7. Long swings or giant swings, forwards and backwards. This is a series of rapid somersaults round the bar, executed with extended arms. At times they are so rapid that the body describes a succession of circles round the bar, like the arms of a windmill.
8. Hough swings. This exercise resembles the preceding one, but the bar is grasped below the kneecaps, without the assistance of the hands.
9. Hands and feet swings. This is performed backwards or forwards; the hands and feet are both placed on the bar, the hands outside, the feet inside.
This is a fairly complete list of the exercises of an amateur, but very few of them practise the whole series. They pause at the “upstarts,” and at once pass to the double bars or parallel bars, which possess the hygienic virtue of widely opening the chest and developing the biceps.
Circus gymnastics usually commence with the triple parallel bars. There are a few acrobats who perform with the single bar and a double “batoude,” but I have only seen one specialist with the parallel bars—Gustave de Penthièvre, who is rarely seen now in the hippodromes.
On the other hand, the triple parallel bars offer signal [p259] advantages for acrobats, through the opportunities they provide for numerous and very varied exercises. They enable several gymnasts to appear together, and thus give [p260] the artists breathing-time whilst their companions perform their share of the entertainment. These frequent intervals of rest are indispensable, on account of the exhaustion which follows the violent exertions of the gymnasts.
The series of acrobatics performed upon the fixed triple bars are called passes.
Amongst them you will find all the exercises of the single bar perfected, enlarged, and multiplied—the simple swings, demi-pirouette swings, swings on the feet, swings standing, vaulting acts, hands and feet swings, hough swings, somersault swings, heel swings. Sometimes the artist raises himself, sits on the first bar, opens his legs and profits by the impulse thus received to spring forward upon the other bar (vaulting act); sometimes he springs in recoiling, and then turns upon himself to catch the next bar facing him (swing upon the heel); but it must be understood that each acrobat has his particular acts which are combinations of these exercises suited to his dexterity and personal strength, and blended with various falls, somersaults backwards and forwards, double somersaults forwards, double reversed somersaults, etc., etc.
The fixed bar is also the best school of vaulting or flying.