Years later, Harold recalled that they never rehearsed the jumps over each other’s heads but still managed to do the routine in just one take.

Erm...This needn't be rehearsed. It was their signature move. As was rising from the splits without using their arms/hands.

One of their signature moves was to leapfrog down a long, broad flight of stairs, while completing each step with a split. Its most famous performance formed the finale of the movie Stormy Weather (1943).^[3] In that routine, the Nicholas Brothers leapt exuberantly across the orchestra's music stands and danced on the top of a grand piano in a call and response act with the pianist, to the tune of Jumpin' Jive.^[3] Fred Astaire once told the brothers that this dance number was the greatest movie musical sequence he had ever seen.^[3][22]

In another signature move, they would rise from a split without using their hands.^[3] Gregory Hines declared that if their biography were ever filmed, their dance numbers would have to be computer generated because no one now could emulate them.^[3] Ballet legend Mikhail Baryshnikov once called them the most amazing dancers he had ever seen in his life.^{[citation needed]}