Keep Spinning

August 2, 2013 9:45 AM

100 Days in the Cyr Wheel
posted by 256 (13 comments total)

For whatever reason I always thought those would be pretty easy to spin around on, but watching him in the first 15-25 days reveals that he seems to be a pretty athletic guy, and that like most things, it's a lot harder than it looks.

I kept wanting him to just hold on and do the thing where you spin over onto your hands, but he kept popping out too soon. I guess that's the scary part. I suck at cartwheels, and I wonder how it feels compared to that.

I would love to give this a try. Once he got a wheel that fit him properly he seemed to get a lot better. I also really liked how he could spin in place, in a very small room, towards the end. I wonder how easy it would be to do a short commute on these things. Could you wobble for a mile in a bike lane?
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 9:59 AM on August 2, 2013

Will we soon be seeing video from the downhill version?
posted by fredludd at 10:16 AM on August 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

*insert advice animal here*

THE POTENTIAL FOR BUSTED FACE IS TOO DAMN HIGH
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:23 AM on August 2, 2013

... and I can't help but imagine the drunken, stumbling foot chase that would have occurred if someone had snatched his camera and ran. Because I'm a pessimist at heart and all that.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:28 AM on August 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

That's really cool, but I would like to know how his fingers don't get squished.
posted by dabug at 10:28 AM on August 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

(barfs sympathetically)
posted by ssmug at 10:50 AM on August 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

I was wondering that too, about the fingers--looks like he opens his hands briefly every time one nears the ground. I can only imagine how many squished digits are involved in learning that.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:53 AM on August 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

Don't some of these have handles on the inside to avoid just that? I seem to remember something like that from a Cirque du Soleil show.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:55 AM on August 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

The fact that as soon as I saw the wheel I thought

Wow, that is so silly...
I must try this

reveals a lot about me.
posted by Strass at 11:02 AM on August 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Did it drive anyone else nuts that he was only spinning in one direction the whole time? As a long-time hooper I can tell you, it makes every trick easier to do ambidextrously if you learn it in both directions from the beginning.

Fantastic video, though; it was great to see his very real progress.
posted by fiercecupcake at 3:09 PM on August 2, 2013

gottabefunky: "I was wondering that too, about the fingers--looks like he opens his hands briefly every time one nears the ground. I can only imagine how many squished digits are involved in learning that."

I briefly knew somebody who did this. Indeed, he would open each hand, and sort of do a cartwheel with wheel between his palm and the ring.

Also, it is apparently pretty rare to actually break any fingers doing this, because the ring itself isn't that heavy without the weight of the performer, so one can always just fall out of the ring.
posted by d. z. wang at 9:25 PM on August 2, 2013

Very cool video! But in the back of my head I kept hearing: so no one plays basketball or tennis in NYC anymore?
posted by HappyHippo at 12:58 PM on August 3, 2013

Acrojou, Dust
posted by homunculus at 2:33 PM on August 4, 2013