Whip Cracking
learn to master the sport of cracking and manipulating a whip!
Introducing Ridgeway Adventures’ newest activity for 2024: sport whip cracking! The perfect activity for those looking for something a bit different, quirky or unusual! Join us on for our whip-workshops.
Learn to crack, target and grip with a whip!
You heard right! Learn to master the ancient art of whip cracking, from breaking the sound barrier to hitting targets, you’ll be a regular Indiana Jones in no time! Join us as the first UK indoor activity centre to offer regular whip cracking workshops. In TV and Film whips have inspired westerns as well as iconic action heroes like Zorro, Catwoman, and Indiana Jones. Now is your opportunity to crack the whip and learn those heroic skills! Let’s get cracking!
Each session will begin with a full safety briefing from an instructor, whip cracking is not for the feint of heart, the sound of learning to crack a whip is ‘ouch’ wide brimmed hats and protective glasses will be provided for eye and ear protection, as well as optional ear plugs to protect your hearing.
Whip cracking as an activity is the practise of handling and controlling a whip with the aim of producing a crack as well as target whipping, hitting various objects and targets, as well as disarming and grip skills. In these action packed workshops you will learn to break the sound barrier with a whip, to produce a micro-sonic boom! Workshops will go over the basics of whip mechanics and beginners cracks, the cattleman’s crack, and the back crack (reverse cattleman’s). The second half of the session will focus on target whipping with some fun target challenges.
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What do I need for a whip cracking session?
Please do bear in mind before booking: beginners whip cracking session will involve an element of pain. We recommend long sleeves, enclosed trousers, no short sleeved shirts and shorts, layers will help to take the force out of any unintended contact with whips. Shoes must be fully enclosed, no flip flops or sandals. If you have a low tolerance for pain we can’t recommend taking part, being ‘kissed’ by a whip is like a light caning or a stinging slap. Hence sessions are 16+ only. Whilst whip cracking is very fun, participants must be prepared for some small amounts of pain (much as with other adventure activities like paintball and archery tag)
Sessions are designed for whip cracking novices, for groups of up to 6 people, all must be 16+ years to participate. These sessions are designed to introduce beginners to controlling and cracking a whip, the sport of whipcracking, the aim is to not hit yourself.
The whip is the oldest human invention to break the sound barrier. Whips are a very old human invention, they have historically been used as agricultural tools for controlling cattle and horses, in coach and horse travel, as well as their darker history in corporal punishment, In the last 100 years whip cracking was adopted in circus acts as a performance art typically as part of a lion taming ringmaster act.
Whip cracking in the last 20 years has been on the increase as a sport designed to preserve and celebrate local agricultural traditions in rural communities from Bavarian Aperschnalzen, where whips are used to clear away the snow and scare off evil spirits, to traditions in America and Australia. In recent years the rise of famous whip crackers Adam Winrich and Jacques Ze Whipper on social media has lead to a huge uptake in the sport.