Acrobatics is the performance of human feats of balance, agility, and motor coordination. Acrobatic skills are used in performing arts, sporting events, and martial arts. Extensive use of acrobatic skills are most often performed in acro dance, circus, gymnastics, and freerunning and to a lesser extent in other athletic activities including ballet, slacklining and diving. Although acrobatics is most commonly associated with human body performance, the term is used to describe other types of performance, such as aerobatics.
Glossary of climbing terms relates to rock climbing, mountaineering, and to ice climbing.
Tightrope walking, also called funambulism, is the skill of walking along a thin wire or rope. It has a long tradition in various countries and is commonly associated with the circus. Other skills similar to tightrope walking include slack rope walking and slacklining.
Belaying is a variety of techniques climbers use to create friction within a climbing system, particularly on a climbing rope, so that a falling climber does not fall very far. A climbing partner typically applies tension at the other end of the rope whenever the climber is not moving, and removes the tension from the rope whenever the climber needs more rope to continue climbing.
Animal locomotion on the surface layer of water is the study of animal locomotion in the case of small animals that live on the surface layer of water, relying on surface tension to stay afloat.
Charles Blondin was a French tightrope walker and acrobat. He toured the United States and was known for crossing the 1,100 ft (340 m) Niagara Gorge on a tightrope.
A simple suspension bridge is a primitive type of bridge in which the deck of the bridge lies on two parallel load-bearing cables that are anchored at either end. They have no towers or piers. The cables follow a shallow downward catenary arc which moves in response to dynamic loads on the bridge deck.
Philippe Petit is a French highwire artist who gained fame for his unauthorized highwire walks between the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1971 and of Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1973, as well as between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on the morning of 7 August 1974. For his unauthorized feat 400 metres above the ground – which he referred to as "le coup" – Petit had gathered together a team consisting of two of his closest, childhood friends from France joined by four recruited Americans plus a seventh comrade of Petit's. The group spent many months collaborating in detailed preparation, travelling to the World Trade Center multiple times, building an "outdoor" scale model of the roofs of both buildings, brainstorming and theorizing ways to bi-pass security, how to transport the hundreds of pounds of necessary materials from the street level up 104 stairs, and subsequently rigging the wire Petit would ultimately need for his walk. In spite of multiple obstacles, and a re-scheduling from an earlier date in May of that same year, Petit and his team successfully secured the placement of his rigging; a 200-kilogram (440-pound) custom-made "walking wire", two "cavaletti" guide wires, plus a 8-metre (30-foot) long, 25-kilogram (55-pound) balancing pole. Despite NYPD intervening, Petit performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire. The act was considered to be not only an incredible performance of acrobatic skill and artistry, but perhaps even moreso, an ingenious feat of modern day engineering. Upon completing his 45 minute, eight pass walk, Petit and Heckel were both arrested, charged with the crimes of Trespassing and Disorderly Persons, and forced to submit to psychiatric evaluations before being released. Petit's charges were ultimately dismissed after he agreed to perform on camera before a small group of children. Heckel was subsequently expelled from the United States. Petit would later be issued a "Lifetime Pass" granting him free admission to the WTC Observation Deck. Petit's wire-walk earned him a Guinness Book of Records for the highest wire-crossing without the use of a net or other type of safety tether, 1350' above ground. .
A Prusik is a friction hitch or knot used to attach a loop of cord around a rope, applied in climbing, canyoneering, mountaineering, caving, rope rescue, ziplining, and by arborists. The term Prusik is a name for both the loops of cord used to tie the hitch and the hitch itself, and the verb is "to prusik" or "prusiking". More casually, the term is used for any friction hitch or device that can grab a rope. Due to the pronunciation, the word is often misspelled Prussik, Prussick, or Prussic.
A Tyrolean traverse is a method of crossing through free space between two high points on a rope without a hanging cart or cart equivalent. This is used in a range of mountaineering activities: rock climbing, technical tree climbing, caving, water crossings and mountain rescue. A zip-line is in essence a Tyrolean traverse which is traveled down quickly with the assistance of gravity. Several sources claim that the name comes from the Tyrolean Alps, where climbers are said to have developed the system in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Nikolas Wallenda is an American acrobat, aerialist, daredevil, high wire artist, and author. He is known for his high-wire performances without a safety net. He holds 11 Guinness World Records for various acrobatic feats, and is best known as the first person to walk a tightrope stretched directly over Niagara Falls. Wallenda walked 1,800 feet (550 m) on a steel cable over Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua, his longest walk, on March 4, 2020.
Lost Arrow Spire is a detached pillar in Yosemite National Park, in Yosemite Valley, California, located immediately adjacent to Upper Yosemite Falls. The structure includes the Lost Arrow Spire Chimney route which is recognized in the historic climbing text Fifty Classic Climbs of North America. The spire is the location for a dramatic Tyrolean traverse, which has since become an iconic slackline.
Andy Lewis, is a professional stunt and safety coordinator, and extreme sports athlete, and particularly slacklining.
Slackwire is an acrobatic circus act that involves the balancing skills of moving along a flexible, thin wire suspended in the air, connected to two anchor points. Slackwire is not to be confused with slacklining.
Scorpion pose or Vrischikasana is an inverted asana in modern yoga as exercise that combines a forearm balance and backbend; the variant with hands rather than forearms on the floor, elbows bent, is called Ganda Bherundasana. Light on Yoga treats both forearm and hand balance forms as variants of this pose. It is a part of the headstand cycle in some yoga traditions.
The Urban Highline Festival is a worldwide biggest urban highline event held annually in Lublin, Poland. The oldest and largest official rally of slackliners and highliners in Poland organised in last days of July in parallel to Carnaval Sztukmistrzów in Old Town of Lublin. The Urban Highline Festival 2019 had more than 300 highliners from all around the World. in 1996 Der Spiegel Raise mentioned Festival as one of the top 10 highline festivals in the world.
Friedrich Paul Kühne is a German slackliner and multiple highline world record holder best known for numerous first free solo crossings of some of the world's tallest and most renowned highlines. He is also credited with the invention of various acrobatic highline tricks.
Alexander Helmut Schulz is a German professional tightrope walker, multiple highline world record holder, and keynote speaker. Schulz is internationally known for pioneering the first walks of several slacklines and world records at extraordinary locations. In his most dangerous project to date, "LavaLine", he crossed the active volcano Mount Yasur on a highline in April 2020 on the South Sea island of Tanna, Vanuatu.
Rope-dancing is the general art and act of performing on or with a rope.
