Club Obi Wan

Ok, so Im out at lunch, practicing with my new whip...Im learning so its just the basic crack at this point. Im in a big field, and Im snapping the whip, and hearing nothing, but off in the distance I can hear a loud echo of the crack, that I cant hear. Is that odd?

Im doing ok tho. Glad I was wearing my hat and a pair of sunglasses, but I had bare arms..ow. Luckily Im a very lucky person and very safety concious, somehow it just comes naturally to me to take it easy when I start learning things. By the end of the half hour I was regularly cracking it in both my dominant and weaker hand.

Id like to learn the overhead crack, and maybe one more crack so I have three, then just do reps of them every day.

That happens. The first time I cracked a whip outdoors it just made a "pffft" sound from where I was standing, and then I heard what sounded like a gun shot echoing in the distance. After cracking the whip a couple of times I was satisfied that it was indeed the bang from the whip I was hearing.

I assume it's because the sound travels away from you, as you are cracking the whip forward. If you really want to hear that sonic boom close to you, do the coachman's crack...

/Nicholas

If you crack the whip towards something thats closer to you, the sound will be louder. The more open space you have, I think the more quiet the whip will be. If I may put forward an uneducated guesstimate / theory, I think that if you were in an entirely open place, with nothing around for miles, you probably wouldn't hear the crack at all. Or likewise, if you were in a vacuum, there may not even be a noise!

Just a thought. Anyway... if you get closer to some trees or buildings or something, you'll hear it louder.

Shane

If you're in a vacuum, there will be no noise, because sound waves need a medium through which to propagate (air, water, etc.).

When I did some whip cracking in front of high-speed cameras at MIT a few weeks ago, you could see the shock wave come off the end of the whip. The shock wave produced is directional, so if the whip is cracked away from you, the sound you're hearing is the reflection of the shock wave off of your surroundings.

If you have nothing around you to reflect the crack, you won't hear it. At MIT we could even see the reflection of the shock wave come back through the frame after the intitial crack.

-Adam

Don't suppose there is any video we can see on that MIT project?? I'd love to see that in slo-mo.

Ok, so Im out at lunch, practicing with my new whip...Im learning so its just the basic crack at this point. Im in a big field, and Im snapping the whip, and hearing nothing, but off in the distance I can hear a loud echo of the crack, that I cant hear. Is that odd?

That sometimes happens when you are cracking in a very wide open area for the reasons explained, either that, or there was some one else cracking a whip off in the distance!

This isn’t from the MIT project but it was done by Mike Murphy a couple years ago in a similar study, showing a whip crack in slow motion and the resulting vacuum and shockwave created.
www.murphywhips.com/whipcrack.wmv

I went back today and aimed the whip towards my car, so I got to hear it instead of off in the distance. Got to watch myself do it too which was neat.

I taught myself a crack too...well sorta. I dont remember what its called but all it is is the basic forward crack, but in the air at an angle...instead of raising my arm to three o clock and bending at the elbow, I raise my arm over my head and then lower my arm in a diagonal fashion.

I cant get the hang of the overhead crack where you swing the whip in one direction then move to the opposite to crack it, and I dont know how long it will be for the coachmans crack...

minstrel wrote: If you really want to hear that sonic boom close to you, do the coachman's crack...

Uh, yeah. I can vouch for that. Ouch.

Indiana Joyce wrote:Ok, so Im out at lunch, practicing with my new whip...Im learning so its just the basic crack at this point. Im in a big field, and Im snapping the whip, and hearing nothing, but off in the distance I can hear a loud echo of the crack, that I cant hear. Is that odd?

That was just me hiding behind a tree with my cap-gun, trying to mess with ya! lol!

Seriously, I noticed the same thing when I first got my whip. It was gunshot loud in my backyard with the crack reflecting off mine and other neighbors houses. But when I got out into a huge, wide open area, I was disappointed in the lack of report. Basic physics of sound reflection I suppose.

So IM doing ok at the overhead crack, but the flick....ok so I dont know how to throw a baseball, and thats having an impact on this. Especially as how you can go from the overhead into the flick, and Id love to do that.

The flick was the hardest crack for me to learn too. I think I started by nailing the "sideways"? or is it called side arm crack? Anyway, I gradually moved my arm plane higher and higher until I was throwing the overhand "baseball" or flick I guess. Sorry if I'm butchering the terms here. I do remember having to be patient in letting the whip roll out in time to stop the downward movement, and BANG! For me it was a difficult matter of trying to understand the timing of it. This was with my 8ft. I had a hard time doing the flick with a friends 10ft, until I changed the timing again to let it roll out. I found my biggest problem was rushing it in both cases. Just thoughts from another newbie.

McFly wrote:If I may put forward an uneducated guesstimate / theory, I think that if you were in an entirely open place, with nothing around for miles, you probably wouldn't hear the crack at all. Or likewise, if you were in a vacuum, there may not even be a noise!

Shane

Hey Shane, What is the sound of a one handed clap? And does a falling tree in the forest make noise if no one is there to hear it?

Seriously though, I think you're right about less sound in wide open spaces. Been my experience anyway.---Tim

oooh i think im getting the sidearm or sideways crack confused with the flick...I want to be able to go from the overhead into the sideways...and not sure how to do it.

The one I have the most trouble with is the underhand flick... Can't seem to find great tutorials on line for that one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX7r3KiVgKs

Not sure if it will help or not, but it got me outside for my first video in a while. But I do hope it helps in some fashion or another

Ah, thank you... bowling, yes...

Some new things to try this afternoon.

With any flick like this, you crack with the natural curve of the whip, not against it, right?

It can go both ways depending on YOUR preference.

winrichwhips wrote:If you're in a vacuum, there will be no noise, because sound waves need a medium through which to propagate (air, water, etc.).

ok smarty pants.....how do you explain all of the crashes and booms during a battle scene in say star trek or star wars then? even in the old star trek, the enterprise still goes "voosh" during the opening credits and there was like no technology back then......where's rhboyd, i'm sure he could back me up on this.........

back on topic.......i find by doing some sidearm crack's, it will get me into the whip's rythm of how she's rolling out on me......then i throw it underhand with the same rythm and it works......it is kind of strange as i'm using a different wrist movement going between sidearm and underhand.

It's the same crack It's nothing different, more mental the physical. That's what unlocked it for me. Nothing changes, do nothing different.

here's my analogy of the 2 different cracks.......utilizing a karate kid reference (ralph machio's best work btw ).

the sidearm crack is more "sand the floor" while the underhand/overhand flick is more "paint the fence".........if you want to get as good as bullwhip borton, you gotta watch karate kid........

LOL! The look my students give me when I tell them, "Do an overhead flick upside down"

Well, Im lost lol. Ill just keep watching Adam Winrich on youtube and hoping for the best.

Well, Im lost lol.

After reading this thread, So am I

Still, The flick is like throwing a ball, anywhere you can throw a ball you can crack the whip, but the flick in any direction can be a tough crack to master. It’s not as much about just following the steps like it is with the Cattlemens crack or the overhead crack. With the flick, timing is especially important and its more about getting the feel down right and knowing when to drag, when to pull and just when to push and how much energy to put into the technique. It takes practice, and since you don’t have anyone who can work with you one on one, You might want to invest in a training DVD or two. The youtube videos Adam does are a great resource but sometimes it helps to see how others explain it as well, if I recall, Anthony De Longis does a good job walking you thought the flick in his video.

Keep practicing; you’ll be catching fly’s with your chopsticks in no time!

Dan

+1 on that Dan. I learned a lot about the flick from just watching Adam's Youtube vids.---Tim

Indiana G wrote:

winrichwhips wrote:If you're in a vacuum, there will be no noise, because sound waves need a medium through which to propagate (air, water, etc.).

ok smarty pants.....how do you explain all of the crashes and booms during a battle scene in say star trek or star wars then? even in the old star trek, the enterprise still goes "voosh" during the opening credits and there was like no technology back then......where's rhboyd, i'm sure he could back me up on this.........

Hey now...just watch Firefly or Serenity and you'll see space travel without sound. Just as it should be.