Something was on listener Terry Murphy’s mind. She wondered about the story of the Milwaukee Flyers, a local tumbling group.
Murphy has caught their performances a couple times — at Walnut Way's Harvest Festival and at Summerfest.
“And I thought, 'Man, these guys are amazing. The things they can do defy gravity,'” Murphy says.
Gear up for some skilled acrobatics
When you attend a Flyers’ performance, you’ll see about eight young men, who’ve probably never had a bad back, jog up and down a long mat clapping and engaging the crowd. Then, they move on to their tricks — like three people jumproping multiple ropes and flipping in the air as they do so. They do tumbling runs, backflips, full twists, and, they involve the crowd.
For one trick, they stack kids from the audience into a pyramid. Then, they pull out a trampoline. Tumblers sprint, hit the trampoline and take off, sailing 12 feet or higher over the human pyramid. It delights the crowd.
A nod to Chicago's Jesse White Tumblers
So, what’s the story of the airborne maestros?
To find out, I sat down with Charles Grant. He founded the Flyers along with his two brothers, Allen and Terrell. They came up in Chicago in the 1980s and were part of a tumbling team there: the Jesse White Tumblers.
“Jesse White is a father figure to me,” says Charles. “He became the secretary of state of Illinois. He's became a very powerful, known figure in Chicago area.”
White started the tumbling team that Charles’ brothers joined.
In fact, after they developed those tumbling and acrobatic skills, they even convinced their grandmother to let them go into the circus. “They toured the world with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus,” says Charles, of his brothers.
Then, the family moved to Milwaukee, which led to them founding the Flyers in 2005.
“That's when we said, like, we need to figure out something, another outlet, another positive path,” says Charles. “So, I connected with my brothers, and we sat down and talked and said, ‘Hey, I think this program would be great here in the Milwaukee community.’”
Charles and his brothers reached out to Jesse White for his blessing to continue the tumbling legacy in Milwaukee. “He gave us a trampoline, he gave us some mats, but his most important words was just to make the world a better place,” Charles says.
'You have to be fearless'
There are now eight tumblers in the Flyers — young men in their teens and twenties.
They’re natural athletes. For instance, 19-year-old Delano Craig learned about the crew at a performance when he was little. He had been trying to flip around his house.
“I was just flipping on my mattress for real,” says Delano. “I'll take it off the bed, put it on the floor in the middle of the room. Flip on it, put it back.”
Did he learn it from the Olympics? From TV? No, Delano says it was instinct.
“I think what I learned from tumblin’, watching these kids, you have to be fearless,” says Charles.
Charles asks Delano how he feels when he’s performing with the Flyers.
“Oh, yeah, what I'd be thinking about when I'm in the sky, I don't really even be thinking,” says Delano. “I just — my body already know what to do. Already know the height. Well, you know because you got to run towards the tramp[oline], and then once you running, you leveling out how high you need to go.”
A non-profit that needs community support
Charles usually gets a few dozen new recruits at tryouts in the fall. The Flyers used to offer classes at the Martin Luther King Center, with Charles and some of the eight Flyers teaching kids strength and conditioning and basics like cartwheels and round offs.
Right now, they’re not running classes due to a lack of financial support. The Flyers are a non-profit. Most of their income comes from performance bookings and some through donations at their website.
The Milwaukee Flyers also provides mentoring for the tumblers.
"I also would pop in, drop in their schools, and check in with the teachers and see how their behavior has been throughout the year," says Charles. "Or if they are having issues or troubles, then I will connect with the teacher, then I will connect with them at the school and say, 'Hey, you know, you guys are going left, continue to keep going down the path that was designed for him."
Mentoring time is right after school, before the Flyers practice. "And then we'll sit down and discuss about life and their day and work, if they need tutoring and so forth," says Charles.
Over the summer, the Flyers have a packed schedule, performing at community events. They also rely on word-of-mouth.
“[I] feel like this, flipping, this program, kept a lot of us away from being in the streets," says 18-year-old Thomas Grant, Charles’ nephew and a member of the Flyers. "If it wasn’t for this, ain't no telling where we'll be right now. Instead of doing something positive, somebody probably would have been doing something negative or something different. But because of this program, it definitely saved a lot of lives."
And, it’s keeping people entertained. As another Flyer goes hurtling through the air, Charles says it’s a team effort. And he — and listener Terry Murphy— are grateful.
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