"I have to be careful when I work out to try to keep things from clicking. When I do sit-ups, my hips click. When I step or squat, my knees and ankles click. Any time I do shoulder work, they both click. It's just ridiculous." Fortunately for Kelli—a Portland, Oregon, native—weather doesn't increase the clicking. "I'd probably have to move."
And how does one become a human metronome? Low-flying trapeze. Not the high-flying trapeze that you're likely to see in the circus, but the lowflying variety that Do Jump! Extremely Physical Theater specializes in. "We were compared to Cirque du Soleil," Kelli says. "Only not pretentious. More down to earth." After attending a performance in the late 1990s, she had a revelation: So this is what gymnasts do as adults with their skills.
Fours year later, after having traveled the country and performed every imaginable act on a swinging bar, she retired. "It was the most amazing experience, but I got so many injuries," she says. "Tendinitis on the top of my foot, in my right elbow, in my left shoulder. My rotator cuff is shot, and my back is cranky whenever I breathe wrong. Both hip flexors are injured, too." Hence the clicking.
Today she's a medical surgical nurse in a long-term facility, because her body wanted no part of being a firefighter, and a fledgling stuntwoman who would love to spend her time falling off tall buildings in a single bound. M&F
