About
Putting names to faces
The Team
Robert
Director & Child Protection Officer
The one who actually did the paperwork
Robert Pickett is the founder and director of G.R.I.P. Circus Arts. He started training in 2023 and quickly fell in love with straps. After undergoing shoulder surgery, Robert turned to circus arts to rebuild his strength and overall fitness. The experience had such a positive impact on him — both physically and mentally — that he wanted to create the same opportunity for others. In 2026 he founded G.R.I.P. as a welcoming, practitioner-run space where adults can train seriously, get stronger, and feel good in their bodies again. By day, Robert works as a structural examination engineer, a background that gives him a keen eye for safe and solid rigging. He is also G.R.I.P.’s lead signatory with Disclosure Scotland and the named Child Protection Officer, as safety is one of his top priorities. Whether you’re recovering from an injury, completely new to circus, or already passionate about it, Robert and the team make sure you feel genuinely welcome.
Jade
Director & Social Media
The flexibile one
Jade is someone that needs their bio written.
Cathal
Web Developer & Instructor
The tech guy
Cathal is a computer science graduate, an avid climber, and Scotland's first qualified Bouldering Wall Instructor. He also holds a Climbing Wall Instructor qualification so knows his way around ropes, rigging gear, and teaching people how to stay safe, which makes him quite useful at G.R.I.P. — more than his first job title suggests. He built the website too, which means he (I) wrote this.
What we're here for
Our Goals
G.R.I.P. exists to promote circus arts in Scotland. That means getting more people training, teaching it properly, and keeping the art form alive in a country that doesn't have a huge amount of it.
We operate only in Scotland. We're a not-for-profit. The things we do are roughly:
Classes
and proper training time
Aerial and acrobatic disciplines — trapeze, silks, hoop, rope, straps, and whatever else we can get our hands on. We'll be open to all ages and abilities, though for the time being it'll just be adults whilst we find our footing.
Tuition
that actually teaches something
Workshops and classes run by instructors who know what they're doing. Circus is a skill, and skills take instruction.
A safe space
to actually move
Circus is good for you! It builds strength, coordination, and the sort of confidence you can only get from hanging off something a few metres in the air. The space is inclusive and the coaching is paying attention.
Visibility
circus is art, not novelty
We perform, we collaborate with other artists and companies, and we treat circus as the art form it is rather than a novelty.
Access
keeping the door open
None of this works if people can't actually get through the door. So:
- We keep our pricing fair.
- We chase funding to offer subsidised places and bursaries for anyone facing financial hardship.
Money shouldn't be the reason you never try circus.
How we got here
Our Story
We were a group of aerialists who trained together, on the same equipment, in the same space. Then overnight, we weren't. So we decided to keep going anyway.
It was harder than it sounds. Everything that makes a circus training space work — the insurance, the rigging inspections, the safeguarding policies, the venue relationship, the class structure — had to be built pretty much from scratch. Robert put together the articles of association for a not-for-profit CIC, then came the insurance, the venue, the equipment inspection, the policies. We had help along the way — the Scottish circus community is smaller and more generous than you might expect — but most of it was figured out the hard way.
We're still figuring things out. But we have a space, we have equipment, we have people who show up every week, and we have procedures that actually exist on paper. That feels like enough to be getting on with, and we're still actively working on it.