photo from Wikipedia

When you throw a ball into the air, the force of gravity immediately acts on the ball, from the time the ball leaves your hand. So, the ball travels upward for a bit and then it stops, reverses, and heads back to Earth. (I would love some physics feedback on this one.)

When the ball stops in mid-air, it is essentially weightless for a moment. If the ball had an artistic mind of its own, it could manipulate the mid-air moment, and perform a gymnastic trick, sort of cheating gravity. This is my understanding of the “art of displacement.”

Aside from Cirque du Soliel, the ‘Coolest guy in the World’ manipulates the force of gravity better than anything I have ever seen. He combines martial art discipline with artistic expression. The result: at one point in the video, he appears to walk on water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj4bnixtQfM

He also uses war fans in this particular video. Japanese war fans, works of art themselves, were designed for signaling use in warfare, and were either real, made of decorated paper with wood ribs, or solid.

This is the Coolest Guy in the World’s third video. In his second video, perhaps my favorite, he uses a scarf and a sword (among other things). These are also warfare tactics. With the red scarf, he creates a distraction such that an onlooker misses the sword altogether.

Here is his second video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV9-AKrZqdU

And, a link to his first video, in case you are mesmerized. He is in Seattle; you can see the Space Needle here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXLtNtnU9Mg&playnext=1&list=PL8B7D05D26E343F74

He makes it look so easy!

References:

Information on Parkour, or “free running” and the art of displacement:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_Displacement

Wikipedia discussion of Japanese war fan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_fan