22 Feb 24
I’ve just wrapped up my audition at ECQ and am on my flight back to Cincinnati. It went as expected in the sense that I knew there’d be a lot talented people and a lot of them would be much younger than me and, as I expected, that shook my confidence. I don’t believe I stood out as “bad” amongst everyone there but I don’t think I’ll be receiving an offer letter.
There were over 50 people there this week from all over the world and they’ve got another set of auditions next month and virtual auditions as well, so there is well over 100 people applying and only ~25 spots available. I was also the oldest applicant I could find. Tthere was a 27 year old in my group but everyone else in my group of 13 were aged 17-19 and I didn’t meet anyone older than me. Also to add some perspective, my group alone had people from Australia, England, Mexico, Puerto Rico and of course Canada. People come from all over the world to train at this school.
As much as I’ve trained this past year I’m disappointed I was still among the physically weaker applicants. It didn’t help that I caught a cold this weekend and was feeling run down in addition to the anxiety. I’ve got some regrets from how I prepared these past 6 weeks. I feel like I overtrained and stretched myself too thin with all the dancing and gymnastics lessons and I wish I’d just figured out my silks acts sooner. Actually, I wish I’d just applied on lyra. I’ve realized I’m a much better and more confident artist on lyra than silks. But I knew there’d be too much competition in lyra so I don’t know if I actually regret that choice, that one’s a little complicated.
Side note editing this 3 weeks later, I still have feelings I can’t untangle about choosing silks over lyra to audition, but I will say my silks act probably wasn’t as bad as I was feeling it was at the auditions. So 3 weeks later I am much less torn up about this decision than I was on my flight home.
Being sick really did hinder so much of what I’m capable of so I’m incredibly disappointed I didn’t get to showcase my full potential. My physical strength evaluation and especially during the silks evaluation, I just didn’t have the energy to show off my skills or hit the usual amount of reps for things like push ups and toe taps. They taught us a new skill as part of the silks evaluation to see how we learn and I was the only one in my group that wasn’t able to achieve the skill by the end of the block and I didn’t have the energy to keep trying it, I was just so gassed from being sick and I wasn’t used to the incredibly stretchy silks the school uses.
The skill was also hard af though and I still can’t do it even after attempting a few times over these last 3 weeks. It was a 360 flip from S-wrap, pretty hard to describe in words so keep an eye on my instagram for a video eventually or DM me and I’ll send a video of someone else doing the skill.
I’m proud of myself for getting out there again and I have improved so much since my last auditions but I’m so disappointed in how it went. And again nothing truly went awful, I just felt that I wasn’t really ready. It’s hard to compare myself to people who have gotten to do circus for most of their life when I only found it 6 years ago and I have to remember that I’m doing all my training around working full time in an adult body. There is still a chance that since they know me and have worked with me before that maybe they’ll accept me but, I’m still going to assume it's a no-go for ECQ. Just for the sake of moving forward and protecting my fragile big emotions so when those notices do come out it hurts a little less. I’ve got one more audition (Aloft) to focus on at the end of March so I haven’t accepted total defeat and am going into this audition with a lot more confidence since I know they prioritize “older” students!
