First Days At The Beijing Circus School

I’ve just finished my 2nd day at the school. I thought as soon as I turned up at school, I’ll get to training pretty much in a day or 2. But no, the administration here is appalling!

First, they insist that after my 7 days of “quarantine”, I must still be subjected to a medical examination that takes about 3 to 4 days for the results to get back. Surely this could have been done before I even got to school. And I have to wait for my results before I can be then tested by the school to see which classes I’ll take.

A few months ago, I specifically stated that I wanted to live in a single dorm. But apparently their international office in Canada didn’t forward that information to the school… or at least this was their excuse. So I have to to stay in a multi-person dorm till a single dorm becomes available.

Then here comes the kicker. I specified numerous times that I wanted to train Aerial Silks, but it seems that they don’t have any classes for it here at all. I feel like they are stringing me on, especially after how others who have requested Aerial Silks have been turned down.

And of course, they won’t let me onto the Aerials rig to do my own training. First they say that I’m not insured by my school, but my travel insurance (surprisingly covers me while training here). That’s one excuse down. Then they say that I’m not officially a student there yet, but then they expect me to do “student things” like turn up for assembly “because all the students have to”. In the end I escaped assembly because of the required medical examination.

But this isn’t only limited to me, I have met a few others who have been given the same rubbish treatment and excuses as me. To sum it all up, my first impressions are less than stellar.

At the moment however, I am able to walk around campus and sit in and observe classes. The teachers are not allowed to give me direct instruction. But at least I can watch and start learning Feicha by watching.

Besides that, I’ve been training a fair bit on my own and the 2 focused days on contact staff has brought improvements in both my single staff and double traps.