original hand-to-hand (hand-to-foot) stuff

Started by palmcron, November 7, 2013 · 14 Replies · 3,174 Views

TANSTAAFL

That was pretty sick.

ChrisUK

Absolutely incredible. Both their jobs in that are incredibly hard, but I can't imagine how fine her balanace is to be able to stay upright perfectly as he is twisting around and up.

Handbalancer

Absolutely sick. Never seen that before. Notice that she has a bowl on her head all the time. Probably the only reason she is in contortion balance. When you think you have seen everything, the chinese will just tripple it.

TANSTAAFL
Handbalancer said:

Absolutely sick.

I wanted to say something to this degree, but I felt I had to setup the sickness slowly...too much too soon and all. But yeah, I saved this to my harddrive immediately in case it ever gets blocked from the webz.

Hercules

WOW 

TANSTAAFL said:

I wanted to say something to this degree, but I felt I had to setup the sickness slowly...too much too soon and all. But yeah, I saved this to my harddrive immediately in case it ever gets blocked from the webz.

How did you download it? 

TANSTAAFL
Hercules said:

How did you download it? 

I use firefox, there are a few different add-ons. Just google it up, or PM me. Don't wanna get away from the sickage of the OP.

Rob Kowalski

WOW!  That last trick, I could not figure out what was going to happen. Amazing stuff.

starling
Handbalancer said:

Absolutely sick. Never seen that before. Notice that she has a bowl on her head all the time. Probably the only reason she is in contortion balance. When you think you have seen everything, the chinese will just tripple it.

Actually the bowls aren't helping her balance, if that's what you mean. Balancing stacks of bowls is called Pagoda of Bowls, or just Pagoda Bowls. The bowls these days are usually just cheap plastic, so they aren't offering any real counterbalance. However, when the girls train this act, they often have a sandbag in the top bowl, which can help steady the bowls a bit by helping the athlete 'feel' the bowls more. Mostly though, the extra weight combined with the countless training hours makes an indentation in the girls skull so there's actually a little notch in the top of her head for the base of the bowls to fit into. Crazy huh? Just some trivia I thought you'd like to know.

 

And yeah, the chinese can triple just about anything. 

Jon Douglas
daniel sarnowski said:

Actually the bowls aren't helping her balance, if that's what you mean. Balancing stacks of bowls is called Pagoda of Bowls, or just Pagoda Bowls. The bowls these days are usually just cheap plastic, so they aren't offering any real counterbalance. However, when the girls train this act, they often have a sandbag in the top bowl, which can help steady the bowls a bit by helping the athlete 'feel' the bowls more. Mostly though, the extra weight combined with the countless training hours makes an indentation in the girls skull so there's actually a little notch in the top of her head for the base of the bowls to fit into. Crazy huh? Just some trivia I thought you'd like to know.

 

And yeah, the chinese can triple just about anything. 

I read Handbalancer's comment as 'the only reason she's doing this in a contortion balance is to provide a platform to balance the head-bowl.' As in, otherwise she'd likely be in a straight handstand.

starling
Jon Douglas said:

I read Handbalancer's comment as 'the only reason she's doing this in a contortion balance is to provide a platform to balance the head-bowl.' As in, otherwise she'd likely be in a straight handstand.

Really I just wanted to share some little known, cool info about pagoda bowls with him and the forum.

 

Actually in traditional chinese acrobatics its most common for girls to stay in contortion handstand throughout the act. They can do straight handstands all day but mostly you'll see them perform in contortion handstand. The guys will perform straight handstands but its less common for girls. 

Handbalancer

I know about bowl balancing and what im saying is that its there to make it even more impressive. In contortion acts they stay contorted all the time but in the balancing acts they dont. They usually do 1 cane acts where they basically repeat every hard trick there is on both arms and their basic position is a straight handstand with a very wide straddle. Their alignment is often a bit different than the russians though and they do a lot of flags with ridiculous side flexion.

starling
Handbalancer said:

I know about bowl balancing and what im saying is that its there to make it even more impressive. In contortion acts they stay contorted all the time but in the balancing acts they dont. They usually do 1 cane acts where they basically repeat every hard trick there is on both arms and their basic position is a straight handstand with a very wide straddle. Their alignment is often a bit different than the russians though and they do a lot of flags.

Yeah that is all very true. In a solo cane act. But cane acts are not a traditional chinese act  though. Its an act that was picked up by the Chinese probably in the last 30 years or so. In traditional chinese acrobatics, handstands are performed on benches, not canes. To be clear, I'm talking about traditional chinese acrobatics, not modern developments. In Northern China you will see more russian techniques and stylings, because of the proximity to Russia and the influence there. The further south you go the more"traditional" the style will likely be. In Traditional Chinese Acrobatics the athlete almost always has a prop; jar juggling, plate spinning, etc…  of course its to be more impressive. Classic acts for a female soloist are: pagoda bowls, pagoda of glasses, carpet spinning, plate spinning, foot juggling etc…  Cane balancing is "new". I trained with 3 chinese acrobats for about 10 years and I've seen literally hundreds of chinese acts, I think the one girl on one cane act started showing up in the 90's. But the traditional styles have been developed for centuries.

 

Respectfully yours…

Handbalancer

MIght be so. I have little first hand experience with chinese circus but I have seen a lot of the traditional stuff like plate spinning, foot juggling, chinese pole, pagodas in handstand and on slackrope and so on, but not much that focuses on handbalancing in itself. I didnt know that cane balancing is reasonably new to chinese acrobatics. I am not sure how old handstand canes are in the west either, but I know for sure that they are at least give or take 100 years old.