DROP ANALYSIS DISCLAIMER!
I love to study and talk about physics and how different drops and maneuvers work. That said, on this blog, and in all web-based discussion forums, I will NOT describe how to do a trick. I feel that doing so is extremely irresponsible as I have no way to check a student’s execution of the skill, evaluate their preparedness to attempt a skill, teach the proper technique for escaping a missed catch or poorly executed maneuver (many times the escape is specific to the skill being attempted), or coach the student through the proper progression toward the skill they wish to learn. The analyses I post will be general and strictly cerebral: for example, how to use slight body position changes to manipulate the movement quality of a maneuver. DO NOT ATTEMPT SKILLS WITHOUT THE GUIDANCE OF A SKILLED COACH!!! Please, please, please don’t do this: it’s incredibly dangerous and not worth the risk! Help keep our circus community safe and happy! That said, I travel frequently and would be delighted to teach workshops wherever there are interested students: shoot me a comment and we’ll set something up. I love you guys.)
Everyone hates single stars. They’re usually the first horizontal rotation (see the Glossary for term definitions) we learn and they suck because they cinch to high heaven around the thigh. I don’t think I know anyone who voluntarily performs single stars once they’ve learned the double star. So here’s the question: why do they cinch so much and what can we do to make them more bearable? Let’s take a look.
Here’s the end of the traditionally wrapped single star:
Freaking crap you guys, no wonder it hurts! Most of the force of the drop is applied where the live end (some studios call it the pole) connects with the body. Here, it’s at the left inner thigh. The rest of the force is absorbed around the left thigh where the fabric lays until it wraps around the live end, where it cinches. The wrap around the back mainly serves to keep the performer’s hand from being sucked into the knot and absorbs very little force from the drop.
When developing new drops and drop variations, I often find it useful to ask myself what I wish would happen. In this case, I really wish I could spread the force of the drop across a larger surface area because doing so means that each body part involved feels less force. This reduces the amount of what I call perceived force: the overall painyness or ouchitude of the drop.
The circumference of my thigh is about a foot. Multiply that by the width of the fabric after it cinches (about 3 inches) and we get roughly 36 inches of surface area that the force of the drop can spread across. If I can figure out how to end my single horizontal rotation such that the force is absorbed across my thigh AND my belly (about 2 feet in circumference), it’ll be spread over a surface area of about 108 inches, which reduces the perceived force by 1/3, which is to say that the drop will be more or less 1/3 as painful as the original: awesome! Here’s what the end of my new single star looks like:
…and from a slightly different angle:
But wait, there’s more! Because there are two places in this new knot that add friction (the dead end (tail) passes over the live end (pole) twice here), even LESS cinch is seen around the body. Generally speaking, anywhere we can create friction between the fabric or corde and itself will reduce the amount of force that must be absorbed by our body, which equals less pain.
One more thing. When a drop ends, the fulcrum (balance point/place that all your body weight is hanging from) is right where the live end connects to your body. Where this is determines how much muscle is required to maintain a straight spine (if that’s what you’re trying to do). In the case of the traditional single star, our goal is to complete the entire rotation with the spine perfectly horizontal to the ground. How many of us end this drop with head and chest pointed to the floor, legs in the air, cinched leg unwittingly bent, and bouncing around like a yo yo? That’s right, all of us. If we look at where the fulcrum is though, it’s no wonder: it’s at the inside of one thigh, which puts us hopelessly off center along two axes. I don’t know very many performers who can hold a perfectly horizontal planche supported by only one thigh. Now look where the fulcrum is in the updated wrap: it’s right across the lower abdomen, located in the center of the body. This means that the desired horizontal spine position can be maintained throughout the drop and, with attention to good body position, wobble at the end of the drop can be controlled:
I’ll talk more about controlling the speed of horizontal rotations in future posts, but until then I encourage you to work with your coaches to analyze the tricks you don’t like. Why don’t you like them? Are they ugly? Do they hurt? Do they rip the skin off of the same body part every time? Do you fall like a brick or like a feather? Can you perform them at any speed you wish? Are there tricks you hate? Share them with me! If I can offer an idea that will help, if you can give me a suggestion, or if we just end up brain mashing together we’ll all be better performers for it!
4 Responses
Thanks, Charlie. Speaking of horizontal rotations, just a few hours ago, a few aerial instructors and I were dissecting the version of this drop with no knee/no waist wrap where you land in a thumb-to-thumb grip hang. The force seems concentrated in the scalene on the side of the top hand… which stems from the rotation of the shoulder in that reverse grip. Any thoughts about minimizing the big ouch? Thank you!
I’ve been thinking about this: I think you’re talking about what I refer to as a variation on an Open Dive Roll. Just to make sure, the starting position of the drop you’re talking about is the same: head up, feet down, tail/dead end in one hand. On release, the releasing hand grips the tail below the dominant hand and the body makes 3/4 vertical rotation, 1/2 horizontal rotation, and a 90 degree twist to land hanging by both hands, head up, feet down, completely unwrapped. (By the way, if you want to throw a video up on the youtube to make sure we’re talking about the same thing, that would be sweet!) This is a fairly common rope trick, though I’m not sure what people call it. I haven’t had a chance to record video, but I didn’t want to leave you hanging. What I’ve come up with so far is a grip switch for the dominant hand (whichever hand you’ve got the tail in when you start the drop), which will become the top hand when you land. As is, the tail is held gripped with the pinky finger toward the wrap/your body. Turn the hand around so that the thumb points toward the body. You’ll have to regrip the tissu and you’ll now be applying tension on the wrap with the webbing between your thumb and index finger rather than with the pinky side of your hand, if that makes sense.
A pretty great way to work on grip edits is to wrap for the drop while standing on the ground, roll out of it, figure out how you WISH your hands would be positioned, then super awkwardly roll back into the drop and see where your hands have to start to end in the grip you want. (This process will be awkward and hilarious.) Also, if you’re not already, give this a whirl on rope. It’s a bit heavier and not as floppy, so it may be a more comfortable way to figure out the mechanics before you transfer the skill back to fabric. At any rate, I’ll see if I can post video or at least some photos to show you what the crap I mean about the regrips at some point here, and definitely let me know your progress!!! 😀
One last thought, actually: Are you videoing your rehearsals? If not, super do. I would assume that you’re getting a big crank on your hand/wrist because you’re absorbing most of the force of the drop on it. That would suggest to me that there may be some better force distribution available to you if you study your body position through the earlier parts of the drop. Send me video if you have it and we’ll pick at it. 🙂
really enjoy reading your blog. i’m also an aerialist physics nerd 🙂 keep up the awesome work, and thanks again for your posts.
Sweet!! There aren’t too many of us type A artists out there. I feel like we’re particularly neurotic… Maybe sometimes for good? 😛