So, I've got into the habit of copy and pasting these writing exercises a week in advance, and then adding the wheels the night before and spinning them then. I did that last night and got a genre, but then this morning I had another reminder of how I live in the past instead of the present and I was going to write about that. But then I decided, it would make for a better poem than a Reflection, especially since I have no idea of what I would exactly write except for the fact that I'm stuck in the past and have no present as a result, so... on with today's subject.
Wheel of Genres, turn, turn, turn! Tell me the genre I will discern!
Today's genre is... Sports!
A'ight, so sports. I could write about NFL protests, but that's really more opinion or political than it is about sports. Which therefore leads me with just one thing to write about: sport whip cracking. Other than archery, it's the only other sport I'm into and it's not really "sport." It's more of a sport in the sense that cheerleading is a sport; that is to say, it has some of the elements of sports, but it really isn't a sport.
Thirty minutes on the clock: 30:00. And... go!
Firstly, what is sport whip cracking? Well, you know what a whip is, and you know what it means to crack one, but what you may not know is that there are multiple ways to crack a whip. There's the front or circus crack, the reverse crack, the flick, the underhanded flick, the side flick, the cattleman's crack which is either the front or overhead crack depending on who you learn it from, there's the reverse overhead crack, there's the slow figure-8, the fast figure-8, the overhead figure-8, volleys, and it goes on. So, sport whip cracking is essentially the "art" of combining those cracks into a seamless choreography. But, sport cracking also consists in wrapping contests and cutting contests where people try to break uncooked pieces of pasta into as many pieces as possible. So, there's a lot to it.
Something else you may not know is that there are many different kinds of whips with regards to their designs and materials. I'm sure you know of leather whips, but in recent years, nylon or paracord whips have become the most popular due to the fact they cost only a fraction of leather whips and they don't require any maintenance. You can also make a whip out of duct tape.
But in terms of design, there are three main types: blacksnake, bull, and stock whips. The main differences between them is their handles and how they generate the force to crack. Blacksnakes are 100% limp all the way through the body, called the thong, and they're the heaviest of whips because they generate their crack by having their core be weighed down by shot. You will need some initial wrist movement to crack them, but they crack thanks to their significant weight. Snake whips are mostly used for target competitions and almost never for whip combinations since they're so hard to control.
Bullwhips are the most mainstream whip. You know Indiana Jones? He uses bullwhips. These whips don't have as much shot in their core and they have a stiffened handle but it's still contained within the whip's thong. There are whips called "woody" bullwhips which are bullwhips with an exposed wooden handle; they look pretty cool actually. In terms of competition, bullwhips are used in wrapping and sometimes targeting.
Stock whips are the lightest of whips and as a result crack by means of leverage. See, these whips are complete thongs with a very light core and then attached to a long, stiff handle by a connection known as a "joint." These whips are most common in the fancy choreographies because they can be whipped around so easily. A variant on the stock whip is the Florida cow whip, which I own. It's my best whip, although I only own two real whips.
Now there are other kinds of whips, like there are whip makers at Midwest Whips who make what's known as the "Performance Hybrid" which is like a stock and bullwhip combined into one. Unfortunately, they cost $90 for one, $120 for a pair, and it will take three months to make one. It will only take a week to make it, but the waiting list is the real time killer. As a result, many whip crackers, that's what we call ourselves, are also whip makers. It's not that hard, unless you want to get super fancy with the overlay, but it is time consuming. I've made two duct tape whips myself, and it took me a week to make them.
Now, let me clear up some misconceptions about the whip:
1. When you the whip is used, it never comes into contact with whatever you're cracking at. See, the whip can only crack so long as its flight is uninterrupted. The energy has to roll down from your arm and hand into the handle and down along the thong, into the fall and then corkscrew at the cracker where the whip ends. That's how it cracks. You can hit your target after the fact, which is what most people are doing, it's just that the target is hit so soon after the crack that they seem to be happening at the same time.
2. Not all whip crackers are weird sex perverts. In fact, I know a whip maker at 21st Century Whips who if he finds out you're into that sort of crap, he'll refuse to make you a whip because he doesn't want his work used in that way. We're also not all Indiana Jones wanna-bes. We may have gotten into whips because of Indiana Jones, but we stuck around for the love of the whip.
3. Which brings up another good point; while you can wrap the end of your whip around a target and potentially grab an object, it's not always a certainty and you can't actually swing from whips. Adam "Crack" Winrich once made a whip for the sole purpose of swinging, but no natural whip can be swung on; they'll break.
4. Whips cannot be used as weapons. There's only one whip cracker that I know of, Anthony DeLongis, who says they can be used as weapons or in the case of self-defense. Now, while he does have some good points, Anthony DeLongis is a very experienced martial artist. The average person is better off with mace or a firearm than using a whip.
***
Stop the clock! Hm. 4:20 left. (Blaze it!) I stopped there because I couldn't think of anything else to add without getting into the fine details of whip cracking. Heck, my explanation on how a whip cracks is an extremely quick and dirty and simplified version. In fact, I only explained the physical theory on how a whip cracks and not the actual technical mechanics of how a whip cracks but that would've involved going into the bellies, plaiting, and how they control the core, and you don't need to know all that. Hell, most crackers don't even need to know how the whip cracks, they just need to know how to do it.
Oh, one last thing: yes, whips do break the sound barrier. Some estimates put their actual speed at past Mach 2 and if you watch the end of a whip carefully, you can actually see the sonic boom occur. It's much easier to see if the cracker is wet.Keep writing, my friends.
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