Whip Basics. The Forum

I've been really working on slowing down the pace. Now if I could just get my son and son-in-law to do the same. You'd think they would get tired of the welts.

Mark, perhaps one way forward is to go for a long run just before whip-cracking! Anything to tire him out! :

April Choi and Kevin Daniels teach by first introducing technique by handing the students gymnastic ribbons. You can see the flow of the crack and there is no noise to try to achieve. You can get them at the dollar store . I buy them for the kids to play "whip crack" with when the grownups are playing. They are super cheap and super useful.

Jessie, that's a splendid idea!

That is a great idea Jessie. Coincidentally, my son just made one of those in his art class at school. Apparently, the kids were given free use of any and all supplies and that is what he came with (and for exactly the same purpose as you described). Who knows, maybe he'll even join here one day.

Yeah!

Jessie, those are fantastic ideas about using a headphone and gymanstic ribbons as practicing tools - thank you very much for sharing!

All the best
Ben

Hi everyone. It's been almost 10 days but I have not had much time or good weather to practice volleys with a whip, Much less produce a video.
Results are similar to the other day. I can kind of do it but it's not pretty or consistent. As such I will be adding this to the list of things I need to keep practicing.
I hope you all are having favorable results yourselves

It will get better the more you do it.
I have pot load of those on my list.

Ron

Me too Ron
Good luck mate

here's a quick video of me attempting a volley this evening.
It's not a technique that is coming naturally to me and i'll be practicing this one more often.
https://youtu.be/vYu3_KAhXNw

Russel, that's looking like progress to me.
A longer whip is also a lot harder to do volleys with too.
Nice job.

Ron

Russell, Ron's right: it does look like progress. (And I agree that longer whips are harder for volleys....)

Volleys are fun! I found that once you are in a certain groove they flow easily one after another although it might take some attempts to get started... once the concentration is away the whip will wrap around the arms...
I have two videos on this, the first is from two years ago with an. 8 ft whip (also with a second part with overhand flicks)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b9d_IV9Qf_s

The second is from just a few days ago, 6 ft whip, where I also tried to change hands which on some occasions worked , but I am still struggling with hand-changing. My right hand is the dominant hand by far.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M4XG8kQYB3o

Hey Wolfgang! Looks pretty nice to me!

When I try it from the side and am not able to see what my hand or the whip is doing I seem to peter out after a few cracks.
Mind you I have been practising this a bit and there has been some improvement which i'm hoping to build upon.

Nice job!

You've really improved with that one, Wolfgang.

Oh yes, doing the volleys at the side, similar to fast figure 8, is probably more difficult. I just find it „natural“ to put the whip in front to have the possibility to just switch the handle left-right-left-right because the handle moving for volleys is completely symmetrical whereas for a fast figure 8 it’s not.
And they work well with short whips with long handle. Although I noticed , when watching the slo-mo part of this video, that the roll-out was not „complete“ all the way down to the fall, but the crack happened earlier than in the other videos.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XavzX0djEkM

This was shot on Sunday...normally I would expect the crack to happen near to where the end of the handle is pointing.

Thanks for sharing, I really like that switch
I'm looking forward to seeing how far you go with this