Baton Twirling

Many people don’t consider baton twirling to be a sport. Baton twirling involves a person with a metal rod moving in someone’s hands. Twirling involves dancing, gymnastics, coordination and many more characteristics that other sports have. With any sport, there is some type of physics involved. Many of the physics of twirling is center of gravity, friction, momentum, torque, Newton’s Laws of motion, force, and speed.

The center of gravity is the average point where the weight of a body may act. In twirling the center of gravity in a body is the belly button. If the baton is tossed to the left side of the body, the baton will travel to the left. If the baton is tossed to the right, it will travel to the right. The center of gravity of the baton is in the center of the metal rod. The baton is normally taped in the middle for the twirler to see the baton to catch it. Taping the center also helps the twirler toss the baton in the air. If the twirler is holding the baton left to center, the baton will travel to the left. If the twirler is holding the baton to the right, the baton will travel to the right.
One of the things that is really important to twirling is footwear. There are shoes made for twirling that have a rough rubber sole at the ball of the foot. This is to help for spins on any type of surface. If you don’t have any grip to your shoes, you could fall from spinning too fast. If you have too much friction, you don’t have enough power to spin around to catch the baton. There is also friction in the baton. When tape is applied to the center, it creates friction between one’s hands and the baton. Without tape, the baton will fly off of someone’s