School of hard knocks By Cindy Pearlman
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 JUMPING IN
OneLou Diamond Phillips look-alike hovers on the roof of a building. His Reeboks teeter on the ledge as a smaIl bevy of fans clap and shout. Screaming and flailing his arms, he jumps. (Splat!) He hits the mat, bounces up, bows, and climbs a ladder . . . to do it again.
It's just an other day at the new Stunt Education School of America (SESA), in Northbrook, Illinois-where students ages 16 and up (but mostly high school and collegekids) learn to do everything from roll off roofs to wrestle with fire. Lured perhaps by the thrilIs, perhaps by word of the occasional hefty fee earned by a top professional stuntperson-$4,000 a day and up-more and more kids are turning to schools like this one.
At SESA, enrollees cough up $2,100 for the school's eight-week, 160-hour course. By graduation, they've tackled stunt gymnastics, martial arts, simulated fights, stair falls, and hits from speeding cars. They've heard tips from industry pros. But perhaps the most important, thing they've picked up is respect for fear.
Says SESA founder Debbie Zolin, "If you 're not scared before you do a stunt, you've lost your respect for fear, and you can get hurt."
At presstime, half the school's students were female. Mention to Zolin times when all stuntpeople were men and she shakes her head in amusement. Four foot ten and 99 pounds, Zolin's strutted her stunts in Revenge of the Ninja, The Thorn Birds, and Hill Street Blues, to name a few. She recaIIs in vivid detail a recent eight-story fall into water.
"On the way down I thought I'd lost both my arms," she says. "I hit the water at 60 miles per hour."
If the thought of this thrilIs you, don't try it at home. (Seriously.) Instead, write for more info to the Stunt Education School of America, 1864 TechnyCourt, Northbrook, IL 60062.
Source: Seventeen Magazine
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