Nijinsky's Slow Vaulting

[escargot]

Pfft, I've been working full-time as usual in a heavily weather-vulnerable industry AND been ill and, AND, taken photos of iced-up locations all over the country.

One of the eeriest sights was Milton Keynes Central station at evening rush hour, no commuters, just me, the platform staff with a shovel and sometimes a pigeon. The pigeon went home.

You haven't LIVED until the Indian security officer has ordered you, in impeccable English, to 'Go inside the waiting room, Madam! The weather is far too cold on the platform!'
I did as I was told.

One train came in with a broken carriage window on way from London to Carlisle. It'd normally carry on to Scotland but the lines and roads are blocked - no haggis today. The window was patched up there and then and the train went on its way.

 

[Ermintruder]

I know an actual, proper ballet dancer. I shall ask her when I see her in the week.

You must take the right steps to make a point of it.
And should she chance.
To ask.
For a dance.
Or make light of it.
Just stare askance
We've no time for pirouetting about the place.

EDIT

One train came in with a broken carriage window on way from London to Carlisle.

Remember real railway engines back in the the 1980s? Slide-down windows with leather pull-belts. Wooden doors and window-frames. Icicles in the toilets. Snow in the interconnecting bellows walkways. Guards' vans.

 

[stu neville]

I know an actual, proper ballet dancer. I shall ask her when I see her in the week.

There's a quote from the man himself:

I jump in the air; and then I pause.

According to my chum, it's akin to what Xanatic posted about basketball players - it's a combination of gymnastics, altering posture and shifting the centre of gravity at the top of the parabola. He would actually been rising and falling like everyone else but effectively camouflaged it. Takes years to perfect apparently.

 

[GNC]

That would have been a sight to see when he was in his prime. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[Fluttermoth]

I know nothing about dancing, but I watch show jumping, and I've always noticed that some horses, some times, seem to spend significantly longer in the air than others.

I've looked very closely, and I can't for the life of me work out what's going on! It's not that they're going faster, or jumping higher than the others; some horses just seem to be able slow down for a tiny fraction of a second, right at the top of the arc.

It's very cool to watch, however they're doing it

 

[Mythopoeika]

I know nothing about dancing, but I watch show jumping, and I've always noticed that some horses, some times, seem to spend significantly longer in the air than others.

I've looked very closely, and I can't for the life of me work out what's going on! It's not that they're going faster, or jumping higher than the others; some horses just seem to be able slow down for a tiny fraction of a second, right at the top of the arc.

It's very cool to watch, however they're doing it

Yes, I've seen that. It's amazing.

 

[AgProv]

Mentioned in passing in the current FT's Fortean Library section, apparently the ballet dancer Nijinsky could "slow vault", which means he could leap gracefully in the air and descend to earth slower than he went up the way. A web search reveals no mention of this anywhere, couldn't get a proper hit. iI'm no expert in ballet, so does anyone else know if it is possible? Have any other ballet dancers achieved it?

Might explain why he never dislodged Lerster Piggott even on the highest fences at Aintree.... oh, this is about the ballet dancer? Coilin Wilson referred to this in at least one of his brick-thick books on the paranormal, and he speculated something paranormal was going on - that Nijinsky, being in the peak of physical perfection, had somehow learnt to harness the putative "Faculty X" to his benefit. Wilson said he made a point of watching archive film of nijinsky and concluded something was going on here.

 

[onetwothree]

There's a particular section of Swan Lake where Prince Siegfried appears to be in the air longer than you'd reasonably expect.

 

[Indrid Drood]

Haven't been around here in a while, but this thread just came up in a websearch for slow vaulting + nijinsky, which I was looking up after reading this evening about the phenomenon in Michael Harrison's 1977 book on spontaneous human combustion, Fire from Heaven. Here are the pages where Harrison discusses Nijinsky and slow vaulting:

If anyone has any other reports on the phenomenon which they can share, it would be great to see them!

 

[GNC]

That's an excellent find, ID, just what I was asking about.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

I know an actual, proper ballet dancer. I shall ask her when I see her in the week.

Perhaps you could also ask her why, in order to prevent ballerinas having to go on tiptoes so much, ballet companies don't simply employ taller dancers?

(With thanks to Viz!).

 

[escargot]

I was most disappointed to discover this thread was about the dancer and not the horse.

A process of slow vaulting would explain lot about the success rate of my horses. A LOT.

 

[MrRING]

Searching for footage, I came across this weird attempt to use computer animation and photos of Nijinsky to create new performances: