Learn singletail.

I walked down 5th Avenue in the LGBT Pride Parade today brandishing my whip and cracking it as I walked. I’m learning yet another throw. And when she volunteered, one of my still frame memories is of her request that I don’t hit the same spot twice in a row. Yeah, I’ve learned how to throw smaller signal whips.

Next step: longer bull and stock whips.

I’ve hit curtains, light switches, sheets, pillows, and a half dozen other odds and ends. There’s just one more thing I need to do to be able to say that I’ve learned this.

For that, however, I’m going to need a willing partner.

Do I know this well enough to say that I’ve accomplished this goal? The exercise of turning on and off the lights in my apartment by whipping the ends of their pull-strings is getting old. I’m consistently cracking the whip just right.

I know two throws: side-to-side and vertical, both with my right hand, though I can do the vertical throw with my left rather well, too. I’m working on a third throw, one which flicks the whip forwards but unrolls it in a different way.

Soo…at the very least, I’m almost there.

Oh my god! I just called my father to see if our scheduled meeting to talk about random bits of stuff is still on (it’s not) and he told me that he had just recently purchased what is supposedly a very high-quality single tail whip for me!

Shock and awe. And, wow, I have an amazing father!

Throwing a whip is incredible. I didn’t get it to crack, but a friend who was guiding me through the motions told me it wasn’t about cracking at first. It’s about form and technique.

Let the whip unroll, extend your arm, and straighten your wrist at the very end. Then, stop, hold still and let the whip flow. Finally, twist your wrist, bend your arm, and return to the starting position.

Damn, it’s fun. It’s not as hard as I thought it might be, either, so this means that given some time and some practice, I could potentially become very good at this. Now, I just need to get my own single tail whip.