What a Sensation! First-Time Flying at New Trapeze School By Ronald Drenger I stood on the platform 22 feet in the air, my toes over the edge. With my outstretched right hand I held the trapeze bar, while my left hand clutched a pole solidly attached to the platform. I looked out at the Hudson River sparkling in the morning sun, then down at the net. "Reach out and grab the bar with both hands," said Megan Jaworowski, who stood behind me firmly holding my safety belt. "I’ve got you."   My instincts protested. Lean over the edge with no grip on a fixed object? Nevertheless, I let go of the pole and reached for the bar. "This is Ron, swinging for the first time," Megan shouted, announcing me as she did all virgin flyers at Trapeze School New York, on the waterfront at West and Desbrosses streets. I had felt one adrenaline rush while climbing the ladder’s 23 rungs to this perch. Now another wave hit. "Ready...lift the bar...step off," Megan instructed. She let go of my belt as I took a step, at once hesitant and eager. Feeling the weight of my body pulling down on my arms, I tightened my grip on the bar, and I was swinging—down, up, then back down, along what I imagined was a graceful, elegant arc. I felt the thrill of a new sensation, like scuba diving for the first time, combined with the rush of a roller coaster ride.   My momentum slowed after a few swings. Following the shouted instructions of Jonathon Conant, the school's director, who was standing beside the net, I looked up at the sky, let go of the bar, and landed on my back in the cushiony net. Cool. From the moment I heard in June that a trapeze school was coming to Tribeca’s stretch of the Hudson River Park, I knew I had to try it. And now here I was, in a class of eight women and two men, seven of us "newbies," learning to "fly." After practicing on a stationary bar nine feet off the ground, we took turns climbing to the platform and swinging on the trapeze, our belts attached to safety cables. "It’s a lot scarier than you think," Vanessa, a first-timer, said, after bravely flying first. But she had a huge smile on her face, as we all did each time we climbed off the net. We quickly progressed to our first trick, hanging by the knees and swinging upside down with arms outstretched, and practiced coming off the bar with a reverse flip. "It’s less about what’s going on in your body, and more about what’s going on in your mind," advised Conant, who was a professional stuntman and dancer before getting hooked on trapeze. "You’re the adult, your body is the child. You have to tell your body that you’re in control." Back in the air, I passed along the message and my body listened. After flipping my legs over the bar, I let go with my hands and let my body hang down, arching my back and reaching with my arms as I swung. I feared for a moment that my legs would slip off but they held on tightly. Lower Manhattan never looked so good.   By the end of the two-hour class, some of us tried being "caught" by an instructor swinging on another bar—letting him grab your arms and pull you off your bar while you’re swinging upside down. Vanessa, the one who had earlier proclaimed her fears, turned out to be a natural, breezing through all the moves. She completed the catch on her first try. I came close, but missed—the morning’s sole disappointment. Paul Cannon, the "catcher," gently admonished me for "fishing"—trying to grab his hands instead of just extending my own. But it hardly mattered. I couldn’t believe I had even attempted the maneuver and after my first taste of the trapeze I just wanted to get up there again. Sitting on the pavement after class, I was still flying high. Trapeze School New York is located at West and Desbrosses streets. Two-hour classes cost $45 to $65. For information, go to www.trapezeschool.com or call 917-797-1872.