Older adults find joy and fearlessness in circus classes across UK

A small but growing number of people over 50 are discovering circus skills, with new classes in juggling, trapeze and hula hoop taking off across the UK, The Guardian reported.

Rumman Talukder, a 60-year-old IT consultant from Stanmore, drives to a circus school in Ware every Sunday to practise trapeze tricks. "In the run-up to turning 60, I decided I wanted to challenge myself; to find things not normally associated with people my age," he told The Guardian.

In Hertfordshire, Generation Circus has been running a pilot project for older adults over the past year and now holds weekly sessions. According to The Guardian, their oldest participant is almost 97 years old. In London, the National Centre for Circus Arts in Hoxton has just begun classes for older people and is due to launch a six-week aerial course later this year. Sweet Circus in Eastbourne recently started monthly sessions, with all three organisations looking for funding to expand.

Emma Taylor, founder of Generation Circus, said the sessions were transformational. "A lot of our participants signed up for classes simply because it sounded like a fun way to get fit," she told The Guardian. "But circus immediately opens up a whole new world."

According to the newspaper, small studies have found improvements in balance among older adults learning juggling and poi, with some also reporting gains in attention and processing speed, though evidence specifically on circus remains limited.