Safe use, maintenance and setup of Acrobatic Longe Lines (Lunge Lines)

Let's get our longe rigged up...

In the last blog post we discussed how to select and choose your equipment for the longe, and what parts you will generally need. If you missed that feel free to go back and check it out.

In this blog, we will look more at rigging it up, and how to safely use and check it.

Firstly for setting up a longe make sure there is enough height and space for the purposes of what you are doing.

For example, if you only need to do icarians then a ceiling height of around 4 - 4.5m might be the minimum viable height.

If you want to do standing dynamics it would need to be nearer 5 - 5.5m minimum.

If you want to do 3 highs a minimum height might be nearer to 6 - 6.5m, and same or higher for banquine (depending on how high the banquine will go.

These guidelines are to avoid flyers getting caught in the top horizontal line when flying skills, which goes without saying would be very bad and dangerous if it happens.

Next is the width of the attachment points. How wide depends a little on the height, if the ceiling is lower then we can have a narrower attachment width.

If the ceiling is higher we can go for a slightly wider attachment width. As a rough guideline somewhere between 3 - 5m width would be viable.

The wider you go the more allowance you have for sideways movements and travel of the flyer, and it will also have a small impact on how much the lines pull the flyer in different directions.

With a narrower attachment width, pulling the lines will pull the flyer more up, with a wider attachment width it will pull the flyer up but also more to the sides.

Increased width tends to allow for smoother input from the spotter pulling the lines into the flyer, and of course this angle changes the higher the flyer gets in the lines/in air.

A good gauge would be that at the highest point in air the lines shouldnt be significantly more than a 45 degree angle or they start pulling more sideways than vertically.

Lastly for the setup is making sure the structural integrity is good and suitable.

To be very official you would need to get a structural rating of the building/ceiling.

In reality, this might not be realistic to get, so there's a few things to check for instead.

Where you are attaching to/putting the load through should be a strong structural beam or part of the building structure.

If, for example you attach to points in the ceiling that are not structurally strong (e.g. eye bolts secured into the ceiling plaster or a small wooden beam) when it is loaded with a human falling (equivalent to several hundred kilos of weight, the structure or the bolt securing might come loose or break.

In general, steel beams are structurally very strong and unlikely to catastrophically fail, they would normally bend or buckle before rupturing, and if there are main structural beams of a building, such as a central thick wooden beam it will likely be able to support a large load (as it is designed to support a large amount of the weight of the building).

So look for these if you are unsure as good options to attach to.

A couple more extra notes on setup...

Make sure you attach your pulleys/straps/carabiners in ways that wont cause friction/wear over time.

I.e. attaching straps to metal components with a hard edge, can cause rubbing, friction and wear on the weaker material over time (in that example fraying the straps). Over time this can wear the straps down and make them weaker and less able to support the load they are rated for.

Instead attach metal to metal where there are hard edges, and attach straps to smooth edged metals (like a round carabiner).

One more thing is to test.

The first time you rig up a longe, especially if you are unsure about the ceilings structural integrity for example do some tests.

Start by putting a person in the longe and just pull on the end of the lines to add load and check that nothing happens. If all goes well then have the person in the longe do a jump, and the longer can test pull and suspend them in air which will add a little dynamic loading.

Eventually, have someone do a jump off of a two high and the longer can allow the flyer to fall a bit before pulling the lines to mimic a dynamic drop and heavy load.

After each of these tests, check that the building/ceiling structure seems sound (if you hear a lot of creaking or groaning or feel movement in the attachments these are signs worth double-checking or doing further tests to make sure it doesn't persist).

So hopefully if all went well the longe should be set up and working, yay!

The next thing is some best practices on longe use and maintenance of the equipment.

Which I'll start with a nice quote from one sports acrobat who taught us some very useful stuff about longes, he said something along the lines of:

"The longe is not a toy, it's an expensive piece of equipment that costs every time you use it."

Which I can understand now having purchased one, I think for one full longe (all the components mentioned in the previous email) costs around 600Euros.

Each time you use the longe you are essentially causing some wear and tear to the components, and with enough use eventually those components will need replacing.

Especially if untrained people use the longe it can cause more wear and tear as well.

This doesn't mean don't use a longe, but it means be selective and make sure you actually need to be using it.

Castaways and standing hand to hands or foot to hands are great examples of skills that are easily and sensibly hand spotted and have very little need for the use of a longe.

If you are using a longe to learn these skills, then potentially you aren't using the right progressions and training approach as well, because I rarely ever see the need to put these kind of skills into a longe.

Another good rule we also got from the same sports acrobat, was always do a test jump:

When you get into the longe and before you setup or attempt a skill, do one test jump.

That means flyer stands on the ground jumps, and the spotter should suspend them in the air with the lines.

This tests a few things:

1. That the belt is securely fastened and doesn't slip a lot etc.

2. That the longe is working and functioning properly, and doesn't have an issue.

3. Helps to make sure you are centered under the middle of the longe (this is important because otherwise when doing a skill the longe may pull you in a direction when pulled on).

4. Maybe most important of all, the spotter pulling the lines actually knows what they are doing. In a test jump you can already see, do they leave a lot of slack, do they catch at the highest point of the jump to suspend, can they boost the jump etc.

With one test jump that takes 15 seconds you check a lot of important and basic things.

So it's really a no-brainer in my mind, and it's also a habit that we've now built to always do.

Last of all is checking and maintenance (and I think this is maybe the most overlooked of these tips).

Again, this is a lot thanks to the sports acrobat, who highly recommended whenever you go to use a longe (especially one you didn't set up or own, or if you do own one do this periodically) do a quick check of the longe.

Examine the rope, examine the belt and the straps and swivels and attachments etc.

You want to look for wear and tear, is the rope frayed (or is the outer rope shell damaged and you can you see the inner strands of the rope).

Is the belt stitching all in place and held together well, and the buckle still strongly connecting.

Are the swivels moving and spinning freely or locking up, does the stitching on straps look good and secure and is there any wear and fraying on straps.

You can also check pulleys and other components before you put the longe up or break it down, do the pulleys run smoothly, is the metal worn or bent or distorted or have any cracks.

In metal components you especially want to look for cracks or deformation or bending of the metal.

These are signs of damage and especially if you see a crack you will want to get the part checked or replaced.

It's worth noting that damage to metal components can come from being dropped or hit against something, and this can severely compromise the strength and capability of that component.

For example, if you set a longe up with pulleys attached to the ceiling next to a steel beam, and during use the pulleys swing and smack against that steel beam with a lot of force, and then when disassembling one of the pulleys accidentally gets dropped from the ceiling and lands on the stone floor from 7m high.

You can imagine that pulley component might have got structurally damaged, and may not be suitable anymore to support the same loads.

So pay close attention to this, and check your components if they do get dropped or damaged.

To be honest there is so much more even to discuss on this topic.

Longe use and how to effectively pull lines is a whole other topic we could cover in depth.

But I hope these two blogs for now help educate and share some of the basic things to look for in purchasing and setting up a longe, and in maintaining and using longes, and gives you more awareness the next time you come to hop in a longe.

Stay safe out there, and feel free to let me know if you have any other points/learnings about this topic that I might have missed.

Cheers,

Cas