The Bullwhip FAQ

Vintage whip cracking from the 1930s. Some of those wraps look a bit messy.

A nice demo of some basic moves (and a couple of advanced ones) from Adam Winrich.

If you have any questions about whips or whip cracking that are not answered in the FAQ, then feel free to leave a comment here or on the appropriate page.

Actor, fight director and stuntman Anthony De Longis is Hollywood’s leading whip expert.

Philip Shagun presents an amazing combination of bullwhip and martial arts moves. (Thanks to Robert Dante for this link.)

I’d like to feature some more videos here. Let’s start with this great portrait of Adam Winrich

If you have favorite whip videos, please leave a comment with the URL.

Vince Bruce, who died on September 24th this year, was one of the greatest whip and lariat artists of his generation. I saw him once performing at the Grand National Rodeo at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Before his show in the great arena he did a warm up act in the vendor area – basically a street show – with the audience standing in a circle around him. In his two whip routine, the cane in one of the bullwhips broke, completely changing the handling of the whip. he corrected automatically for this so successfully that I did not notice there was any problem till I went over to talk to him after the show and he showed me the broken whip. In his main act he entered the arena roman riding on his two horses (that is, standing with one foot on each horse) and did a circle while spinning a lariat in a huge flat loop around both horses.

My juggling friends may remember him from the International Jugglers’ Association Festival in 1996. He was a bit concerned about performing in the public show as he was not sure if jugglers would appreciate his act. In fact he brought the house down and got a standing ovation.

Here are links to his obituaries:
The Stage (UK)
New York Times

And of course, a video. The whip action starts at the one minute mark

I’m sometimes asked what is a good whip for a kid to learn with. First of all, it’s really important that kids wear eye protection when learning how to crack a whip. Read the rest of the safety guidelines as well, and make sure they are supervised at when they start out or if there are other kids around.

There are several shorter whips that work well for kids. You want something that is not too expensive and decent quality but will take some abuse. Greg DeSaye sells a 3 foot nylon snake whip, Aussie Whip Maker has a three foot stock whip, and most whip makers will be happy to custom make a shorter whip for a young whippersnapper. If you have any whip suggestions for young people please leave a comment below.