The airflare (or air-flare) refers to an acrobatic movement in which the performer rotates the torso around the vertical axis of their body (extending from the head down vertically) whilst simultaneously traveling in a circular path along a plane parallel with the floor. The feet are not allowed to touch the ground during the execution of this move and both hands are used to execute standard airflares.
The move emerged from a similar move called the airtrack, in which one rotates in a vertical axis but does not travel in a circular path. The airtrack can be traced back to the early 1980s. By the 1990s, a dancer named Paulo Nunes in Europe had created the variation which is essentially the same move as the modern airflare.[1] At that time in Europe it, was referred to as the airtwist.
By the mid 1990s video arrived by way of EZ-Rock of Rocksteady which introduced the maneuver to the States at that time, in particular, to California b-boys/breakdancers. The video showed Nunes as well as a French b-boy who executed a move very similar to the modern airflare. Meanwhile, and soon after the following dancers had performed moves similar before the continuous airflare was established:
Pablo Flores of Climax / Soul Control successfully performed continuous airflares,[11][8] completing the manifestation of the move. It is this modern form of the airflare that Morgan Hamm introduced into gymnastics, after learning it from the b-boy community.[12] There was a change.org petition created by Curtis Hedges of the OBS Group to influence the United States Olympic Committee to recognize Pablo Flores, and more recently Lui Guerrero as the first person in history to perform continuous airflares.
The term airflare was coined by members of Soul Control, including Barmak, Babak, Inferno, and Kujo, to distinguish the move from the airtrack. The key observation was that the addition of the circular rotation made the move far easier to execute than the airtrack – there are very few documented cases of continuous airtracks, however, the earliest documented case of continuous airtracks is of Kujo of Soul Control.
The European terms airtwist, airtwister, and airtwista pre-date the word airflare. Both refer to the same technical move; however, the modern form of the move is better known today as airflare worldwide.
The hyphenated air-flare and spaced air flare are occasionally seen, but the term is usually fully compounded to produce airflare, which is consistent with other move names, e.g., windmill and headspin.
Airflares and airtracks are often confused. Here is a historical interpretation:
The first video is at least a couple of years older than the second. In the first, little rotation can be seen is in the plane parallel to the floor; the rotation is strictly around the axis of the body. When these moves were developed, the airtrack was easier to conceive yet much harder to do continuously. The airflare is ultimately a more technical move, making it easier to do them continuously. Today there are many varieties of airflare, including a continuous one-handed variation;[15] yet there is no known documented case of more than three airtracks – where there is a lack of a flare like swinging while drilling in the air around the body – done continuously.
While all of the documented cases mentioned herein help popularize the move, especially B-Boy Ivan, there is in particular a battle between Soul Control and a temporary super crew known as the Flying Tortillas. This "battle" catalyzed its visibility [16] and took the move mainstream. Many other b-boys would popularize the move in the coming years, notably Moy and Boy of Havikoro (from Texas), and Benny and Tuff-Kid of Basel City (from Switzerland).[17][18]