Tara Mitchell meets  Steve Groh,  a  circus  acrobat who  uses  his trade to install confidence in underprivileged kids from Thailand, India and Nepal

The Thai teenagers twirl fire, juggle knives and cigar box­es, spin plates on their fin­gertips. They climb on each other’s shoulders, creating three tiered human pyramids. They race around on unicy­cles, grinning, full of grace and confidence. They leap through hoops, and launch themselves from mini-tram­polines to soar effortlessly over half a dozen of their friends. They charm audi­ences with comedy routines. Circus professionals? No, the young people mastered these feats of mental and physical agility in a mere thirty days, products of an innovative cir­cus program for youth, run by American Steve Groh.

“They’re getting self-esteem from successful experi­ences,” explains Steve. “It’s all about progressive learning. You can’t do the difficult things until you learn the basics. There’s no shame in dropping something, in falling off the unicycle a thousand times. You get up, you pick yourself up, and you try again.  It’s a metaphor for life.”

Steve has a lot of experience in falling, mostly on purpose, from 27 meter high dive towers. Born in Toledo, Ohio to a family of legal eagles – his Grandfather was a Municipal Court Judge and his uncle and sister are both lawyers – Steve, by his own admission, was a hyper-active kid. His parents enrolled him in gymnastics, hoping he’d burn off some of that energy, which at the age of 45 is still apparent in his dancing blue eyes and the way he shifts constantly in his chair, bounc­ing his legs on the tips of his toes. In gymnastics, Steve found not only an outlet for his restless­ness. He also found his future career: after grad­uating as a gymnast from Ohio State University, he was recruited into the circus, performing for several years in Las Vegas.

Through the circus, Steve dove, literally, into the world. From Las Vegas, he moved onto Miami, Florida, where he performed high-dive shows in the summers for an entertainment company. While most of his co-performers spent their winters like the rest of us mere mortals in mun­dane jobs, Steve leapt across the pond to work with Club Med for the cold half of the year, performing in such diverse locations as Mexico, St Lucia, Belgium and Austria. In 1990, an offer came to re-locate to Bangkok to work at Safari World, a privately owned zoo, diving 27 meters into a dolphin tank doing acrobatics on the way down.

“That was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done,” he admits readily. His ability to discuss fear as nonchalantly as he discusses swallowing fire is one of Steve’s many charming qualities. “From 90 feet you still have to jump up to get the hip rotation. It’s intimidating; you’re wearing a little Speedo. You start at 30, 40, 50 – you work your way up. It’s like anything. If you do it consistently, you get used to it.”

After a decade of creating and performing in stunt shows in Thailand and Taiwan, Steve decided to take this philosophy of circus training and use it to empower young people at risk here in Bangkok. As he puts it, “I had time and equipment and I wanted to do something different.” The idea is to use circus as a tool to teach young people responsibility, accountability and the rewards of accomplishing a seemingly impossible task through hard work and perseverance.

“If I go to a kid and say, ‘You can do anything you put your mind to,’ they can’t relate because they haven’t done anything in their young lives,” says Steve. “But after a month in my program they’re juggling fire, or riding a unicycle and then I can tell the kid, ‘You didn’t prove it to me, you proved it to yourself.’”

He started in Klong Toei, running two programs: one with young people
from a residential home, the other with street kids. These programs proved so successful, he’s now branched out from Thailand to India and Nepal. He’s had to break down a lot of barriers along with way. Some were cultural: cir­cus isn’t a part of Thai culture; there isn’t even a word for it. “I’m asking kids to do things they’ve never even seen before,” explains Steve.

In Nepal, the cultural challenges are even greater. There, children are kid­napped and sent to perform in circuses in India; young boys are castrated and sent to work in cabarets. Thus, as Steve says, “The circus rolls into town and it’s something scary.” To overcome these cultural hurdles, Steve empha­sizes that his program offers young people self-esteem, rather than profes­sional training.

A second and often more formidable barrier is the young people themselves, especially when Steve hand-picks his students: “I like to take the kid who has learning disabilities, the fat kid, the kid with no friends, the kid who’s disrup­tive, the class bully and make them all work together. We all know who the fastest kid is, the strongest kid and the smartest kid. Why should they always get all the attention?  I want different kids to shine.”

His determination to work with challenging young people requires an open-mind. Once, a fifteen-year-old boy involved in his program told Steve he couldn’t come to practice because he had been smoking yaa-baa the day before. Where some might have seen this as a failure, Steve considered it a triumph of accountability and responsibility.

“He could have stayed in his home, wherever he lives, and not come in,” explains Steve. “Or he could have tried to practice and hurt himself. But instead he came to me, looked me in the eye and said, ‘Yesterday I did some drugs so today I’m not ready.’ That was a huge step forward. So I said, ‘Alright, tomorrow, if you don’t do drugs you can come back.’” The boy came back the next day, having stayed sober.

To Steve, the beauty of the circus is that there is something for everyone. The boy who can’t juggle finds a talent for spinning plates. The girl who loses her balance every time she tries the unicycle discovers an aptitude for acrobat­ics. During the first week of his month long program, his students experiment with various equipment, discovering what they like and are good at. They work in the privacy of a class­room setting to minimize the embarrassment of early failures, nurture self-esteem and foster team spirit. Starting with tricks that are simple to master gives them the confi­dence and motivation to progress onto something more difficult. For the fol­lowing two weeks, each student choos­es two pieces of equipment to focus on For Steve, meeting celebrities is all and perfect. Spinning fire and juggling about what they can do for the young knives are much sought after skills, but people in his circus programs. Take for Steve safety comes first, a mantra when he was working with Jackie he has employed successfully -none Chan on the movie The Medallion of his students have ever been injured in 2002 here in Bangkok. Breaking during the program.

“We don’t light anything on fre until we’ve gone  through all  the  safe precautions,”  he  explains. Their is  always  a  fire  extinguisher and first-aid kit on hand.  “Also, not everybody  gets  to  light something on fire.  I have a checklist and the kid can  see  they  first  have  to  do  this trick, then  that trick. Once they can demonstrate those skills safely then we move onto fre. It’s very clear what they have to shoot for. This gives them motivation and it gets them in the mindset that there are certain  things you have to do in order to achieve  something. They have to earn this.”

The  fourth  and  final  week  is devoted  to  creating  a  show  for the community, in which the children choose the music and select a name for their group.   “It’s their show,” says Steve.  “From concept to production, the kids choose.”

Steve’s insistence that it’s all about the kids is often challenged by event organizers who want him to perform.   Other than performing a few tricks to
attract a crowd at events such as the Ploenchit Fair and International Dance
Day, he sticks to his guns and remains in the background.  But being some-
one who can set himself on fire, juggle knives, perform acrobatics, and dive
from vertigo-busting heights, Steve tends to attract attention.  Tere was the
time his friend called to say someone wanted to meet him and Steve showed
up with his baseball cap on backwards to discover that “someone” was Rich-
ard Gere.  This wasn’t his only brush with fame.  He’s worked as a stunt man
on Tai flms as well as major Hollywood productions, including a film with
Jean-Claude Van Damme, and several with Jackie Chan.

For Steve, meeting celebrities  is all about what they can do for the young people in his circus programs.  Take when  he  was  working  with  Jackie Chan  on  the movie Te Medallion in 2002 here  in Bangkok.   Breaking the strict set etiquette of don’t pester the  star, he  approached  Jackie Chan to ask if he’d be willing to meet some of his students.   Jackie went one step further; he invited Steve and ffy children for a party of Te Oriental Hotel.
Jackie sang songs, held an impromptu auction and gave Steve the proceeds to use  for his program.   As Steve puts  it, his voice full of admiration, Jackie “sold the watch of his wrist and the shirt of his back.  He hung out with us.”

Other celebrity  endorsements  include Jane  Goodhall, who visited a program Steven  ran  in  Nepal,  giving  inspirational talks on behalf of her charity, the Roots and Shoot Foundation.   He’s also received  a  lot  of  corporate donations of shoes  and  equipment,  which  is  useful because  as  Steve  admits with  a mischievous grin,  “We break a  lot of equipment,
absolutely.” But it’s all for the greater good of  teaching young people  that  in order  to achieve, sometimes you frst you have to fail.

“Kids can succeed if given the opportunity,” he says and to prove his point, he shows me a photograph of a young person perched on top of a unicycle so tall, it’s the same height as the basketball hoop beside it.  A few years ago, Steve called a  friend of his at Circus Oz  in Australia and asked about  the height of the tallest unicycle in their show.  When he found out it was 12 feet, he went and had a unicycle 14 feet tall built.  “And my kids are riding it!” he
says, beaming with pride.