This budding Bond is shaken and stirred
It’s amazing what you experience when you’re suspended in midair, arse over teakettle, with the blood rushing to your head. Your mind becomes a blur of strange revelations like “You know, the phrase ‘head over heels’ makes absolutely no sense” and “Man, circus performers must pay outrageous insurance premiums.”
I had to shrug off such trivial epiphanies during my recent trapeze tutorial, however, and stay focused on my mission (which I had already chosen to accept): To infiltrate, surveil and report back on a mysterious-sounding fitness course making waves with L.A.’s fit and fabulous: SpySchool.
The crown jewel of Absolution, an upscale Pilates studio and multipurpose gym in West Hollywood, SpySchool is an amalgamation of classes and workshops that claims to impart all the techniques one might need in a day’s work in Her Majesty’s -- or, for that matter, anyone’s -- secret service.
Assailant defense, climbing and rappelling, aerial acrobatics, weapons training, lock picking and even makeup and disguises are on the menu of classes, which can be ordered prix fixe or a la carte.
Taken piecemeal, frankly, the introductory courses belie the school’s intrigue-infused name, revealing it to be as much a marketing tool as a proper descriptive. Case in point: The “Impact” defense class that inaugurated my three-part SpySchool primer was a basic, sexual-assault-oriented class more appropriate to an after-school special than a 007 movie.
Having said that, it was excellent, giving participants the opportunity to pound the targeted regions of their faux attackers into what would have been pudding without some well-placed padding.
The rock climbing and aerial acrobatic classes I attended were also enlightening and empowering. Trapeze artist Aloysia Gavre, a veteran Cirque du Soleil performer, proved a particularly motivational instructor, working this wannabe spy from a basic “pike” into complicated “bird’s nest” and “knee angel” positions in under an hour.
“We work with anybody and any body,” Gavre said, before proving it with me.
Unfortunately, SpySchool doesn’t work with just any wallet and, at approximately $1,750 for the whole six-week kit and caboodle, it isn’t cheap.
For around $75 per hour of instruction, though, the individual courses are an attractive way to sample the elements. And Absolution is happy to arrange package deals for groups, with per-person rates diminishing with each additional member.
If you’re part of a clique seeking a license to be thrilled, it would make a marvelous group activity. What better way could there be to, ahem, bond with your friends?
-- Liam.Gowing@latimes.com
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SPYSCHOOL
WHERE: Absolution, 8535 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood
WHEN: Call for schedule
PRICE: $25 to $150 per hour
INFO: (310) 657-7878, www.absolution-la.com