Ready to snap

Whip enthusiasts take a crack at elevating their hobby to the level of sport

By Vanessa E. Jones,
Boston Globe Staff
July 24, 2004

FREEPORT, Maine -- Snap! Pow! Crack!

Those are the sounds punctuating the air as members of New England Whip Enthusiasts casually swing their arms to create the whip's distinctive ear-pounding thwack. They're doing what vets in this scene call "cracking" or "throwing" whips. Eric Inman, who created the group, shows the variety of ways to make that noise.

He waves his arm behind him in a snakelike motion to emit cracks on either side of him. He does the whip 101 move, an up-and-down action familiar to anyone who's seen a circus lion tamer crack a whip. Then he circles the whip around his head twice in a helicopter motion before snapping it overhead.

Don't cringe or laugh cynically. There's a new generation of whip-crackers who want to lift the instrument out of the gutter of S&M to the lofty heights of a sport that may one day reach Olympic status. They use their whips to grab items, to heal bodily injuries, or for the sheer joy of making the thing go "pop." They jokingly call themselves "crack addicts" and swear their whips never touch human flesh.

How do they come upon this unique hobby? Through martial arts classes, an interest in the Wild West, or jobs at Renaissance fairs. Others encounter the whip in pop culture. They have flicked their way through the "Indiana Jones" movies, "The Mask of Zorro," and "Batman Returns." The latest film to whip up interest in the sport? "Catwoman," which opened yesterday.

The star of the film recently gave the whip the Halle Berry seal of approval. During a visit to "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in May to promote the film, the actress called the whip "the most elusive tool you can play with, but the most sexy and the most fun... And once you get your first crack... you just have to keep cracking." Her skills are on display in movie trailers that show Berry using the weapon to grab a gun out of the bad guy's hand. On the promotion trail, Berry tells reporters that she's the proud owner of 6-foot, 9-foot, and 12-foot whips.

"Catwoman" arrives at an important time for the year-old New England Whip Enthusiasts. Inman has trouble finding places for his whip-crackers to meet. Members from other states find it a chore to drive several hours to Maine just to throw whips. Inman hopes the film will do what others featuring the sport have done in the past: attract new members.

The regional group scratches the surface of a thriving community. Its parent organization, Whip Enthusiasts International, started six years ago in Dallas when Sebastian (like Madonna and Prince, he goes by one name) decided he wanted company as he went through the motions of cracking his whips.

"When there's one of you practicing in the park," says Sebastian, 34, "you're a nut. But if there are three or four or five of you, then you're a group and it's OK." In its first year, Whip Enthusiasts expanded to 15 members. Now membership hovers around 1,800 with chapters in 12 cities, including Houston, San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles. Its international moniker comes from having groups in Canada, England, and Australia, a hotbed for whip enthusiasts and the source for the kangaroo hide used to make most whips. Although the Freeport gathering gives the impression that most whip-crackers are men, that's not accurate. You can find 6-year-old girls and 86-year-old grandmothers throwing whips, says Sebastian.

The sport doesn't require much strength, but it is a workout. After Inman completes a series of whip cracks on a comfortable summer day, a glaze of sweat appears on his face.

"It's all technique and timing," says Sebastian. "You can be flat on your back or in a relaxed easygoing chair and be able to do this. It really is that easy. But it's also that difficult because it requires a lot of focus, discipline, and practice to be able to do it, or else you end up hitting yourself a lot."

Needless to say, whip-cracking is dangerous. " `Ouch' is the sound of learning," is a popular saying among its practitioners. Hobbyists can easily put out an eye or cover their bodies with welts if they're not careful. Standard dress is long pants, long-sleeve shirts, eye goggles, and a wide-brimmed cap. Even vets like Sebastian have inadvertently hit themselves in the face during practice.

Back in the day, whips were mostly used for farming. It's still the tool of choice in the Australian Outback to slice off the head of a poisonous snake, grab the hoof of an animal, or direct a group of cattle, say Alex Green, the Vancouver-based Aussie stuntman who trained Berry. "It's often misconstrued you would hit an animal with a whip," says Sebastian. "That's a great way to get a stampede going. You would never hit an animal. It's the sound that makes them move. The intimidation, the power of it."

Whips make their distinctive pop sound when the tip of the weapon, a removable nylon string called the "cracker," moves faster than the speed of sound. "That crack that you hear," says Sebastian, "a lot of people... think it's the tip (of the whip) hitting against itself or hitting the ground. No... compression has sucked the air out of a spot in space, and the sound you hear is the air rushing back into that. It's a small sonic boom, like a plane going faster than Mach 1."

Head to the group's website, www.whipenthusiasts.org (the site no longer up) , and you'll find a list of dozens of ways to make the whip go pow. The cracks have imaginative names: bridal march, drum rolls, Mary's Little Lamb, and machine guns. They're all variations, says Sebastian, of three basic cracks: the overhead, the flick, and the forward loop, also known as the circus crack.

Those basic throws are the ones being done by members of the New England Whip Enthusiasts at a gathering in the Freeport backyard of "Big" Bill Hale, 45, an imposing man with a long brown beard and big belly who learned this skill 17 years ago. Mosquitoes are feasting on the guests like vampires, but the whip-throwers don't seem to notice.

Inman gives four minutes of instruction on how to do the rudimentary forward loop. "Move your arm casually up above your head, then pull the arm down," he says. "Slowly. Keep the arm straight. Angle the whip away from your body -- otherwise you may hit yourself."

The key is to move casually. "If you go too slow," Inman says, repeating the up-and-down movement of the arm, "it'll crack when it gets to the ground." Don't grasp the handle too tightly. "Hold it with these two fingers. Like you're going to a heavy metal concert," says Inman, folding his fingers into the classic devil's-horns sign. Another piece of advice: "Don't try to pull back. Whips don't crack because you pull them back." It's whip-throwing, not stagecoach-driving.

On this day, the group will be here for about three hours. Usually five to seven people show up, says Inman, and total membership numbers 20. They generally meet once a month, but this is the first time the group has met in a while.

"It's difficult to find a place that will let you come in and crack whips," says Inman. It's an ear-splitting hobby that requires a lot of space. For a while, Inman knew someone who would let him practice in empty commercial spaces. A scalding real estate market made those opportunities scarce. This is the first meeting to take place at a member's home. The result is an uncomfortable mixture of drunken partygoers and serious sportsmen.

Inman, who lives in Falmouth, first got his hands on a whip at the age of 8 when his older brother was working for a Renaissance fair. At the time, Inman could only do two styles of cracks, he says, "but I thought it was wicked cool." He lost interest after the whip his brother gave him was destroyed. Only in the last few years, as he became fascinated with the cowboy culture of the Wild West, did Inman reconnect with his childhood hobby. He now practices two hours a day, learning new skills from videos by star whip-crackers Mike Murphy of Australia and Peter Jack of New Zealand. Inman's dream? To participate in competitions that Whip Enthusiasts chapters hold in various parts of the country.

Bill Rubino, 51, of Greene, Maine, began cracking whips about two years ago. It's how he rehabilitated himself after having four discs replaced in his neck.

"I tried every therapy they could throw at me," says Rubino. "Nothing worked."

A friend suggested a whip, so he tried it.

"I woke up the next day pain-free," says Rubino. The movements helped strengthen his neck and shoulder muscles, he believes. Rubino now begins his workday as a salesman at Merrimack Building Supply in Westbrook, Maine, by cracking whips in the company's parking lot.

Rubino not only throws whips, he's an avid whip collector. He owns more than 50 and brings three bags full to the meeting to show Inman, whom he hasn't seen in a while. There's a 7-foot whip of braided light tan and black buckskin leather. Rubino pulls out a gorgeous dark caramel-colored whip made of kangaroo hide. Another one, braided in black and green leather -- his favorite colors -- was made by Murphy.

If your interest in whips is more rooted in pop culture, you can purchase the ones cracked in "The Mask of Zorro," the "Indiana Jones" films, "Shanghai Noon," "The Man From Snowy River," "Catwoman," and "Batman Returns" from Western Stage Props' website, www.westernstageprops.com. The company also sells whips made by the motor mouth Green, who with little bidding unleashes a tsunami of anecdotes about his 38 years as a Hollywood stuntman. He taught Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas how to crack their whips in "The Mask of Zorro." He trained Jackie Chan in whip-throwing for "Shanghai Noon." But he calls Berry "the best movie cracker in the world. She loves to crack that whip."

Berry started training three weeks before shooting commenced. "Within the time I had, I had her doing the five basic cracks," Green says. He describes one "Catwoman" scene where Berry wraps the tip of her whip around a man's neck and knocks him against the wall. Green has words for anyone who denounces Berry's skills as computer-graphics imagery: "There is CGI involved when she's up in the air and in corners. But when she's on the ground, it's all real."

As movies like "Catwoman" shove whips into the mainstream, it's Whip Enthusiasts International's goal to promote whip-cracking as an Olympic sport. The road may be difficult. "The minute you say anything about whip-cracking," says Inman, "you get that look, `So you're one of those people.' " Rubino has been asked, "Do you hit people with those?"

The push is on to make the sport more acceptable. Whip Enthusiasts wants to create an international standard for the names of the cracks. At the moment, one whip throw can have four or five different names depending on what country or region you live in, says Sebastian. Some people call the forward loop, for instance, the circus crack or the gypsy.

Whip competitions also need to become more common, says Sebastian. At these events, competitors show their whip speed and accuracy by cutting a piece off an 8-ounce, 5-ounce, or 2-ounce Styrofoam cup, or by cutting the cup in half. Technical and free-form whip-cracking skills are also tested. Whip Enthusiasts' largest US competition is held in Dallas in October. The Oklahoma chapter had a competition last month. The organization's goal is to establish regional contests and ultimately national ones.

Sebastian's next move is to try to capture the attention of ESPN and lobby for television coverage. Far-fetched? Perhaps, but consider this: You can now watch dodge ball matches on the Game Show Network. If that maligned sport is capable of reaching extreme-sport status, can whip-cracking be far behind?

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.