Club Obi Wan

Ahhhhh, spring!

Well, it's not really spring, since we're guaranteed one more blizzard this year, but it's close enough for now.

Thanks to beautiful, balmly, wear-your-leather-jacket-open, 95% of the snow is melted type weather, I went out cracking the old snakewhip on the weekend.

Thanks to winter-atrophed whip crackin' muscles, I was pretty achy the next day, but happy I got to practice finally.

Lash made me some copies of his whip crackin' videos, and last night I watched one. It made me want to try one of my bullwhips. So, right there in the living room, I cracked my swivel handle whip, and ZING! got a sting right across the back of my neck. One of those drop your whip, wince hard, hold the wound and curse loudly kinda stings.

See, I'd forgotten the bullwhip is twice as long as the snakewhip and didn't compensate. It made a pretty darned good crack though.

Hi Snakewhip!

You're lucky you can crack. Over where I'm at, we still have patches of melting snow and the ground is too muddy for whipcrackin'. It'll be a while for some of us...

Snakewhip_Sable wrote:"...right there in the living room, I cracked my swivel handle whip, and ZING! got a sting right across the back of my neck. One of those drop your whip, wince hard, hold the wound and curse loudly kinda stings.
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Snakewhip Sable,
I laughed pretty good at that. Maybe you weren't meaning to be funny but it gave me a chuckle. Isn't it odd how we laugh at others calamities? Especially if they get hurt?

I've also been there and done that a few times too.

When I perform my whip act, I will demonstrate the "wrong" way to crack a whip, that is to jerk it back as any beginner would do. It always happens. I demonstrate how easily the whip comes back to my face or arm and I hit myself intentionally with a loud Ouch! but also being very dramatic. I do the same while doing a self wrap after doing the reverse horizontal crack. When the whip wraps around me, I go Ouch and everyone laughs. It doesn't hurt a bit, but they think I got hurt.

Enjoy whipcracking but also be safe!



Robert Duke

That's the trouble with whipcracking in places that have winter. Sometimes you forget what you're doing over the snowy months. Never get used to any one whip and that sort of thing shouldn't happen.

I usually mean to be funny.

It's finally warmed up enough here that I've started getting back into whip cracking on a strip of grass next to the house. The landlady even came home the other day when I was cracking and laughed that it reminded her of her late husband who used to crack a whip. She lives in the first floor of the house and my wife and I have the apartment upstairs. You gotta love a landlady who doesn't mind your hobbies a bit and even encourages them!

bink

I think she's just sweet on ya, Bink!

No doubt! I never told her I had guns in the house, but the day she caught me leaving with an old top break shotcun (in case) to go target shooting, she commented on how her late husband used to go shooting. I swaer, if I tell her we're upstairs carving up dead bodies, she'll probably say her husband used to do the same thing! It's as if we can do no wrong!

And since it was a nice, sunny 50+ degree day today, I was back outside crackin' again! WOOHOO!!!!

bink

Hey you know where i could find some tutorial or something, i have started crackin with very simple moves but i keep hitting myself now i got a big hit on my leg, and gosh it hurted, well anyone got anything that i could use, or some hints, or anything :

After about 2 months of non-whip activity due to lots of work, lots of influenza, and lots of snow and rain, I went out a couple days ago during a respite in the weather and cracked my Strain Lonestar for about an hour.

Good gravy, am I rusty! I had a similar incident to Sable's after a minor malfunction with a sidearm crack while I was warming up, (whip wasn't directly behind me at the start of the crack. Fall came right across the back of my head.)

I had a nice glowing red ear for about half an hour afterward. ;-)

Ah well...

-Dan

...Today however was better. This weekend, a friend of mine made a pretty good, infinitely configurable whip target setup out of PVC, (no nasty abrasion on the fall,) and plastic electrical conduit pieces. He made one for himself and one for me, (the connect together to, so you can have one BIG target stand. didn't take any pics. Sorry. Will try to this week, if the weather stays nice.)

Playing cards are held in place by clothespins.

I spent the better part of today, (from about 10-Noon, and then from 2-4. I LOVE final's week!) targeting playing cards with my 8' Strain. Went through an entire deck of cards, and had a blast. I'm kinda tired, my arms are sore, my hands are remembering that they used to be calloused, but I feel great!

Gonna help the wife with dinner, take some tylonol, and hopefully my arms will be functional tomorrow, as I have a pretty hefty essay final in a graduate class tomorrow, and I tend to be long winded in my academic work as well as my online missives.

Just had to share!

All the best,

-Dan