Club Obi Wan

Can anyone in the northern Viginia area teach me how to use a whip??

I'm not in Virginia, but... I offer these few suggestions:

Checkout http://www.bullwhip.org for lots of good info.
Also, think about getting Alex Green's "Whip cracking Made Easy"
Its a good beginners video lesson.

Hope this helps.

Dalexs

Paul Stenhouse also has a good video or dvd that shows how to crack a whip and it also goes into whip maintenance.
http://www.stenhousewhips.com/

Thank you!

Youll learn this sooner or later but hitting yourself with a whip HURTS!!! I speak from experience.

I've done it more than once and it stings like h___ ....you get the idea!! If any can help please do!! Thx!!

when i was a little kid i was playing with a whip and i accidently whipped my back and it stung so bad i couldnt lean against anything for almost a month.

About 18-19 years ago, I met the old serial western star Lash LaRue at the Roy Rogers festival in Portsmouth Ohio, (the town where old Roy hailed from. Also my hometown.) Lash must have been in his 70's by then.

He'd been signing autographs all day, and I happened to catch him during a lull in the crowd, so I had a chance to talk to him for a good while. I told him how much I wanted to learn to use a bullwhip, and did he have any pointers. He smiled regailed me with the story of how he got the role.

He was a struggling young actor out in Hollywood, and when he auditioned for the role, they asked "can you use a bullwhip?"

He naturally said, "Yes," (standard operational procedure in the audition process. Say "yes," even if you don't know what they're even talking about.)

He'd never touched a bullwhip in his LIFE! So, after he got the role, there was a short period of elation, followed by a considerably longer period of panic.

He went out and picked up a bullwhip at a tack shop, and proceeded to teach himself how to use it without any instruction or help, (no videos by Alex Green or Paul Stenhouse then, and certainly no bullwhip.org!)

He chuckled when he told me this.

"I've STILL got scars all up and down my back."

He was eventually found out, but he managed to impress them so much with his acting by then that they kept him on and hired a stuntman to teach him.

Al "Lash" LaRue passed away in 1996. He was an incredibly nice gentleman who took the extra time to talk one-on-one with folks while Roy Rogers himself sat in his hotel room waiting for room service and his escort to the parade. "Lash" indulged a young kid's annoying questions, and I'll never forget him.

-Dan

thefish:

Great story ! Thanks.

I'm no expert, but here are a couple of tips that I have found useful. Just take it easy at first. Get used to having the whip in your hand and just toss it around without trying to crack it. Get to know where the tip of the whip is at all times. That is a big part of managing whip control. And when your dominant hand and arm get tired, do the same thing with your other arm and hand. I 've found that I can now do somethings better left handed than I can with my dominant right. You will no doubt hit yourself a time or two, but if you just take it easy at first and slowly work your way into it, you can save yourself a lot of pain and scars. And one other thing you should always do, WEAR SAFETY GLASSES. A wide brim hat and long pants wouldn't hurt either. You only have one set of eyes and you could very easily lose one of them with one bad throw. Don't be easily discouraged and stay with it. Nothing of value comes without sacrifice.
Best Regards,

Jay

Read the "How to's" on Andrew Conways bullwhip.org religiously if you can't find someone near you to help.

Jay makes a good point about off hand cracking. It's good to learn to use both.

Also, if you find yourself having a particular problem getting a crack the first time, (using the instruction on bullwhip.org,) then try it with your off hand. Your dominant hand does a lot of stuff automatically and thinks that it's smarter than your brain. Consequently, your off hand listens to your brain better. Once you figure out the motion with your off hand, THEN put it in your dominant hand!

My whip teacher did this with me on the sidearm crack. Worked wonders. ;-)

Best of luck!

-Dan

Another tip I picked up when someone was trying to teach me the Coachman, was to close my eyes when I did it.
I knew what I had to do, I knew the motions, I knew when I was supposed to crack it.
But I had the hardest time getting the timing right until I closed my eyes and just did it.
(Just check to see if anyones around you first!)


Dalexs

Just got ahold of the Stenhouse DVD....it explain s alot!!

Dear Marlin Fan,

I can't stress how much other folks have said about taking it slow. One of the things you'll notice in my video is how easy I make it look. That's because I managed to figure out that a whip is designed to crack, even as thick-headed as I am. I just had to minimize my bad habits, or bad influence on it during the motion of making it crack. You'll also find out that shorter whips, while much faster, are more forgiving of 'bad form.'

Please do take it easy to begin with. If you are familiar with physics, you know that the drag of a particular area (wind resistance) is squared, when the size of said object is doubled. This carries over into whipcracking, but in a much more devious fashion. When performing a particular movement, and you hit yourself, don't get frustrated/angry like I did and do the EXACT same movement with twice as much force. The magnitude of the pain is squared!!!!! I know this all too well. The thong hit me across the cheek and nose and I felt as though I'd been punched. Subsequently, it swelled up nicely.

Finally, if you have any questions about the video, just ask me, and I'll try to explain. I'd like to think I know what I'm doing and can offer you productive advice!

Best Regards,

Paul Stenhouse