Everything Is Possible

by Jen Bricker

  The first skill I learned on silks is called a “roll-up.” You wrap the fabric on each hand around your wrist once or twice, lock your arms, hold yourself upright, and if you have legs, go into a “pike” position with your legs straight out in front of you and roll forward. Essentially, you’re doing a front flip, and each time you flip, you roll higher and higher up the fabric as the fabric rolls higher and higher on your arms. This, of course, takes extreme upper body strength, as well as tremendous core strength. It also plays a trick on your brain, because every time you flip forward you feel like you’re falling and want to bend your arms to catch yourself, but you can’t. You have to get outside your head and trust the technique of the skill, never letting your elbows get above your shoulders and keeping your arms straight the entire time.

  During the first month of learning this skill, my arms were purple, then black and blue from my elbow to my shoulders. A few people even stopped me in public to ask if I was being abused by a boyfriend! Doing just one roll-up seemed impossible and extremely painful. Then I would see Nate bust out six or seven, and I’d get mad at myself for being such a wimp.

  “You’re gonna do it one day,” he told me. “Sooner than you think.”

  His belief overrode my doubt, and I sucked it up and did it. Little did I know, roll-ups are a skill for very advanced aerialists, and usually men—not women—do them. No wonder it was so painful and difficult! In hindsight, I’m glad Nate taught me one of the hardest things first—it gave me a huge amount of confidence. If I could do that skill, I could do anything. After a while, my body got used to the pressure of the tight fabric and I stopped bruising. I went from one to two roll-ups, and eventually, I conquered six. Then it was the battle of making it consistent. There’s so much technique involved: move to the left or right and you become uneven, rolled up higher on your left or right arm.

  Nate kept saying, “It’s just numbers, it’s just numbers,” meaning the more times you do it, the more it becomes ingrained in you. Now I can proudly say I can consistently do five or six roll-ups every time. I don’t even think about it. It just comes naturally.

  Finally, we were ready to perform—but the world wasn’t as receptive as I’d hoped. People were afraid of how audiences would respond to seeing me, a “handicapped girl,” doing an aerial act. Every time Nate and I tried to book a gig, we got a lot of people saying, “Well, I like it, but I don’t know how other people will react.” I knew audiences would go nuts and love it. I knew they’d forget the minute I went up in the air that I didn’t have legs. I also knew it had never been done before.

  In the Spotlight

  Our first performance together—and my first performance period in the entertainment industry—was in the Mascot Games at the Amway Arena in Orlando. We performed our high-energy and highly technical trampoline act. The opportunity came up at the last minute when the main act for the halftime show canceled, and they needed a replacement ASAP. So two days before the event, we got a call that we were going on. I was a nervous wreck: five thousand people would be in the audience! Couldn’t we start smaller? We went into the stadium the day before to rehearse, and everyone involved with the event was there, including the head honchos who had hired us. I grabbed Nate’s arm in a panic. What if they take one look at me and change their minds?

  “Don’t think about it,” Nate said. “They need us.” He was right; we were in a good situation. They were totally desperate and had no other choice. The minute we finished our rehearsal, everyone started applauding. Okay, they aren’t going to change their minds. This is really happening.

  Right before the performance, I was physically shaking. In all the times I’d competed as an athlete, I was calm, cool, and confident. Sports? Gymnastics? I knew I had that in the bag. But this was the stage. I was going out there as an artist. Then the lights dimmed, and out we went on the trampoline. I got in “the zone,” trusted Nate, and tried not to look out at the thousands of faces staring at us.

  When we finished, the entire stadium erupted into thunderous applause. I don’t think I stopped smiling for hours afterward. And Nate? Totally pumped—and a little relieved.

  The first silks performance Nate and I did was with Heidi Latsky, an unbelievably talented and innovative dancer and choreographer, and the artistic director and founder of Heidi Latsky Dance. Heidi had heard about us and asked us if we wanted to collaborate. She was working on a project that involved both able-bodied and disable-bodied dancers/performers. It was a lot for me to digest. I had never done any dance before—let alone modern dance—or worked with a choreographer. I also had some hesitation about being portrayed as “disabled” and performing for that community. Nate spent a lot of time trying to talk me into it and, ultimately, he did. He convinced me there was a ton to be gained in going outside my comfort zone. Dance without legs? Sure, why not?

  * * *

  My VIPs

  Artistic Director and Founder of Heidi Latsky Dance: Heidi Latsky

  During my first phone conversation with Jen, I fell in love with her because she told me she was terrified to work with me. Modern dance was out of her comfort zone. But that was the very reason, she said, that she had to work with me. I was struck by her candidness and openness, and her willingness to take a risk. In all the years we have worked together, these very same qualities have permeated her relationship with me and my company. She has been the consummate professional and a complete joy to work and partner with. She is a brilliant talent and a shining beacon of optimism. I have often told her how much I wish I had that positive outlook she has in abundance. I am so proud of what we have created together and of our profound friendship.

  * * *

  In retrospect, working with Heidi was one of the best decisions I have ever made. She taught me how to pull emotion out of my heart and replicate it on stage, how to block out everyone around me, and how to truly connect with my partner. We ended up creating a mesmerizing twenty-minute silk routine—which is unheard of. The most performers do on silks is five to six minutes. We performed it first in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We had this silver, mirror-like flooring beneath us covered in fresh red and white rose petals. When we went up in the air and spun around, the fabric caught the petals and created a mini rose-petal tornado. We had no music, so all you could hear was our breath. It was truly exquisite and powerful, and it took me to a place I had never gone physically, emotionally, or spiritually. I knew from that moment on, this would be my “style” of aerial performance. I knew I would do more than just put on a show. I wanted to create works of art that spoke to the soul.

  As beautiful as these performances are, they are also extremely taxing on the body. I’ve learned to live with permanent callusing on my wrists from all the one-armed flying I do. The fabric pulls very tightly and scrapes the skin off. After you do it over and over, your skin finally builds up a tolerance, but it looks ugly and is painful for a long time. For a while, part of our act involved me picking up Nate while hanging upside down on the silks. He weighed 185 pounds, while I was around 95 pounds. It was excruciating at first, but once I lost weight, got in better shape, and built up the tolerance, it became second nature. Several aerialists I know have needed reconstructive shoulder surgery. When you’re flying with one arm, you have to pull your shoulder blades in. Otherwise, you risk ripping or pulling your rotator cuff, causing serious and permanent damage. Thankfully, the worst I’ve ever had was a pull on my right shoulder, and I had to switch flying arms for about a month and a half. I always pull that shoulder blade in now. Lesson learned!

  Yet even with all of these noteworthy experiences, booking gigs remained difficult. I wasn’t your average aerialist or acrobat. In everyone’s eyes, I was a risk, a liability. I was hearing all this chatter, and I had to keep focused and not blow my top every time someone turned us down. Nate did his best to shield me from it, but I knew what was holding us back. I’d tell bookers, “Just watch, just see what I can do. You’ll get it.” But we had a lot of people to c
onvince. They worried I might slip and fall and hurt myself.

  Of course, Nate was the one they usually voiced their concerns to. No one wanted to offend the girl without legs. I wish they would have just come out and said it: “You make us nervous.” I don’t get offended by this concern because I’ve had to deal with similar situations virtually every day of my life. I know what people think might happen. I know their hesitations, and they’re wrong. What offends me is people not treating me like an adult and not being honest. What offends me is pity. But that’s a battle I’ll always have to fight.

  All Eyes on Me

  It wasn’t until we booked Britney Spears’s Circus Tour that things changed dramatically. It was the highest-grossing tour in the world in 2009. Without a doubt, God was making this happen for me! I didn’t even audition. Nate and I were just hitting our stride as a team when he got the opportunity to join the tour. He felt quite guilty about being gone for so long when we had just gotten our act off the ground (literally!), but I insisted it was too good a gig for him to pass up. He started rehearsals and joined the tour in North America, all the while talking me up to his tour mates. When the show made a stop in Orlando, all the performers, dancers, specialty acts, and aerialists already knew who I was and wanted to meet me face-to-face, so I went backstage and visited with them.

  The tour then went to Europe for a month or so before taking a break. I flew to Canada to greet Nate at the end of that tour leg and met the Circus gang again. This time we got a meeting with the three main men who ran the tour, and Nate and I showed them a video of our trampoline act. That’s all it took. A few months later, I was officially on the Circus Tour as a featured performer. I did the entire second North American leg followed by the Australian tour. It was all a bit surreal. I had been in the entertainment industry for only a little over a year at this point (so green!), and I was performing in front of twenty thousand people a night. I gave myself a big pep talk: Jen, you have two choices here. You either rise to the occasion or fail miserably with thousands of people watching. When you don’t have legs, you don’t have the leeway to make any major mistakes. If I were to wipe out, it would have been a catastrophe and I would have kissed that job, not to mention my career, good-bye. Failure wasn’t an option.

  Before every show, I would find a dark corner, cover up my head with my black cloak, and spend a good twenty to thirty minutes praying and visualizing the entire act. Then it was time to go into the arena! The cloaks concealed our costumes so that no one knew we were performers as we walked through the audience. Then we would enter underneath the mammoth stage. Like a circus, it had three rings, the middle one being the biggest, with a huge LED screen projecting images of the show above it. All the action took place under the stage, and it bustled like a little city: the dancers stretched, the costume ladies pulled off lightning-quick changes, the hair and makeup artists applied last-minute touch-ups.

  Britney always had an opening act. For a while it was Jordin Sparks, who was a super sweet girl. Later it was the Pussycat Dolls, who never failed to tear down the house. A twenty-minute break preceded the main concert, which started with a booming countdown: “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . .” At this point, the audience went insane. When it was time for us to do our act, the “ceiling” would lower down, and we would step onto a platform. I would always rub Nate’s head for good luck; that was my thing. All the guys had to shave their heads for the tour, so I liked that his was shiny and smooth. The platform would slowly raise us up into the audience until we were at the top of the stage. I remember seeing this vast sea of people screaming and the camera lights flashing. The air felt electric. The trampoline was already wheeled onto the stage at this point. This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill, backyard trampoline—it was a twelve-by-fourteen-foot competitive trampoline with major bounce.

  Then bam! The spotlight would hit us, and we’d enter from opposite sides of the middle ring, meeting in front of the trampoline. I was in my wheelchair, and Nate would go behind me, put his hands on my hips, and on the downbeat of the music hurl me backward, out of my chair and onto the trampoline. It was epic! No one expected it, and I’d always hear a huge gasp roll through the audience followed by a roar of cheers. My final pose was equally stunning: I’d bounce high in the air, do a half twist, and land on my back in Nate’s arms high above him. The adrenaline rush was unreal.

  It took me about ten shows to resolve my jittery nerves (I did about forty in total) so I could actually start to enjoy performing. One of the coolest moments on tour was when my parents, my close family friend Janice Henning, and my brother Brad came to see me. The closest stop to them was Chicago, so they all made a trip of it. I got them the “fifty-yard-line seats” smack-dab in the middle and up front so they’d have a great view. It was the first time they had ever seen me perform, and my mom said it took her breath away. I still tease my dad that he went to a Britney Spears concert (the music of Johnny Cash is so much more his speed!). In all the different cities we’d go to, we would get free tickets to give to friends and family. And after working at Disney, I had friends all over the country, so there was always someone I wanted to see. They’d come to the show and cheer me on.

  I got to perform in Madison Square Garden three times (MTV News said our act was one of the top-five reasons to see the concert!), and in a huge arena in Australia, Britney actually stopped everything during a sound check to watch us rehearse. That night I remember being high up in Nate’s arms on stage and thinking, This is crazy! This is my life! God is so good! Playing in concert arenas in front of twenty thousand people was thrilling, terrifying, and affirming all at once. It was my saving grace, and, Britney, I’ll be forever grateful! As soon as we got back from touring, no one had to ask what people would think of me. No one worried that I couldn’t cut it. The subject never came up, ever again. Performing on tour gave me confidence and credibility. I wasn’t just a visitor to the entertainment world. I was here to stay.

  In performing I found something that had been missing in my life: a sense of calmness and wholeness. Finding your own creative outlet is so important. It’s not only a break and distraction from everyday life and stress, but it’s also a time for you to connect with your inner self and channel your energy into something positive and productive. Tumbling gave me strength and confidence, while performing gave me peace and clarity. When I perform, I get swept away, lost, and no one and nothing exists but the moment. I put everything out on the table—all my emotions, my worries, my cares, my frustrations, my fears. Then I let them all fade away, and it heals my soul. It lights me up from every space of my innermost being. I swear, sometimes I feel like the light is literally bursting from every part of me and shining through. I’ve been all over the world (Dublin, Liverpool, Sydney, Dubai, Tokyo, Qatar, Düsseldorf, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Chicago, Orlando, Boston, Austin, Los Angeles, and NYC to name a few), and with each show, I know with greater certainty that this is what I was born to do.

  BELIEVE IT!

  The Tiniest Deed Can Make a Difference

  How thankful am I that Nate saw potential in me and took me on to train, and that Britney and her team allowed me to perform on the Circus Tour? Very. I’m sure they didn’t see it as a huge deal, but it completely changed my life. I realize now that sometimes things we don’t see as “a biggie” are much more significant to others. Case in point: a young couple had a boy born without legs, just like me. His name is Brody. They didn’t know what to do and were very worried and unsure about how to handle a child like this. They saw me on the news and somehow got in contact with my parents to ask their advice. Eventually, we all met up, and at just twelve years old, I proceeded to tell them how to coach their kid. “Don’t set limits for him,” I said, going on and on about how my parents had always let me try things, fail, and learn. They smiled, thanked me, and went back to their lives. I never thought much about it again. It was just a few minutes out of my life. But then I found out last year that Brody is now a young man an
d plays on the paralympic hockey team. Brody is now speaking publicly, motivating people, and he credits his success to me. Me! I had no idea how he was doing or how much of an impact I had on him and his family. I was completely baffled, humbled, and honored when I found this out. You never know when one small good deed can change someone’s life for the better. So I say do them—each and every day.

  * * *

  CHAPTER NINE

  This Heart of Mine

  * * *

  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

  —1 Corinthians 13:4–8

  I’ve always had an unusual heart—and not just because it’s on the right side of my chest! I feel things intensely, and I love fiercely—much more than most people. For me, there is no wishy-washy “I love you, I love you not.” When I love, it’s with every fiber of my being. I’m in it 110 percent, and I don’t know how to do it any other way. Sometimes this tsunami of emotions scares people off: it’s too much, too deep, too fast. There was a time when I actually prayed to God to take away these feelings. Why? Because it hurt. It hurt to have someone not reciprocate. It hurt to love and then lose that love when the expectations I set were too high. For the longest time, I assumed everyone felt like I did. But I learned the hard way, that’s not always the case.