Nijinsky could "slow vault", which means he could leap gracefully in the air and descend to earth slower than he went up the way
Sadly, this cannot happen. Suppose he was considered to be leaping in a convex parabola, and was represented by a single spot of light.
He (or the light) would
decelerate at 9.81 metres / (second^2)) until it reached the apogee of of the parabola and slowed to a notional stop, then ac
celerate again as a function of the gravitational constant.
However, importantly, Nijinsky was
not a homogeneous spot of light. Conceivably, as he descended, it is possibly that rather than
lengthening his legs, and bracing for impact, I imagine that he might have been able to bend his leg-joints, and therefore foreshorten his legs overall.
This would mean that there would be a fractional increase in the time taken for his feet to hit the floor, thus adding to the impression that he was gliding down.
On a similar basis, we're maybe imagining him as a 2-dimensional jumping mannikin. This is unrealistic, because again leg-length (and hence foot-in-flight time) can be shorted by bending the legs
outwards during a downwards movements, again the precise reverse of what would be the biomechanical instinct. His musculature, and learnt autocontrol,
could have become attuned to conveying this illusory effect.
To some extent, I'm attempting to disassemble graceful ballet via prose-based physics, but hopefully I'm explaining what I mean sufficiently-clearly.
