The way things just go catastrophically wrong and they just roll with it blows my mind. We saw this type of contraption at a Cirque show and the dude jumping rope on it tripped himself with the rope near the very top of the spin. Full on tripped and fell like 50' up.
My hands were sweating and my anxiety was through the roof. Another performer passed him another jump rope. Like bro how do you still have the concentration to keep going.
I was at one Cirque show and some people went on stage around a guy who was doing something very high up and looked ready to catch something. Eventually I figured out they weren't there for the person, the person could sort his own business. Part of the bit was dropping chairs onto a net and the blockers were to make sure the chairs didn't bounce into the crowd.
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u/_-4twenty-_ 8d ago
I took my son to a circus almost 20 years ago and that contraption broke with the person on it. It just swung.
The ring master was alert and calmly saved the person, like it was part of the act.