Drills with whips (oh my!)

I like whips, I like Indiana Jones and
I like Lego. Everyone wins!!

I really like whips. They're fun, and when they're done right they are so super effective. We did some whip drills the other night--well, except for me, because of my stupid shoulder, but I did learn a lot about whip theory.

(Note that this is about drills with forward arm whips. Backwards whips and leg whips are cool too, but I don't know how much of this translates into backwards or leg whipping, although I guess with backwards whipping your left arm is more important since that would be the arm closest to the outside.)

Firstly, the basics on giving a whip. To properly give a whip, you really have to use as much force/momentum (bleh, I'm not a physicist) as possible. This means that you have your arm back, not sticking out perpendicular to you, and then you really fling them. Try not to dislocate your shoulder doing this one. Also, it really helps to stay low with this, because the force transfer will sometimes knock you on your ass if you're standing tall. (In another story, that's how I fell backwards onto my head and got my concussion...)

Whipping also is most likely going to happen with your outside arm. Why? Well, when you whip with your outside (right) arm, it makes an arc which very conveniently follows the direction of the track. Whipping with your inside (left) arm would usually propel your whippee(??) towards the outside of the track, which isn't usually where you want them to go. However, you can do short inside arm whips coming out of the turn or on the straightaways for quick bursts of speed.

There are two types of whip, according to Mindi: there's the "outside arm whip" and then "across your body" whip. I'm not sure if they have more technical names. The usual kind of whip is the outside arm whip, where you have someone grabbing your outside arm and you fling them forwards. When you whip, try to do a low-to-high movement, like if you were bowling or something like that. Since you can either whip in a straight line (down a straightaway) or in an arc (for the turns), this is handy for getting around other blockers.

The "across your body" whip seems to be where you whip someone from one side of your body to the other. I'm not exactly sure how this works, but Mindi described it kind of like throwing a frisbee. It sounds like you take your right arm and cross it over your body and then whip outwards. I'm not sure 1) how that's (directionally) different from a left/inside arm normal whip and 2) how you do that without spinning around and falling over. Again, here, the low-to-high whip direction thingy helps. Otherwise, you're throwing your whippee pretty much to the outside track and into the ground. Bleh. This is a good one for giving a burst of speed.

Another thing to remember once you've given a whip is to hustle! You'll have expended all your energy in giving the whip, so you'll have to catch back up to the rest of the pack, if you want to do anything else (e.g. help your teammates block or whatever).

And then try not to die.

Receiving a whip also has a technique. I'm not a huge fan of hand holding during whips, partially because people tend to have sweaty, clammy hands, and also because hand holding can lead to whip release at weird/inordinate times if your fingers get stuck together (or the velcro on your wrist guards...). Instead, grab your whipper's wrist with both arms (to help with stability) and then let her do the work propelling you. Note that I said wrist, and not elbows or upper arms or something. Trying to whip someone who is grabbing your elbow takes 100% of the effort with only 50% of the results or something. It's like in physics: the longer the distance between the weight and the base is (think like a long pendulum or a flail or something), the more force you can get.

Also, remember to skate out of the whip. There's no point in your whipper expending all her energy if you're just going to coast once you get whipped. The whole point is for you to gain additional speed, so don't waste it just by relying on that. Of course, if you need to coast a few feet while you keep stability then that's okay.

One way to practice this is the monkey bars drill: ever see a monkey go across monkey bars? They use both their arms and alternate transferring their momentum from one arm to the other. This is pretty similar, although you're getting propelled at each "bar". Basically, you start with a weaving pace line but the person going through does so by receiving whips from the other members of the pace line. You have to keep the pace line going pretty quickly to do this drill, and space people out a bit more than normal (so they don't get thrown into the person in front of them) but it is pretty effective when it is done. Well, at the very least, it looks mega fun. Curse my stupid wrecked shoulder, argh!