The Thundering Art Revisited

"Human intellect is incurably abstract."

So wrote the scholar and theologian C.S. Lewis. This is the "great divorce," the defining irony of human existence. We can think, we can use signs and symbols to illustrate the thoughts, and we can often do so to great effect. The only problem is, the more we do this, the further away we get from the very reality we're trying to describe.

In other words, we have the actual experience on one side, and the abstracting language and thought that attempts to capture said experience on the other. No one wants to stroll into a restaurant and eat a menu, and yet menus themselves can be extremely helpful if used properly.

The same could be said about books written concerning the art of whipcraft. First and foremost, everyone wants the tangible experience of cracking a bullwhip up close and personal. They want to feel the braided plaits in their hands, smell the aroma of the leather, and finally hear a crack break the sound barrier and erupt across the landscape. Nothing abstract there.

But with an art as demanding, precise, and potentially dangerous as whipcraft, sometimes an expertly written guide is necessary. Happily, Robert Dante is there to fill such a void. As a three time World Record breaker as well as professional performer, he is in an excellent position to write one of the first bullwhip bibles, and that's precisely what he did.

Let's Get Cracking: The How-To Book of Bullwhip Skills is an excellent treatise that offers something to beginner and expert alike, covers practically every aspect of whipcraft and, best of all, provides something of a philosophical backdrop to support the whole thing.

There are so many fascinating little tidbits to know and learn about whip-cracking. For instance, the fact that a popper really is going over nine hundred miles an hour with a strong crack is certainly of interest to just about everyone. Dante has many bits of information like that, and he cheerfully shares them all. In point of fact, we even get a short dissertation on Newtonian physics before all is said and done.

Not even including the cracks themselves, Dante likewise provides a wealth of information on all the basics of the art. This includes great tips on how to select and work with a whip maker, not to mention how to maintain the integrity of your whip once you have one. He also takes readers by the hand and explains the sometimes confusing lexicon of whipcraft, specifically regarding how different cracks are known by different names in different countries. The anatomy of a well-braided whip is beautifully laid out for us, as well as safety tips that should guide us successfully from out first attempt at whip cracking to our last.

This book reminds us that life is a show, and that the bullwhip artist can be one of the leading magicians. That is the basic "feel" of the book, a sense of the residual magic of the stage sprinkled across all the pages. It guides us through various simple tricks all the way up to the more complex routines or "flashes." If anyone has ever been interested in whipcraft as a performance art, this book explores all of it, from target-cutting to self-wraps to what basically amounts to a kind of bullwhip-ballet.

From start to finish, Let's Get Cracking is imbued with a sense of what Dante calls "Dancing on the Edge." It is what he and his daring partner Tina do for a living, and its practically palpable in the prose. And in the pictures too, which are every bit as good. Whipcraft photography could probably merit its own book, actually.

As for me personally, it has inspired me to save up for something better than my usual latigo leather bullwhips. Techniques Dante offers up like "pausing the crack" and "squeezing the trigger" do make a difference, even with a swivel handle whip. Dante does criticize this type, and though I had a good time running about pretending to be Indiana Jones as a kid with one in hand, I agree that they definitely do have their shortcomings.

And I certainly want to eventually try out his technique for making my own poppers.

Still, I personally am a writer, not a bullwhip artist, so my internal editor is always flipped in the "on" position. The only thing keeping this review from being five out of five stars is the simple fact that an extra proofreading or two would have greatly benefited the whole book. Okay, maybe living with a grammarian influenced my reading, but the book is scattered with typos and comma splices and probably other things most people wouldn't notice. While I know corrections are being made for hopefully the next edition, having an editor pick through it probably wouldn't have been a bad idea.

And also, there is a quote about how can we tell the dancer from the dance that is contributed to T.S. Eliot which actually belongs to William Butler Yeats. Yes, maybe I'm just trying to get some actual use out of my English degree, but I caught it right out.

On the other, considerably more important hand, the quote so perfectly captures the beautiful unity of it all, who can hold that slip against anyone? Indeed, who can tell the whip artisan from the whip? And therein lies the true appeal of the book, that thing that makes it unique, as well as why it warrants (and apparently has received) a warm reception in the enthusiast community.

Honestly, how many authors writing about bullwhips are going to be quoting Eliot or Yeats anyway? It delighted me to learn that Dante is a poet himself, and apparently knew Allen Ginsberg. It delighted me, but it didn't exactly surprise me. While my knowledge and skill in the bullwhipping arts are still practically non-existent, I recognized the poetry in it immediately.

At least when I got back into it about a year ago, anyway.

One of the great things about any kind of bullwhip performance is the rhythm of it. In the hands of a master, the beat and cadence is unmistakable, like an ode being written in the air. A genuinely talented individual can conduct a symphony orchestra with a whip, and that's almost what Dante is doing on the cover of the book.

But best of all, Let's Get Cracking explores not only how to get into whipcraft, but also why people do so. Yes, this is also a book of philosophy. It contains quaint little colloquialisms like how important it is to "ride the horse in the direction it's going." True enough, but it also equates whip cracking with life itself, recognizing the need to sometimes just allow something to happen, as opposed to simply bullying it into happening.

Dante advises us, "It's a matter of form, not force. You don't make the whip crack, you let it crack." There is no real need for muscle or effort - in point of fact, those things cause us to trip over our own feet more often than not. Or at least to stress ourselves as well as our whips. All that's needed is to be able to set the ego aside and then allow the universe to do its thing. This is as true in whipcraft as it is in Tai Chi or Yoga, which is also mentioned in the book.

And perhaps what's even more important is that - in practice - whip cracking does begin to bring us back to concrete reality, back to a world we can see and smell and taste and touch. And that's so simple its alarmingly difficult nowadays. Furthermore, there's nothing on earth or heaven above that's quite so truthful as a speeding bullwhip.

As Dante says, "trust the whip. It does not lie. It can't." In other words, whip popping is direct, immediate, and is about as non-conceptual as it gets. It may be philosophical, but not the kind of philosophy that leads you into a world of words and ideas with no solidity to them. Like the slap in the face the Zen master sometimes gives, it's all about snapping you back into the moment, into the now.

And if you aren't totally there in your practice, you're probably going to be sporting a nasty red welt the next day.

This is what Dante calls "bullwhip truth," and intriguingly, this is why he recommends cracking with the hand that you don't usually use. And he recommends it very well -

"Intellectualizing can get in your way ... when you use your recessive hand, you will be more likely to not think, since you will focus on how it actually feels. You are more in reality, less likely to compare what's happening with how you think it 'ought' to be. You get into the moment, into the body. You become a dancer, a child - in short, you become teachable."

Admittedly, the literary itch to spin off a zinger about Zen and the art of the whip is intense right about now. But the thing is, Dante really gets it. As warm, witty, and western as Let's Get Cracking is, it also very much has the flavor, the mysterious taste, of the Far East.

Not long ago, I delved into another book called The Unfettered Mind. Written by Takuan Soho, it is a collection of advice from a Zen master to a sword one. While it may not have anything overtly to do with whipcraft, on the flip side, it has everything to do with it. Its wisdom is at once simple and profound, vague and precise, otherworldly yet perfectly natural. Like Dante's work, it seeks to cultivate the spontaneous perfection of the body, while simultaneously breeding the soothing calmness of the mind. Or better yet, wu-shin, the no-mind.

Different time, different art, different cultures, but the same philosophy. A finely crafted bullwhip has as much personality as an expertly made sword, and there's simply nothing to do about it. They each create their own music, and effortlessly weave together the spiritual and the physical. The spirit of the whip braider lives on in the whip every bit as much as the spirit of the swordsmith lives on in the sword, and I'm sure if you put someone like Takuan Soho in the same room with someone like Robert Dante, they could certainly speak on equal terms.

In short, whipcraft deserves to become a highly refined, widely practiced, and well-respected art form, and this book very much points the way.
As Dante himself eloquently puts it -

"Throwing a whip gracefully, powerfully and efficiently is not merely a mechanical activity. Throwing a whip correctly requires clarity, clear purpose.

"The trajectory of the whip is truth. It is as precise as a knife blade, as exact as a scalpel, narrow as a tightrope, even as you hold one end in the air yourself. A whip is a ribbon of road into the universe.

"It is lightning brought to earth, it is divine fire placed in the hands of men. It is the speed of thought, the reach of possibility, the danger of dancing along death's icy brink. The area which lies within the arc of a whip is sacred space. What moves within is real; what lies without is a dream, a shimmering surface reflection.

"Each crack is a jewel, a nova glint of star flash, that flare in the eye of one who loves profoundly the gleam of the knife point flying toward the breathless magician's assistant waiting against the bullseye of the target."

Words like that may not be able to literally bridge the gap between the abstract and the concrete, but on the other hand, they get so close you can't really hold it against them. Of course, that's what poetry is really all about.

And with that, I respectfully bow to the master, and leave with a cracking salute.