High on the flying trapeze

Have you ever had a hankering to leave the rat race and become a high-flying circus trapeze artist — but you didn’t know what a lay-out or a double somersault were, and, oh yeah, you were afraid of heights?

Well, fear no more.

Tucked away in the backyard of a home in a middle-class neighborhood of Woodland Hills is the Richie Gaona Trapeze School.

The school is run by Gaona, 50, a fourth-generation circus trapeze artist who traveled the world with his family before coming to Los Angeles in 1988 to pursue a dream of being a stuntman in the movies. As his stunt work was taking off, he had the opportunity to work on the TV show “Circus of the Stars,” teaching celebrities how to work the trapeze, trampoline and other circus arts.

“Everybody who was in the show wanted to keep doing trapeze or the trampoline or the high wire,” Gaona said. The constant requests from friends and colleagues to train them convinced him to start a class. He now has four classes a week attracting young and old, folks in the entertainment industry, and businessmen, nurses and students.

Twenty-three rungs on a ladder take you to the trapeze platform, 25 feet above the ground. Safety lines and a net keep you from harm. Some people try it once and don’t come back. Others have been coming back for years.

The class is an alternative to boring gym exercises and helps recover sanity lost at work. “It’s a big stress relief for them,” Gaona says, adding, “It’s kind of like their therapy.”

Therapeutic or not, it makes for one cool dinner conversation.

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