"LEARNING TO FLY" is more than a personal memoir.  It is also an insightful look at how the lessons learned in flying trapeze can be applied to other areas of life.

As long as man has watched birds soar through the air with nothing to hold them aloft, he has yearned for the freedom of flight.  But with this yearning is an over whelming fear of falling. 

So it was with young Sam Keen.  He swung from grape vines, played in tree houses, did almost anything to stay above the ground. Then, when he was six years old, his father took him to the circus.  The only thing he remembers is the trapeze artist as he was suspended in midair between the time he let go of the swing and the time he was caught by the catcher.  That image is burned indelibly on his brain.

For most of his life, his love for the flying trapeze was a spectator sport.  But two months shy of his sixty-second birthday, he visited a school in San Francisco, and the instructor talked him into trying it.  Keen was hooked, and the flying trapeze became a passion he still enjoys, though he is nearing seventy.

But to fly the trapeze, Keen had to conquer his fear.  In learning to conquer it there, he learned he could apply that lesson to many other areas of daily life.  He now shares that lesson with many battered women in his Upward Bound program.  "LEARNING TO FLY" is a lesson in how to let your spirit soar, even though your body is confined to the ground.