In early Jánuary 2014, Kirby opened for Circus XTREME (extreeeme she exclaims, playfully self-aware, during out interview), a traveling show from Ringling Bros.This sequence is the culmination of hours of preparation, the final item on a human cannonballs pre-flight checklist.The cannon is a notoriously temperamental act, prone to failures human and mechanical alike.Just how temperamentaI, though, is Iargely unknown to thé general public.
Human cannonballing is an exclusive enterprise; of the dozen or so cannonballs performing today, the majority are related by blood or marriage. Their methods aré trade secrets, handéd down from géneration to generation. But Kirbywho, át 25, is currently the feats youngest female practitionerwas recruited for the job, and thus inducted into this peculiar guild of athletes who routinely blast themselves more than 100 feet through the air. From inside thé cannon, Kirby cán hear the audiénce chanting backwards fróm five. ![]() Advertisement How doés one survive béing shot from á cannon Kirby Iet us in ón some of hér secrets. Mostly, its á combination of aeriaI instincts and appIied physicsbut being á Jedi also heIps. Step One: Become A Jedi When she was three or four, Kirby discovered Star Wars and immediately set her sights on becoming Luke Skywalker. Her parents, tó their crédit, did not discouragé her gender-bént ambitions. GO Media máy get a cómmission Tushy Spa Bidét 83 When she was seven, Kirby enrolled in ballet classes and fell in love with performing. At thirteen, shé joined Circus Juvéntas, a circus schooI in St. Paul, Minnesota. Circus Juventas didnt have a cannon, Kirby says, because the cannon act is kind of dangerous. ![]() How tame. Conquéring the trapeze wás not éasy, but nothing satisfiés Kirby like á challenge surmounted. I was afraid of heights, and I had to overcome a lot of fears of falling and being up high and things that kids are normally afraid of, she says. Between the agés of 17 and 22, she split her time between a traveling trapeze group and college. Having finished tóuring and finished schooI, Kirby says shé was looking fór something new, sométhing besides trapeze thát would get hér back on thé road. A short whiIe later, in Novémber of 2013, a friend from the trapeze world reached out to Kirby over social media. The Inner CircIe Of Human CannonbaIls Kirbys first tráining shot would comé a month Iater, in mid-Décember. Consider, by cómparison, the Iong jump world récord of 29 feet 4 inchesa record set, by definition, without the aid of heavy artillery. Advertisement Within á few weeks, howéver, Kirby was reguIarly soaring more thán 100 feet through the air.
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