A few days ago I experienced something that kind of blew my mind. I went to a miniature circus, at Louisville Turners on River Road. Founded in the late 1800s, Turners is one of the oldest family-run organizations in Louisville. They offer varied circus acts such as fire eating and acrobatics.

I met up with Megan Brady, the mother of May-Rose, age eight.  It was near the end of the day, and Holy Spirit’s softball team was practicing in one corner of  Turner’s lot while a baseball game was going on between two rival schools in the diamond.

I looked up and saw a massive building held up by supports that looked rather old. As soon as I entered the building, the smell confirmed my sight. A musty smell filled my nose as I ascended. We entered the third-floor room, and Megan showed me a picture of a woman holding fire to her face.

The woman was a 70-year-old who was beginning to eat fire. Megan, a novice in fire eating, told me she learned from her.  I know what you might be thinking. If there are fire eaters in this circus, then there must be a bunch of crazy-looking people wearing tattoos and thousands of body piercings. There weren’t any people like that.  Instead, I saw women dancing beautifully in silks. I saw trampolines. I saw ropes in the rafters with long pieces of cloth. I heard a lot of pop music playing in the background.

Another woman, Meg Johnson, walked up and started talking to Megan and me.  Johnson has a doctorate in philosophy and is a professor at the University of Kentucky.

“It’s my big-girl life,” Johnson said. “My true life is here because it’s what I truly love doing.”

Johnson then showed me a contraption called ladders, which are exactly that. Five or six people usually get on these during performances and do cool tricks. Another thing that caught my eye was the ropes in the rafters.

“People literally climb up into the rafters and just hang out up there sometimes, but mostly they do tricks,” Johnson tells me as a little girl on a green ball rolls past us. “The people who go up there are usually the standard acrobats that you see in circuses. Not much else goes on up there.”

Something unusual then caught my eye, a rope with a loop through it. As I look up, I see a girl climb up the rope and loop herself in the rope. She proceeded to put her leg inside the loop and hung from it by her ankle. She was up at least 15 feet off the ground. This was her first time doing it, and she was successful.

She was cheered on as she slid down the rope and touched the ground gracefully. Johnson asked if I wanted to see some tricks she had been working on in the silks. Before she showed me her tricks, I asked her if you need some type of training in gymnastics before you work in the silks.

She said, “No, you don’t, actually. We have people come in with no experience in gymnastics and with little or no upper-body strength.”

After Johnson is done showing me her awesome tricks, she introduced me to Anne Miller, a neuropsychologist and mother of two who has been doing this for about a year and a half.

At the end, Johnson tried to teach me some tricks in the silks.  I have a way to go before I blow anyone’s mind!

For more information, check out    http://www.louisvilleturners.org/