Tina Miser heard her best pickup line ever when the circus came through her town of Peru, Ind., and the man who performed as a human cannonball asked her if she wanted to fire him out of the cannon he had built.<\/p>\n
That was 10 years ago. Now Brian and Tina Miser are a husband-and-wife team who will perform Thursday through Monday at the ShoWare Center in Kent with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus.<\/p>\n
But the couple has switched roles. Brian fires the cannon. Tina rockets through the air as the human cannonball.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t think about being a cannonball because I thought it was too dangerous,” Tina said, in a phone interview Thursday before a show in Sacramento, Calif. “I was hoping to get hired as an aerial artist. But this is much better than I imagined. I love what I do.”<\/p>\n
Circus fans can watch the 5-foot-2, 110-pound performer fly about 90 feet across the ShoWare arena at speeds of up to 65 mph before she lands in about two seconds on a couple of large, inflatable mats.<\/p>\n
Actually nowadays, Tina, 33, and fellow performer Ekaterina Borzikova get fired out of a double-barreled cannon at the same time during the show.<\/p>\n
“It’s amazing, I can’t describe it,” said Tina, who has been shot out of a cannon nearly 2,300 times during her five years as a human cannonball. “I can’t find anything that would replicate it. You’re free flying. There’s no wires or helmet. It’s the best feeling in the world.”<\/p>\n
So how, exactly, does someone practice to become a human cannonball?<\/p>\n
The aerial artist discovered it takes a lot of trial shots and plenty of practice. In fact, after her first 80 practice shots, she broke her shoulder on a bad landing during the next practice shot and didn’t try the act again for 18 months.<\/p>\n
After a year of practice following her injury, Tina signed a contract with the Ringling Bros. to work as their human cannonball. She had joined the circus as an aerial artist and also fired her husband out of the cannon.<\/p>\n
Brian at first didn’t want his wife to perform as a human cannonball.<\/p>\n
“I kept asking him to let my try the cannon,” Tina said. “From watching him, it looked like a challenge and looked fun. He was reluctant, but I wanted to do it and eventually I learned.”<\/p>\n
Tina positions herself on her stomach in the cannon barrel. She performs about a three-fourths flip while flying through the air in order to land on her back and bounce up on her feet.<\/p>\n
“You extend your body like Superman,” she said.<\/p>\n
But not every shot goes smoothly.<\/p>\n
“Every shot is different,” Tina said. “You have to put your body in the right position and sometimes it’s a little rough. You have to do some quick thinking in the air and alter your body. It’s kind of a slow-motion sensation.”<\/p>\n
Tina has only had the one serious injury as she lives the life she dreamed of as a kid.<\/p>\n
In those days, the circus stopped each year in her Indiana hometown, and Tina always attended. She even got a chance to learn a few circus skills.<\/p>\n
“I really wanted to run away from home and join the circus,” Tina said. “But my parents wanted me to go to college.”<\/p>\n
So she went to college and worked in the Air Force Reserves before she met her future husband and joined the circus.<\/p>\n
Now the couple and Skyler, their 5-year-old daughter, travel as many as 50 weeks per year performing throughout the United States. The family lives on the circus train, and they home-school their daughter.<\/p>\n
“It has its advantages and disadvantages,” Tina said of life on the road with a youngster. “But our daughter has been to 40 states and she’s only 5. She has seen a lot and done a lot that most kids in a lifetime will not do. To see all of those states is a treat.”<\/p>\n
Still, it’s a lot of weeks on the road.<\/p>\n
“The disadvantage is to be away from family,” Tina said. “The people with the show become our surrogate family.”<\/p>\n
So far, her daughter, one of numerous children of performers who travel with the circus, isn’t part of the show.<\/p>\n
“She hangs out with all of the other kids during the show,” Tina said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
If you go<\/p>\n
What: Ringling Bros. circus<\/p>\n
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday; 11:30 a.m., 3:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 5 p.m. Sunday; 1 p.m. Monday<\/p>\n
Where: ShoWare Center<\/p>\n
Cost: $75, $45, $30, $20 or $15<\/p>\n
Tickets: www.showarecenter.com or call 253-856-6999<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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