What Is 'Invisible Box' Challenge? Viral Video Shows Cheerleader Defying Gravity

A cheerleader at Manvel High School in Texas “walked on air” in a video that appeared to show her defying gravity by stepping on an “invisible box,” about a foot off the ground. The video went viral since it was posted Saturday by the cheerleader on her Twitter account.

Ariel Olivar accomplished her gravity defying moment and captured it on camera during Friday's football game against Cedar Park. Her video on Twitter garnered over 250,000 likes and more than 125,000 retweets and is being shared by people around the world at the time of publishing this story.

“The video was my third time trying it. It’s hard to explain, I just keep the leg in the same exact spot,” Olivar said. “It is actually kind of challenging keeping it there.”

“Challenge accepted,” Olivar wrote, before patting the imaginary box on the ground and then appearing to step on it in the video. The cheerleader also tweeted a “part two,” which was another video that showed Olivar appearing to fall when another cheerleader kicks the “box” out from under her.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Olivar is a junior at Manvel High School in Texas.

Watch both the videos below.

The “invisible box challenge,” in which people appear to be walking on air by stepping on an invisible box, has become the latest internet trend to go viral. The challenge started to go viral when a football player named Dontez Hines and then Olivar performed the trick with expertise and posted the videos on the internet.

The trick is said to be dating back to at least 2014. According to Daily Mail, in a video posted on YouTube, dancer Marcos Grados, from Guadalajara, Mexico, was seen completing the move during a performance in 2014. One of the other initial instances was seen in a video in August 2014 and was viewed at least 889,000 times.

The basis of the trick has been explained as all about jumping with one foot while keeping your "stepping" foot still. So whoever is performing has to essentially hop forward on one foot while keeping the other fixed in mid-air, thus making it look like one is trying to walk on air. In November, Men's Health fitness editor Ebenezer Samuel broke the move down one leg at a time, according to Daily Mail.

A Twitter user had spotted Hines’ video in late November and wrote, “how tf you step in mid air.. I’ve literally replayed this video over and over and still am confused.”

Hines explained to Men’s Health he “came up with the idea while waiting around to take pictures with his football team one August morning.”

The magazine quoted him as saying, “I realized I had got it down pretty well because of the reactions of my teammates. I had my friend record me… he ended up posting it on his Snapchat. I still cannot believe how much attention it has gotten.”

The Houston Chronicle asked Olivar to explain how she performed the trick with such expertise. The trick, she said, is all about keeping your leg in the same spot.

"Honestly, that was the first time I had ever tried it," she said to the newspaper. "The video was my third time trying it. It’s hard to explain, I just keep the leg in the same exact spot. It is actually kind of challenging keeping it there. The technique, if you want to make it look like [the video], is to bring the other leg higher than the other as if you are actually stepping over a box."

Olivar also told the Houston newspaper she never thought the trick would go viral.

“I thought it was just going to be around my school, I didn’t think it would get this far,” Ariel said to the Chronicle. “News reporters have been contacting me, asking to use [the video]. It’s just mind blowing, I didn’t think it would get this far.”