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This dissertation examines the lived experience of circus training in a youth circus program from the perspective of the young recipients of such training. The author provides historical contexts for youth circus training, focusing on activity in the United States. Literature relating to youth circus training is reviewed, beginning with a brief consideration of the large number of works dealing with circus in general, followed by a review of the few scholarly and practical sources pertaining directly to the phenomenon of youth circus training. The author then goes on to employ qualitative methods to examine youth circus training at Fern Street Circus in San Diego, California, using data collected in interviews conducted with young participants in the Fern Street program. The results were transcribed, all statements given equal weight, and sorted for themes of meaning. Those themes that emerged in every interview became the basis for the phenomenological assertions in the findings. Multiple intelligences theory provided a conceptual framework for organizing these themes. The author conducted additional interviews late in the study to confirm and enrich findings. Themes that developed within the data include engagement with interpersonal relationships including friendships and family dynamics, developing a sense of self-identity, balancing risk taking and risk management, economic considerations, athletic physical development, and learning the aesthetics of circus performance. It is hoped that this rich set of ways in which the participants in the study reflected on their experience of youth circus training will support the rationales given by youth circus educators, and that this study will meaningfully add to the limited scholarly discourse regarding youth circus training. [author summary]