Flair Bartending Lesson #68: Forearm Stall
I’m not gonna lie, the Forearm Stall took me awhile to learn. It’ll probably take you a lot of practice, too. It’s a bit frustrating trying the same move 100 times and only kinda-sorta-landing it once, but it will come with time and practice.
Start by making sure you’re already good with the Double Over the Shoulder. Probably won’t hurt you to get good with the Double into Stall or the Double into Tin either, though I suppose it’s not necessary. Make sure you are uber-consistent with your throw: you should be able to catch it evenly and consistently in the same place every time.
Also, as goofy as it may seem, practice just holding the bottle on your forearm. Try to be able to hold it there while you walk around the room or spin around in circles like a pretty ballerina. Some people catch the bottle close to their elbow, others close to their wrist. I catch it wherever the hell I’m lucky to have it land.
The only other tip I have for this move is – much like the hand stall – don’t “dead hand” it. Learn to “read” the bottle a little – learn to anticipate its rotation and slide your forearm in underneath it at a slight angle, cradling it a bit and letting it come to rest as you find the balance.
Flairtending Lesson #66: Double Over Shoulder Into Stall
We’re finally starting to get into some more impressive moves on our journey into flairtending. The Double Over the Shoulder into a Stall is a clean, impressive, exhibition flair move that is the perfect addition to our previous moves.
First of all, make sure you are already comfortable with the Double Over the Shoulder as well as the Stall and Flip Stall – this move is really just a combination of those flair moves. Probably doesn’t hurt to make sure you’re good with the previous move, the Double Over Shoulder into Tin, either, since this is just a slight variation of that move.
I’ll say it again: practice those previous moves until you can get them 90% of the time. If you do that, Continue Reading » Flairtending Lesson #66: Double Over Shoulder Into Stall
Flair Bartending Lesson 61: Bump to Stall
If you’ve been following FBTV for a while, you know how I feel about The Bump. It can be a difficult move to learn, it hurts, and it turns me into a big baby. Sooooo, I figured why not do some more bump variations…
The Bump to Stall is simply that: doing the Bump of your forearm and then stalling the bottle on the back of your hand. The couple pointers I have for this move are as follows:
1) First and foremost, make sure you’re comfortable with The Bump. I know we get anxious and excited when we’re learning new moves and we often want to jump ahead to step #2 before we’ve fully understood step #1. I get it. I’m the same way. But do yourself a favor and really get comfortable with the Bump.
2) Get consistent with your Bump, making sure you Continue Reading » Flair Bartending Lesson 61: Bump to Stall
Flair Bartending Lesson #42: Double Glass Split Behind Back
This is a much trickier Prop Flair move than we have previously been doing but it’s also a bit more fun and flashy. It helps if you are already comfortable with The Stall.
Much like the Glassware Lift-Off, start with 2 stackable glasses. This time, however, we are going to balance them on the back of our hand before tossing them through the air, catching one behind our back and one in front of us. Anytime we are learning a flair bartending move that involves two objects it is helpful to practice each item (or each hand) one at a time so we can focus on each item separately. To practice:
1) Be safe, be smart. You will break a few glasses while learning this move. Minimize the risk from broken glass by practicing safely over a floor mat. Also, make sure you are not close enough to anyone or anything that could get hurt or broken if you lose control of the glasses.
2) Start with just one lowball glass stalled on the back of your right hand. To “throw” this glass, lift your hand up and back towards you while you Continue Reading » Flair Bartending Lesson #42: Double Glass Split Behind Back
Flair Lesson #18: Combo #1 with Stall
If you’ve been following the previous tutorials, then this move should be pretty simple. We are doing our First Combo – which was the Same Hand Flat Behind the Back combined with the Flat From Behind the Back – and simply adding the Stall on to the ending. Make sure you are good to go on all of those previous moves.
The only real pointers I have to this move are such:
1) At the end of the move, practice catching the bottle with either hand.
2) Once you are comfortable catching with either hand, try stalling the bottle with either hand. This will be difficult for your non-dominant hand at first, but will be good practice for down the road.
That’s it. Practice, practice.