I've never "speed cracked", but I bet it would be hard to get off an aimed crack in less than a second and a half, much less time it so that the bad guy is within the strike zone of the cracker (longer the whip, the farther away the guy must be/less reaction time you have).
Seriously, with practice and a 6 foot or shorter whip, you can get off some pretty fast cracks, VERY VERY accurately in a fairly confined space. If the whip is IN MY HAND, and I don't have to "Present" as I would a gun from a holster, I can get off about 2 or 3 well-placed cracks in that second-and-a-half, and I'm certainly no master. A good whip artist can top that easily.
I can throw pretty effective flicks pretty rapidly with my 6.5 foot Jacka in my living room, which doesn't have an incredible amount of space to work in. About 10 foot ceiling, (it's a cabin with a vaulted ceiling, but it slopes down to about 10 foot,) and about 13X6 foot of floor space. I actually like to practice in confined environments sometimes. THAT teaches a lot of control and keeping the whip NEAR the body. Not that I'm expecting to get in a whip fight in a small room, but when you're out performing, you never know WHERE people are going to ask you to work. That, and if you practice in a small space, then working in a wide open one is THAT much easier.
That's the main thing as well. Keeping the whip INSIDE a particular radius, and using it more as a striking weapon than a slashing one, (I don't always use that "Rolling Loop" Supinated technique that DeLongis talks about, but it's the exact same thing.) It works the same way as fencing and knife fighting, a knife or sword WAY OUT away from the body isn't going to be as effective and efficient as one held close into the body and then thrust out in a strike. DeGrassi's 16th Century "Art of Defence" text on sword combat points out that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, and so therefore a straight thrust is more efficient than the arc of a slash.
Back in my days of Duello fencing, that was my quickest way to size up my opponent; How close he kept his sword to his body. If he had it WAY out there, trying to keep it between me and him, then it was easy. They're off balance and just ASKING for you to disarm or walk right past the weapon. You envelop his blade and either use it against him, or move in to thrust with your own, (using that same CQC technique of getting close enough to kiss him. If he, (or she,) took a step back, where their sword hand was behind them, and their offhand was in front of them, then I had to seriously consider how I'd approach my attack.
That's the thing with the whip as well, especially longer ones. Someone out there swinging the whip wide, using "Loop Cracks" which have a fairly long setup, (as you "Load" the whip in the opposite direction that it cracks, therefore the whip has to travel a full 180 degrees,) the whip is WAY out from the body, and the movement is very telegraphed. After one or two cracks, a good opponent will have your timing down and will just cover that 21 feet Jason mentions before you can setup the next crack, and you're done, (good point, BTW. We covered Tueller Drills in the tactical part of my CCW class.) For that reason, flicks are more effective than loop cracks when using the whip as a weapon.
For those who are interested in this thread, if I haven't said this already, I HIGHLY recommend Tom Meadows' book "The Filipino Fighting Whip." It is essentially about the Latigo y Daga "Whip and Knife" system that is very heavily based on escrima and rope techniques, (I THINK I've mentioned this to Shagbd, and Hollywood and I have already gabbed about it extensively during a long 2AM phone call. Well, it was 2AM here. Far earlier out in Montana! ;-) ) I loved that book! I unfortunately loaned it out about 2 years ago, and haven't gotten it back, (nor do I plan to,) and I haven't replaced it yet.
Tom's book mostly covers flick-type cracks, and in his drills he uses mostly flicks. Why? Because the follow through for a flick crack sets up the next one faster than you can with a loop crack. And with flick cracks, you can quickly change the plane of attack that the whip travels in so that the whip comes in from different directions VERY quickly. Because you need to telegraph with loop cracks so much, it's easy to see what direction the crack is going to come from. Therefore, you can DODGE a loop crack, because you're moving out of the way BEFORE the whip starts that rapid acceleration to Mach 1. Not so with the flick. By the time you see where the whip is coming from, it's too late.
The whole disarm shot in the first scene in Raiders is like that. Indy uses a loop crack, (a cattleman's or circus.) Now, bear in mind that he had the element of surprise, but still...a little much. The same move in Crystal Skull is a lot closer to what would work. Whip near the body, snakes out in a flick and BANG, you've taken the gun away. Sort of Over The Top with that 10 foot whip, but far more efficient a move, (as Harrison had worked with a martial artist rather than a stunt man in the prep for this film. Notice as well, that he surprised one guard BEFORE throwing the crack to cause some confusion before attempting to use that whip. Double surprise element.)
Loop cracks can also pull the body off balance more easily than flicks. Flicks can be thrown very easily near the centerline of the body, and the power you put into a flick comes more from the body than from the arcing motion of the whip. With flick cracks, (and with loop cracks to a lesser extent,) I try to draw the energy that I'm putting into the whip up from my foot, and not so much from my shoulder, or arm or wrist. But kinda throw my weight into it slightly, the way you would a punch or a sword thrust.
When I started cracking, it was just all arm/wrist/shoulder. That led to a considerable amount of sore muscles. I can crack a whip for hours at a time now, not only because the muscles are used to it, and I'm not working as hard at it, but also because it's not my ARM doing all the work. It's the whip and to a greater extent, the force that has been draw through my whole body and not just my shoulder.
If you've seen DeLongis's whip videos, DON'T STOP THERE. His "Rapier and Broadsword for the Stage and Screen: The DeLongis Method" videos are in my opinion THE BEST theatrical swordplay videos out there. Yes, they are for Dramatic Violence, which is NOT REAL, but the techniques he talks about have a VERY SOLID real-world basis, (unlike every other western theatrical combat system that I've seen, save for the work of Bill Hobbs!) and EVERY THING that he covers in those sword videos, applies DIRECTLY to whip work as well.
I'm also with Jason that whips aren't typically good for defense. Whips are really only good as an offensive weapon, because their main strength is speed and surprise. The crack can also be very intimidating and distracting, and to strike with a whip...Well..you don't need a barb on the tip or steel wire in the popper to tear something up. Heavy cloth will prevent it from cutting you, but I've seen some pretty nasty deep tissue and muscle bruises from a bullwhip blow that transferred through canvas.
Leather falls with nylon poppers are probably still more effective than anything else you could put on there. Steel and silver tips might look cool in movies, but they tend to throw the weight off on the fall, which effects accuracy and because that little barbed bit is attached to the fall and then jerked at the end at Mach 1, they tear the fall to pieces, and will most likely go flying off after a few solid cracks.
I've seen whips with steel cores and falls, and poppers made of piano wire. Heck, I've USED thin Kevlar, (bowstring material,) poppers that cut through cucumbers like a hot knife through butter, and I've cracked a stainless steel chainmail bullwhip. But these are gimmicks at best, and ultimately, I don't think are in any way as efficient and as versatile as a good ol' nylon popper on a good ol' whitehide fall on a naturally weighted or slightly shot loaded kangaroo bullwhip.
Well aimed strikes at exposed skin, (slash across the forehead that bleeds, so blood runs down in your opponent's eyes, or fast flick to the eyes, face, bridge of the nose, back of the weapon hand a la Barranca, etc.) are the best use.
In whip boxing, (do a search and check it out. Two folks in fencing masks heavy gloves and Aussie canvas dusters each armed with a stockwhip. Only valid target it a small spot on the mask. Based on points scored in a timed round,) the point is to be accurate. The whip is the fast part. They say right in the info about it: "There's no use trying to dodge something that's travelling at you at 800 miles per hour!"
THERE'S your strength. THERE'S the advantage. The tip of that whip is travelling faster than a speeding bullet...
I've been meaning to get back into doing stuff with the OU Fencing Club here in Athens, which covers European Renaissance Duello-style rapier combat rather than Olympic style modern sport fencing. While whips are traditionally frowned on in their rules, (and who can blame them. Anything that severely binds a weapon is frowned upon, and it's against the rules to hit your opponant with anything but a sword blade. So, no swats with rigid parrys, cloaks, etc. An idiot with a whip could break the wrist of their opponent with a badly timed wrap,) I've been looking at the whip boxing stuff, and what they are wearing for protection, and that's VERY similar to what we do in Duello, (Standard FIE Fencing Jacket with ANOTHER layer over top. FIE 3 weapon mask with a heavy hood under that. NO SKIN MAY BE EXPOSED ON THE BODY, and any seam or place where one piece of clothing meets another MUST have a 3" overlap. That goes for pants, shoes, gloves, masks, jackets. These folks are going at it full speed with unsharpened swords with rubber tips on the ends. One breaks or develops a barb, and someone gets hurt BAD.)
I've known the coaches for over a decade, and they've been trying to entice me back. I've convinced them to allow us to "Experiment" with whips, (pretty much, just me with the whip and some other weapon...most likely dagger...against one of the two coaches until we get some stuff worked out. That, and I think they want me to work with them on the whip too, because hey...it's just G-Darn cool!) Before I do that, I want to get a nylon whip, (probably July when Steve "Jabbahutt" Huntress is back to normal business,) and I pick up another copy of Meadow's book to brush up before Fall when practice resumes.
I'll keep you posted on this. Could be cool, and certainly a different sort of application to what you guys are experimenting with.
Lordy, I do go on at length don't I? Sorry, this has been something that has very much been on my mind for about 2 or 3 years, and of late even more so.
I've been meaning to shoot some videos that cover what I'm talking about, but I just haven't gotten out to do it, (that and I've been facing some computer-based limitations of late. Need a new one, and am waiting for a certain model to be released. In the mean time, chugging along on a 9 year old fossil! Got to baby it along, so I don't kill it! I shot about an hour of footage of me with whips a week or so ago, but I'm trying to chop it down into manageable, relevant bits, and the computer is arguing. So, I'm working on it!)
In the meantime: David! Videos!
-Dan
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). In an urban situation the noise itself might alarm an opponent, as it would direct the attention of others towards the disturbance. Also, the loud crack sound alone might have the effect of momentarily confusing an opponent. It is ear-piercingly loud in the direction of the crack. The strike of a cracking whip, too, is a very hard hit.
