Hand over hand climb

From Silkworms

hand over hand climb:

this is the climb people usually immediately associate with climbing a rope. a useful technique point is to only try to pull up when both hands are on the fabric.

if you've learned to do a basic stand or some other such rest position, then you can at least take breaks when your arms get tired. but stylistically, if you're doing that you might as well be actually doing the basic climb, which is much easier. the hand over hand climb can be very fast, but frequently it's just used to show off strength, and so the legs will be styled in some way that a) is attractive, and b) makes it clear they're not being used at all, such as a piked straddle (as in the photo at left) or an l sit. for the latter, i like the effect (i don't remember where i first saw this) of letting the tail pile up in my lap as i climb, then straddling at the top to let the tail dramatically fall.

keywords: hand over hand climbs

links: the seattle circus wiki] calls the styled version a "pike climb" and describes it here: http://www.byz.org/cgi-bin/SeattleCircusWiki?PikeClimb