Types and naming of human towers

Human towers are very complex human structures that can have many levels and involve a big amount of people.

In this article, we are going to learn how to classify and what are the names of each of these structures.

First and foremost, there’s not only one way to classify human towers, so we’ll see a few classifications (according to CCCC, the maximum authority in the human towers world).

By height

This is a simple one, you can classify towers by how high they are. Human towers can have 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and even 10 levels! As we can see in other articles (what are human towers?), theres a bulk at the bottom of the tower that holds the weight and the structure of the tower, the main structure of people that shapes the tower and go on top of the bulk and the crown, that configures the three top levels of the tower, and belongs to the smallest and fastest people in the group.

Towers with 9 floors are extremely difficult and only a few groups can achieve them (roughly 10 in the whole history of human towers).
And structures with 10 levels are very rare, and only 4 groups, in more than 200 years have been able to achieve them.

By people by floor

This classification makes reference to how many people we can find at each level of the human towers and defines its final shape.
Normally there are two, three, four or five people by level, but exceptionally we can find seven, nine or even twelve!
There’s another type of tower that has only one person per level, and it’s called pilar. This kind of structures are built only at the beginning or at the end of each performance. Frequently, when a group enters to wherever it’s performing, they enter making a walking pilar, which is a pilar formed by the bulk and three more floors that literally walks from somewhere to the place the group is performing.

Now that we know how to classify human towers by height and shape, it’s time to introduce how the towers are officially called. That is a combination of its shape and height. For example, a tower with 7 levels and 5 people per floor will be called 5 of 7, one with 3 people and 8 levels will be called 3 of 8.
Learning this is very important, since no “casteller” (human tower participant) calles them different. This will actually differentiate yourself from the rest of people that just like to watch them, but don’t really know them.

Now that we have learned this, we are going to complicate it a little bit more. There are towers that are quite “special” for some reason such being a little more complex or by its technique. There are some human towers that, besides the main structure, the have a pilar built inside. Those pilars are called needles. So, a human tower that has 4 floors, 8 people per floor and a needle, will be called 4 of 8 with a needle. Easy, right?
About the technique used, there’s a special group of towers that instead of allowing castellers to climb to make their way to the top, they are built from the bottom, raising the whole structure to add one more level. Those are called towers raised from the bottom. So, a tower with 7 levels of 3 people each using this technique will be called 3 of 7 raised from the bottom

As we learnt in previous articles, a human tower can have a bulk on top of the main bulk (called cover) and another one on top of the cover (called handcuffs). So, how does it change the name?. If a structure has 3 people per level and 9 levels, but also have a cover, we will call it 3 of 9 with cover, and if we have a tower with 2 people per level, 9 floors high and with cover and handcuffs, we will call it 2 of 9 with cover and handcuffs

If you want to learn more about human towers, watch them live and even participate and you are in Sydney, drop us a line at sydneyhumantowers@gmail.com and we’ll get in touch with you!