The Fast Figure 8 from 1/5/17 to 1/14/17 (Page 2 of 5)

You are right.
A short will come in right handy.

Ron

Very good, Michal! That looks wonderfully effortless - and the slow motion helps see exactly what you're doing! 

Today was actually my first full session with the fast figure 8, although I did some slow practice miming while watching the video Ron posted. Tomorrow I plan on doing more actual practice with my whip, but as usually, it's harder than it looks, so I am going to do some stick and mirror practice as well, to get the movements down and to catch up as well.

Tristan, I noticed this too: Michal's arm moves away from his body on the backwards crack. When Robby does the fast figure eight, this doesn't happen - so you're not aiming for the impossible or impractical.

Michal is very impressive, but I still try to keep it all in one plane. I find it more elegant that way, even if I'm not that fast....

@Matt, Thank you

@Ron, Robert, Thank you for this question. I have never thought about it this way. The whip I use has a 16 inch handle and it is not so easy to keep it close to my body. I would like to see somebody doing "close to body" fast figure 8 (from the front and from the side) to see what the arm is doing, how it is keeping the plane. Maybe I will also try doing this crack with shorter handle whip and see if I crack it the way you do.

Today's practice was interesting.
It's been super windy with sustained winds at 25mph and gusts up to 35 and 40 mph.
It wasn't the thong that was blowing around so much as me. If this keeps up I am going to have to find some sash weights somewhere.

Ron

Hey, Matt - thanks very much for posting this! Not bad!

May I make some specific comments?

1) You hold the whip in the middle of the handle. You'll probably find that if you hold the heel knot in your palm, so that palm and knot act like a ball and socket joint, you'll have a lot more control, as well as better leverage.

2) Your circus crack, right from the beginning, doesn't follow through. It's almost as if you're (pleasantly) surprised to get a crack, and just stop. Try bringing the whip down and back after the crack, so it lies out behind, ready for the next crack. This should be one smooth movement.

3) The whip handle seems to wobble all over the place. Try to keep it in a single plane. The whip will do exactly what you tell it to. Iit looks to me as if you're often sending it rather confused signals. You can practise keeping things in a single plane using just with a whip handle (or stick) and no whip. Do you have WB Vol. I, where Robby talks about the clock face?

4) I think your videos will be clearer if you stand slightly farther away from the camera.

I hope that's constructive. Well done - and thanks so much for joining in!

Thanks very much Robert, I'll be sure to work on those points .

By no means am I challenging you, just wishing to tell you that the decking I was cracking on wasn't too big and so I was a bit wary of where my whip was going, hence not following through on the circus crack and standing close to the camera. I'll take a whip or two to the park tomorrow morning and see if I can get some better results thanks to your advice .

Matt, you can find some samples in the video section and on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWZkeGKToUo

The videos are very good at showing how to do them and how not to do them.
There are also videos in the 10/10 challenge thread by Robby showing them as well.

Ron