I remember the first time I saw an Olympic level trampoline routine. I've been doing flips for a long time, but the first time you see someone do that many flips and that many twists, I don't care who you are it's hard to count! Only after watching many more routines, becoming familiar with trampolining technique and actually learning some bigger moves does it become easier to identify what that blazing whirlwind of arms and legs actually was.

This is a great video to watch to get a start on that process. Here, Samantha Sendel (at 16 yrs old!?) performs 40 different variations of triples on a supertramp, complete with a skill name to go with each clip. Really amazing stuff.

Bonus: a quadriffus and some choice crashes at the end.



What I wouldn't give to be able to train on that monster...



Lewie West never fails to impress. He combines tumbling, tricking and bboy moves seamlessly into his own incredibly unique style. He makes the tumbling look a little more raw, the tricking and bboying a little more polished, and just utterly controls his directions with brilliant transitions! (Back handspring into swipes! Bailed aerial to bboy cork! Who thinks of this stuff!)

His progression is very apparent. He's put out a few videos like this all at Circa training centre in Australia and each one gets a little better. His lines keep improving, his gymnastic tumbling is getting higher (double full in this video is finally looking solid!) and it's really exciting to see him develop. I'm so enthusiastic to see him take it to the performance realm where it can hopefully coagulate into something where he can take his creativity and originality and turn it into something beautiful.



A lot of trickers will put out "teasers" which are actually just short samplers. Often they don't even lead to anything.

This here video is a TEASER. I've never even heard of this guy and I can't wait for the conclusion of all of these clips.



From Cirque de Demain 2007? A unicycle and bicycle on a round trampoline. They are quite entertaining characters - a charming mismatch just as bizarre as the combination of their apparatuses.

The back drop on the bike has to be the coolest looking move in the act, even though they do much harder skills. I love how he springs back up from it without breaking his rider's pose.

The bike spin and face at 2:30 bring to mind Elvis Mokko!



John Vanek is ridiculous. Rudy is just as nuts. Put them together at Epic gathering, which I so idiotically miss, and this happens. Double back over a (round off to) double full. Keep it up, you insane, ridiculous people. I'll catch you at a gathering sometime soon!

(Remember when Neil ran under Vaughnya's double cork at LoopkAcks? I think this wins!)



Waaaaahhhhhh wow wow wow. Had me from the very start with the backhandspring mount.

China continues to be the best at everything except for styling.



B-boy power moves are incredible. They're such simple shapes carried by incredibly complex patterns of momentum that boggle the mind. Taking it down to super slow motion makes it easy to appreciate these moves for how amazing they really are.

Awesome faces too. I often wonder what kind of grimaces I'm making through a double layout.


Good ones, I hope.



Full in half out, triple full, and triffus all to two high. Then, triple full to three high. These are probably some of the craziest things I have ever seen occur on a trampoline. That's saying something.

And they do it all with big hair.



My relationship with tricking has changed a lot since I started. For most people who do it, it's an extreme sport where the goal is to the most difficult and creative tricks and kicks. Since I've decided to pursue performing, it's become less important to be the best tricker and more important to do good looking tricks. Coming from a gymnastics background, I try to do my corkscrews with locked knees and pointed toes as much as I can. I think it makes it easier for general audiences to appreciate a skill if it is done with form - with the intention of having it look presentable regardless of its difficulty. Most trickers seem to be doing it for other trickers who can objectively identify skills, making classical form less important.

So for a person like Tim Man, a professional stunt actor, you can tell that he wants everything he does to be performed with poise and polish. Instead of landing a combo and walking off looking at the floor, it's a point for him to land in a fighting stance. His flexibility allows him incredible extension for all of his kicks, making it easy to communicate exactly when and where he is kicking.

My favorite part is the bit on the punching bag: training to attack with realism while still looking visually intricate. Extra badass points for letting the hair down.

If you like what you see, you must see him in action in this. A "cover fight" if you will of a scene from the Jackie Chan film Gorgeous. He also makes appearances in the critically panned Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li as well as Tony Jaa's Ong Bak 2.



Dedicated to Rich who is training chairs for Cirque Eloize's iD. Directed and filmed by Diego, silk waving by Adam!



Skip to 4:50 to see the biggest trapeze layout EVER.

Throws between catcher and top catcher look terrifying. Don't even get me started on the russian swing to catcher.



In a world with so many acro duos doing adagio, it's really awesome to see an act made completely out of kinetic skills instead of poses. The lever pitches are especially cool. The over the shoulder forward full twist doesn't even look right that it's so high.



Why do other countries get TV broadcasts of Monte Carlo? I'd be so much more jealous if cinacontortion didn't post heaps of videos of it from Chinese TV.

Though it's not convincingly funny all the way through, I love the retracting glove gag. There are some tandem flips I've never seen like three-person shoulder to shoulder and two-man front/back. Very neat surprise ending too!



saltocafe is probably one of my favorite YouTube channels: a constant stream of excellent gymnastics and gymnastic-related clips. This video came out beside a compilation of UB dismounts both from the 2010 JO Nationals. There are some enormous Tkatchevs in there; I bet they could stretch them out into Hechts if they wanted to.

34 wins in my book.

Also from saltocafe, this clip made me laugh pretty hard.He could choreograph women's floor routines with those moves.



I've been into slacklining since I saw the ISPO 2009 video and decided that it was something I wanted to participate in.

If you've never heard of it, a slackline is a thin piece of webbing tied between two anchors for funambulism. The line isn't actually slack like a slack wire, but I guess it gets its name from the dipping when stood upon - very unlike a tight wire. The flexibility of most lines give them a trampoline-like quality, but they also have the unique challenges of rapid sideways swinging (unlike the controlled side to side of a slack wire) and line torsion (the tendency for the line to twist on itself under pressure). Invented by bored rock climbers years ago, it's evolved into a conduit for rad tricks, but has yet to be embraced as a performance apparatus. Probably because it's really, really hard.

That's why people like Cihan Calis blow my mind. While I'm struggling to walk on the damn thing, he's BREAKING on it. With one hand down, he manages loads of bboy inspired threads and footwork - a completely unique style in any equilibristic art. Not to mention landing a back flips back on the line.

Obviously it's not a live performance but a collection of hit tricks and combos. I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually perform on a slackline. You're dealing with a lot of variables that I guess are easier to control on other types of wire, so although you might be able to hit a trick one time it's not easy to make it consistent enough to perform it with any kind of regularity. Who knows, though, I could be wrong. If Li Wei can swing on a slack wire in a one arm handstand then I reckon anything is possible.

Cihan is using a Gibbon Jibline, a completely affordable and incredibly easy setup that I would recommend to anyone trying to get into this.

For more Cihan, see his YouTube page here.

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