Bungee has quite an old origin. The idea of this way of jumping comes from the ancient ritual "Gkol" performed in the Pentecost Island in the Pacific Archipelago of Vanuatu. The legend says that in the village Bunlap a man called Tamalie had a quarrel with his wife and she ran away and climbed a Banyan tree where she wrapped her ankles with liana vines. When Tamalie came up to her, the woman jumped from the tree and so did her husband not knowing what had his wife done. So he died but the woman survived. The men of Bunlap were very impressed by this performance and they began to practise such jumps in case they got in similar situation. This practice transformed into a ritual for rich yam harvest and also for proving manhood.
Modern bungee jumping as we know it today actually started on the 1st of April ( Fools' Day ) 1979 when group of people from the Oxford University Dangerous Sport Club, impressed by a film about "vine jumpers", jumped from 245-Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, England. Using nylon braided, rubber shock cord instead of vines, and dressed in their customary top hat and tails, they performed a four man simultaneous jump. The enthysiasts promptly were arrested for this. But at least hit the world press the next day. The new adrenaline mania has been started. The D.S.C. performed many other jumps, including one off the Golden Gate Bridge. In early 1988, A.J. Hackett and Chris Allum, opened the first commercial jump site in Ohakune, New Zealand. Hackett also made a great commercial show in 1987 when he jumped from the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
As part of the site publicity, Hackett performed an astounding bungee jump from the Eiffel Tower! Nowadays there have already been a lot of towers,cranes,bridges and even hot-air balloons serving as platforms for jumping and bungee is the simplest and easily understood of the aerial extreme sports.
The Progress
But the pursuit of testing and extending one's boundaries did not stop with conventional bungy jumping. During 1995, the bungy jumping experience in New Zealand was reversed when Troy Griffin produced the Reverse Bungy. Troy's dream was to develop a safer, yet more extreme experience.
Instead of jumping, people now sat in a 3-seated capsule suspended by bungy cords between 2 towers. They would be propelled upwards at much greater speeds in a safely-controlled environment. In the process they would experience up to 6 G-Forces ¨C similar to that experienced by astronauts during a rocket launch.
How Bungy Jumping Works
The bungy capsule is attached to the 2 towers by 2 premium grade bungy cords. Each cord consists of over 4,000 strands of rubber. Combined this represents approximately 11 times the amount of rubber used in a conventional bungy jump cord. The Bungy cords are each 140 mm in diameter.
The two bungy cords are winched tight by an electric motor made by SEW in Germany. The winch system is imported from Germany. The maximum weight load the 2 bungy cords can withstand is a combined 10,000kgs whereas the SEW computer system subjects each and every ride to a load of 1,500kgs.
The bungy cord is attached to the winch and wire by specifically designed crimps. The crimp is engineered to hold 8,000kgs, whereas the maximum load factor (weight and resistance) on the joint is 900kgs.
Reverse Bungy Machines operate in more than 15 countries including the U.S.A, Switzerland, U.K, Spain, Austria, Australia, New Zealand and China.
History of the Trampoline
Walrus skins
It has been said that the first type of trampolining was done by the Eskimos who used to toss each other up into the air on a Walrus skin something like the sheet used by firemen to catch people jumping out of the windows of houses which were on fire. In Anchorage airport, Alaska, there are postcards depicting the Eskimos being tossed up in a Walrus skin.
There also is some evidence of people in England being tossed up into the air by a number of people holding a blanket. These may or may not be the true origins of the sport of trampolining but it is certain that in the early years of the 20th century there were stage acts which used a "bouncing bed" on the stage to amuse audiences. The bouncing bed was in reality a form of small trampoline covered by bedclothes on which the acrobats performed mostly comedy routines.
Trapeze artists
The trampoline itself, according to circus lore, was first developed by an artist called Du Trampolin who saw the possibility of using the trapeze safety net as a form of propulsion and landing device and experimented with different systems of suspension, eventually reducing the net to a practical size for separate performance.
The Beginning of the Industry
The manufactured trampoline, as we know it today, was created by two men, George Nissen and Larry Griswold. Around 1935, Griswold, then the assistant gymnastics coach at the University of Iowa, and Nissen, a tumbler on the University of Iowa gymnastics team, "made regular jaunts to Bloomington, Illinois where numerous circus people had their winter homes. Among them were the "Flying Wards", some of the finest trapeze performers in the world. Griswold and Nissen worked out with them at the local YMCA, and frequently helped them make or mend their large trapeze nets. Nissen remembers the hours they spent in the basement of the YMCA, threading the long cords of the nets, using large javelin-head needles. This experience was one of several that led them to the idea of creating a trampoline.
One day, with the help of the wrestling coach at the University of Iowa, Griswold and Nissen bolted together an angle iron frame. A piece of canvas, in which they had inserted grommets along each side, was then attached to the frame by using springs. This was the first trampoline.
"Since Nissen was still training for tumbling, they decided to move the trampoline to a YMCA camp where he was an instructor. There, during his free time, Nissen used it for his tumbling training. Immediately, he found that the children loved it. This was the first realization that the trampoline could be more than a piece of equipment to use when performing, or seriously training. It was something that many others could enjoy.
(In 1942) Griswold and Nissen decided to formalize their small operation of making trampolines. They created the Griswold-Nissen Trampoline & Tumbling Company, and history was made...."
(from "Larry Griswold ....The Diving Fool" by Lani Lokendahle; World Acrobatics Society Newsletter; August 1997)
Where Does the Name "Trampoline" Come From?
"El trampolin" means diving board, in Spanish. George Nissen, the co-creator of the competitive style trampoline, heard the word on a performance tour in Mexico in the late 1930's. He liked the sound of it, and decided to Anglicize the spelling and call his bouncing rig a Trampoline, a term he registered as a trademark.
The Development of the Sport
The sports of trampolining and tumbling are as old as man, a reflection of man's desire to defy the ever-pervading presence of gravity.
A number of cultures have devised apparatus to send an athlete into the air, i.e., an outstretched animal skin being used to throw up, and safely receive, the descending performer. Circuses have used a number of devices to show off aerial and floor somersault activity.
The way the activities are now practiced reflect the intrusion, delightful in this instance, of modern technology. Modern trampolining has only emerged in the last 49-50 years from the prototype apparatus built by George Nissen, USA, in his garage in 1936. The Air Force, and later the Space Agencies were not slow to employ trampolines with their pilots and astronauts. Medical authorities and those working with handicapped persons have found many exciting benefits from being able to use a trampoline. At the recreational level trampolining has an immediate appeal, especially for the young people.
Every era produces at least one step forward in the sophistication of a trampoline machine used. The most modern ones are capable of projecting an athlete to such a height that the top stars can touch 10m-high ceilings and perform repetition triple somersaults with ease.
Competitive activity commenced in the USA at the conclusion of World War II. The activity spread to Europe in the 1950's and display teams took the activity to all continents in the late 1950's and early 1960's, when many national federations were formed.
In 1964, the International Trampoline Federation (FIT) was formed with 7 founder member federations. There are at present 42 member federations.
Championship activity has developed and grown continuously year after year. Annual World Championships were held from 1964, though since 1968 they have been held every other year, with European Championships, started in 1969, and Pan Pacific Championships, started in 1981, occurring the alternative years. European Youth Championships have been held every other year since 1972, and the introduction of the World Cup event in 1993 has seen a tremendous interest in the sport, with the television companies giving live coverage to most events throughout the 1993-94 series. Trampolining and Tumbling have been World Games sports since 1981. Plans are well in hand for the introduction of the Asian Championships and Pan-American Championships in 1994. The World Age-Group Games, held in the same year as the World Championships attract a large entry, anything between 400-800- athletes!
In Trampolining USA athletes took many titles in the early days, though a number of nations have since shared in the top honors, especially athletes from the former Soviet Union. USA, France, and Poland are strong in Tumbling, whilst Germany, Australia and laterally, New Zealand, have shown their strength in Double-Mini Trampolining, the third of the three FIT disciplines.
Tumbling's competitive roots go back even further than that of Trampolining. It was even an Olympic Sport in 1932 when F. Wolfe, USA, was the winner. It was in 1976 that the FIT introduced Tumbling to its disciplines.
The third FIT discipline is Double-Mini Trampolining, which has only emerged as a branch of Trampolining since the mid 1970's.
The FIT has an office based in Moutier, Switzerland. To run the activity of the Federation, there is a 5 strong Presidential Committee, a 10 strong Executive, and a 7 strong Technical Committee. Recent developments have seen the introduction of both a Medical Commission and a Promotions Commission. Congresses, at which all member federations can attend, are held in conjunction with all World Championships. Elections are held every 4 years.
In 1983 the first FIT Handbook was introduced, and in 1987 the FIT News appeared, followed in 1988 by the FIT Calendar.
Source: FIT press information at World Championships 1994 in Porto/POR
