‘I started to rethink what I want to do’: The women discovering their adventurous spirit

A costume and a hula-hoop: when professional illustrator and teacher Margaret Krajnc (in her late 50s) begins her first class of the semester, teaching diploma students illustration, these items are key to her lesson.

“At the beginning, the students are a bit nervous, so I always start by breaking the ice and building their confidence,” she says.

Once her class close their eyes, Krajnc proceeds to remove her top layer of clothing, exposing her hula-hoop shorts and singlet. She then unfolds a collapsible hula-hoop, begins swivelling it on her body and picks up a pencil and starts to draw – yes, all at the same time.

“I tell them to open their eyes and say, if I can do all this at once, you can do any task I set,” she says.

For Krajnc, who has been a part of Melbourne’s Ruccis Circus School for nearly 20 years, beginning with the group in 2008, this playfulness and creativity weren’t innate; in fact, if you’d told her in her 20s that she’d be hula-hooping in front of a group of strangers, she would never have believed it.

“I was a little bit shy,” she says. “When I was asked to teach a class, back in 2003, I got a blood nose from nerves the first time I even stood in front of them, and I thought, I’ve got to do something to get out of my shell.”

So, with an interest in the circus that began in childhood – her mother had her own tightrope – Krajnc joined the circus school, which ignited a sense of adventure within her.

“Now I can stand up in front of 300 people and yodel, even though I’m not very good at it,” Krajnc says.

As well as yodelling, Krajnc performs regularly for a variety of clients and charity organisations, embodying an assortment of her own developed characters, including Magdalena Whirlybird, a hula-hooping elf and the hula-hooping Easter Bunny.

“Heidi the Hoola-Hooping Pretzel is probably my favourite though,” Krajnc adds, “She yodels and has multiple personalities, she’s pretty crazy.”

Krajnc says that performing and taking classes at Ruccis Circus group, including advanced acrobatics and silk climbing, ignited her sense of adventure by transporting her to different places.

“When I do my circus and I’m in character, I’m in another world. If I’m upset or sad or something is going on in my life that’s maybe not great, circus takes me to another zone and changes my whole energy,” she says.

What does it mean to have a sense of adventure?

Michael Down, a lecturer at the University of Notre Dame Australia who researches adventure and its benefits, says that having a sense of adventure involves taking part in an activity or experience that requires physical or emotional courage, and while it often takes place outdoors, we can seek adventure anywhere if we look for it (including circus tents).

“Examples of these types of experiences could be climbing a tree, tumbling or leaping, balancing at height, swimming in the ocean, exploring natural environments like forests or bushland, or riding a bike with no specific destination in mind,” Down says.

But most importantly, Down says, is that having a sense of adventure is a mindset. It’s a view Dr Luke Martin, clinical spokesperson and psychologist with Beyond Blue, shares.

“It’s not about how extravagant an activity is, but the mindset; that you’re wanting to turn off autopilot and bring in some new experiences,” he says.

And these new experiences can offer a whole host of physical, cognitive, emotional, and social benefits which are imperative to wellbeing at all stages of life.

While some research has indicated that we begin losing our sense of adventure as we get older, one study suggests age 36 as the marker with a combination of physical and mental fatigue, time constraints, busy routines and financial pressure identified as the contributing factors. But best friends Brianna Vidal, 42, and Sarah Mullens, 41, from Sydney’s northern beaches are proving that this doesn’t have to be the case.

For this pair, turning 40 was a catalyst to turn their lifelong passion for mixing tracks into a side hustle: becoming professional DJs.

“Being paid to DJ wasn’t something I thought would be in my future plans a few years ago, but as I got older, I started to rethink what things I want to do,” says Vidal. “Life is too short not to do things that you love.”

Before they launched BSide DJs in 2022, Mullens says her busy and fast-paced life – kids, family, and career – left her feeling like she was losing part of who she was.

“I really wanted and needed to do something for myself a little again, so I taught myself how to produce music,” she says.

After many conversations about music and DJing and finding that they kept revisiting the idea of launching their own DJ business, Vidal and Mullens decided to bite the bullet.

“We thought, you know what, there’s no reason we can’t do this now, so we just started doing it,” says Mullens.

Three years on, and the pair have performed at a whole range of parties and events at Taronga Zoo, on super yachts, ski bars, and rooftop bars. While this has proven to be a perk of the job, for both women, the greatest benefit is how DJing has reignited their sense of adventure.

“Adventure is everything, and how I love to live my life,” says Vidal.

“DJing creates a sense of fun, and you never really know how the night is going to go down, or the funny people we will meet. It’s always something new, and I think we all need a bit of that in our lives as we get older, the elasticity to learn new things and get enjoyment out of them.”

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