need to throw your neighbour in the air. Just do stuff together, build
it up, bit by bit. 

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