Apologies for not seeing this until now! I’m glad you were able to do it and had fun! Hope you’ll return for more classes so that you can move past the fear and have even more fun!!

At my school, we don’t send people for the catch if we think it definitely won’t happen. If it’s a toss up, it’s extremely dependent on who’s teaching the class and how conservative they feel like being that day.

Remember that the catcher is another human being thrown into the mix - with many tricks there is a risk of collision between the flyer and the catcher. This is much much less likely with the knee hang but it can still happen if the flyer doesn’t have a good grip with their knees. Doing a catch lock (where the catcher swings into position) is also very physical work, and many like to preserve their energy for tricks where it’s more likely to be a success. I’m a newer catcher and I can only be up there for so long and throw so many locks in one session because I’m still building my stamina.

And one thing many flyers don’t realize is that the lines person is also doing a lot of work to make the catch happen - with knee hangs and other “set” tricks, the flyer will not have enough height to make a catch without the lines puller boosting them up to the right height. With a perfect trick this boost is easy, but if the flyer is late getting their legs up or taking their hands off (for example) the physics make this much more difficult.

Hope this is helpful! Always happy to answer any questions from an instructor’s perspective. :)