We are excited to host a reception before TRYBE’s Saturday matinee performance to celebrate the new book “Training is Bitter: Reflections on Life, Effort, and Acrobatics With Master Trainer Lu Yi'' written by Lu Yi with Devin Holt. Join us in Circus Center’s Theater on March 11 from 12:30-1:45pm for a book reading and opportunities to get signed copies. Lu Yi will be there as well if he is feeling up for it. Stay for TRYBE afterwards to see the evolution of what Lu Yi started when he formed the Youth Circus 30 years ago.
Training is Bitter: Reflections on Life, Effort, and Acrobatics With Master Trainer Lu Yi
by Lu Yi with Devin Holt
ABOUT THE BOOK
Hailed as everything from “the father of modern acrobatics” to the “rabble-rouser of Chinese circus,” Master Trainer Lu Yi brings his trademark humor and acrobatic philosophy to his own life story in Training is Bitter.
He recalls a nearly seven-decade career of incredible feats and bitter challenges. At just eleven years old, Lu Yi faced cruel methods and harsh beatings from the coach of his first acrobatic troupe. He went on to become a celebrated performer known for acrobatic creativity who invented a number of tricks—including one that, as far as he knows, has never been replicated. He toured the world as a star acrobat, served as artistic director of both the Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe and the San Francisco Circus Center, and established the first Chinese Acrobatics training program in the United States.
Through engaging first-hand accounts and detailed historical essays, Training is Bitter, written with former student Devin Holt, offers a picture of a man who inspired generations of students to endure the hard, bitter training necessary to perform on the world’s biggest circus stages.
“If you’ve watched a circus in the last twenty years, you’ve seen Master Lu Yi’s work. He changed circus in North America and Australia in profound and beautiful ways. He was also my teacher and a dear friend. Training is Bitter gives you a taste of Lu Yi’s philosophy and why he is beloved by performers around the world.” —Jeff Raz, former Cirque du Soleil star and author of The Secret Life of Clowns
ABOUT DEVIN HOLT
Devin Holt has been a lot of things: A wayward street-corner youth, a circus performer, and a farm boy loading firewood into the family pick up truck. He has hitchhiked across the United States more than once; lived in the rafters of a communal artist warehouse in San Francisco; and studied kung fu in a quiet academy on top of a hill in rural China. Now, he writes.
GET THE BOOK