Word: quaded
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Acrobats have been trying to catch the quad since 1897, when, according to many accounts, European Aerialist Lena Jordan first did the triple somersault. The triple is now performed regularly, but it is still an accomplishment reserved for the very best aerialists. Yet Miguel, 17, who represents the fifth generation of a family of Mexican circus performers, was able to do the triple when he was 13. He spun so fast and flew so high that he was urged to go for four...
...there is more to a quad than another flipflop. When a flyer is traveling through the air at 80 m.p.h., reaction time is measured in milli seconds. "If it's a triple somersault, Mi guel can feel if he's going too fast," explains Juan, 32. "He can relax and slow down. If he's going too slowly, he can tuck up tighter and complete the third somer sault faster." The quadruple, by contrast, allows no such mid-course adjustment; once the flyer has released the bar and tucked himself up for the first of four turns...
...addition to all the exercise, the brothers practice their act three times a week, trying to do the quad ten or 15 times each session. Most of the attempts are recorded on video tape, and when the acrobats are through, they watch what they have just done. Like football players after the game, they study their movements so that they can detect split-second errors in timing. They actually have six practice quads on tape, but the only stunts that are officially counted are those before a paying audience...
...Vazquezes plan to continue to do the quad, but Juan acknowledges that they may be able to do it only 40% of the time; success depends on an almost mystical factor that they refer to as "the feel of the rigging." The rigging is the 33-ft.-tall metal frame from which they work; sometimes it feels solid and sometimes it does not. Cold weather can ruin a performance. Says Juan: "Your body just doesn't want to move the way you want it to" Even the color of the ceiling can affect results. A black ceiling can cause...
What comes next? Probably the quad and a half. The quintuple somersault, Juan believes, is at least 15 years away. Since a flyer does not usually retire until he is 40, Miguel might be the man to do it. But before that happens, he may leave the field, and the air, to other daring young men on flying trapezes. He says he has another ambition: to come down to earth and play drums and guitar in a rock band...