Tina Miser heard her best pickup line ever when the circus came through her town of Peru, Ind., and the man who performed as a human cannonball asked her if she wanted to fire him out of the cannon he had built.
That was 10 years ago. Now Brian and Tina Miser are a husband-and-wife team who will perform Thursday through Monday at the ShoWare Center in Kent with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus.
But the couple has switched roles. Brian fires the cannon. Tina rockets through the air as the human cannonball.
“I didn’t think about being a cannonball because I thought it was too dangerous,” Tina said, in a phone interview Thursday before a show in Sacramento, Calif. “I was hoping to get hired as an aerial artist. But this is much better than I imagined. I love what I do.”
Circus fans can watch the 5-foot-2, 110-pound performer fly about 90 feet across the ShoWare arena at speeds of up to 65 mph before she lands in about two seconds on a couple of large, inflatable mats.
Actually nowadays, Tina, 33, and fellow performer Ekaterina Borzikova get fired out of a double-barreled cannon at the same time during the show.
“It’s amazing, I can’t describe it,” said Tina, who has been shot out of a cannon nearly 2,300 times during her five years as a human cannonball. “I can’t find anything that would replicate it. You’re free flying. There’s no wires or helmet. It’s the best feeling in the world.”
So how, exactly, does someone practice to become a human cannonball?
The aerial artist discovered it takes a lot of trial shots and plenty of practice. In fact, after her first 80 practice shots, she broke her shoulder on a bad landing during the next practice shot and didn’t try the act again for 18 months.
After a year of practice following her injury, Tina signed a contract with the Ringling Bros. to work as their human cannonball. She had joined the circus as an aerial artist and also fired her husband out of the cannon.
Brian at first didn’t want his wife to perform as a human cannonball.
“I kept asking him to let my try the cannon,” Tina said. “From watching him, it looked like a challenge and looked fun. He was reluctant, but I wanted to do it and eventually I learned.”
Tina positions herself on her stomach in the cannon barrel. She performs about a three-fourths flip while flying through the air in order to land on her back and bounce up on her feet.
“You extend your body like Superman,” she said.
But not every shot goes smoothly.
“Every shot is different,” Tina said. “You have to put your body in the right position and sometimes it’s a little rough. You have to do some quick thinking in the air and alter your body. It’s kind of a slow-motion sensation.”
Tina has only had the one serious injury as she lives the life she dreamed of as a kid.
In those days, the circus stopped each year in her Indiana hometown, and Tina always attended. She even got a chance to learn a few circus skills.
“I really wanted to run away from home and join the circus,” Tina said. “But my parents wanted me to go to college.”
So she went to college and worked in the Air Force Reserves before she met her future husband and joined the circus.
Now the couple and Skyler, their 5-year-old daughter, travel as many as 50 weeks per year performing throughout the United States. The family lives on the circus train, and they home-school their daughter.
“It has its advantages and disadvantages,” Tina said of life on the road with a youngster. “But our daughter has been to 40 states and she’s only 5. She has seen a lot and done a lot that most kids in a lifetime will not do. To see all of those states is a treat.”
Still, it’s a lot of weeks on the road.
“The disadvantage is to be away from family,” Tina said. “The people with the show become our surrogate family.”
So far, her daughter, one of numerous children of performers who travel with the circus, isn’t part of the show.
“She hangs out with all of the other kids during the show,” Tina said.
If you go
What: Ringling Bros. circus
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday; 11:30 a.m., 3:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 5 p.m. Sunday; 1 p.m. Monday
Where: ShoWare Center
Cost: $75, $45, $30, $20 or $15
Tickets: www.showarecenter.com or call 253-856-6999
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