Robs contact thread

is here

it's pretty hefty. but this is only the beginning


hugs
R

*... Slide foot from side to side... *

Mr Bluecat sir... may I just wait to learn from you in March... please...

no. have you apologised yet?





of course...

*Looks all sad an stuff...*

No mr. blue... hang on... I'll be back in a sec...

yes, I have...

cool.

now. enough of this silliness. anybody got anything serious to say?

if not then we'll have some more silliness please


R

updated. theres a few new ones now.

when i feel its getting towards comprehensive i will transplant i thik... but until then...

Can we go back to the silliness yet???

er.

no

R

lied about the transferral waiting til comprehensive... cause i just realised you've gotta be logged in to read anything on poiinthepark. so its heading over now....hehehe

ok. here we go:

single staff stuff in red , doubles in blue

conact concepts:

i think i'll begin with a few things that have helped, inspired, or been utterly essential for the way i play.

a centre mark

my sticks. they're not particularly heavy(contrary to many contact spinners sticks) but have good wieght distribution, light centre, relatively heavy ends), and don't have particularly long or grippy grips(i feel it doesn't help to become too reliant on your own materials. you never know)
they are uniformly 150cm long. single or doubles.
this i consider extremelyimportant to my doubles contact staff. many moves transfer directly from single to doubles. and will be muuuch easier if you are comfortable with the length(contradicting myself so soon. this could get tricky!)


watching people like glass, tom, mushypeasteve, psi and knoxious(as well as a few more... these are the ones who are bringing out the truly innovative stuff

watching baton twirling. i rate this slightly lower than the people above, mainly because baton twirling is so mechanical and rigid. however, there are moves and choreography in baton twirling most of us untrained-gymnasts will never acheive without more time than should be allowed!

capoeira(my movement stlye has grown immensely from this, but it is not the 'only way'!)

juggling. first and foremost this got me started on object manipulation. i would never have met:

www.tulikansa.net- a finnish fire troupe who inspired me to start staff. i first saw them at:

beltane. i won't explain this one. have alook: www.beltane.org


juggling(again) this taught me to learn ambidextrosity. or put more simply and in more juggly/staffy relevant terms: how to isolate one hand(i don't mean isolations the move, i mean one hand doing one thing while the other wanders off and has a pint down the pub, meets a few women, does a few tricks, then comes back into the pattern. understood..?)


a guy called julien. who had learnt a few moves from mushy pea steve and turned up at a festival in Poland called Zblizenia. he showed me the basic concepts of contact staff and reinspired me to pick iup a stick. (this was in january 2002, i began staff the first time in may 2001 and stopped in august 2001......)


ok. part one over i think.







basic premises. i think these are pretty well covered elsewhere so i wil be very brief.


KNOW where the middle of your stick is.

this is incredibly important. if your stick is balanced well, then in theory it could spin on a pin head if you could put the middle of your stick onto the pin head. this is where the balance lies. in time you can learn ways round this, and interesting ones at that, but to start with try to make the centre of your stick the most important thing.



speed:

on the whole, contact staff is NOT a speed thing. it is a momentum thing. this works synergically(sp?) with the balance point to create most contact moves.

momentum is lost very easily if the staff is required to travel a lot without extra propulsion. therefore it makes a lot of sense to remember this: try to move your body around the staff as much as the staff moves around you. this is not a hard and fast rule, however. some moves are beautiful because they use precisely the opposite effect.

most importantly:
if it doesn't do what you want/expect, let it finish. more often thn not you will find a new move you would not otherwise have thought of. my rule here is: Put the staff on your body, let go and see what happens.





single satff intricacies:

i have a feeling i would be here for days if i were to try and list fro start to finish... so here are a few you may or maynot know. apologies if the descriptions are poor. if you require clarification i will try to do so, if i am happier with that i will come back and edit this post.

the move commonly know as the steve has been talked about to death. however it is still possibly the most beautiful move around for single staff. so heres a variation.

matrix steve(must have a cheesy baton name. but hey)

staff spinning horizontally, anticlockwise in left hand.
begin the steve. when the staff reaches the near side of the necklean right and lift your left arm. the lift must be circular(also anticlockwise). the staff will return to the near side of your neck. continue round the back of the neck to the right side. lean left and lift your right arm. this brings the staff around your right shoulder and back to the right side of your neck. form here you ca either complete the steve or continue with any neck variation you wish.

one hint for this is to begin slightly off centreso the first shoulder revolution has a bit more staff leading into it. otherwise youHAVE to be perfect and seriously stretchy. which by the way you should definitely do(stretch that is) before attemptiing this move.

horizontal back spins.

these can be done quite simply. its just a matter of choosing your way in and way out.

one I use most of all is the entrance under the left arm.
holding the staff in your right hand on the centre, spinning anticlockwise and horizontally, place the staff on your left shoulder, about 6-8 inches off centre. lean right and lift your left arm. give the staff a push and lean forward, head down. the staff should spin on your back. normally the first few times t will just simply go across to the right side where it can be removed with your right hand.

with a bit of practise and knowledge of your own staff and back, you will find exits all over the place: left shoulder, right shoulder, low on your right side, up onto your head(I get this about 1 in 20, but it conveniently goes to either shoulder if you get it wrong…)



waistwraps from back rolls. (please note waistwrap is a clubswinging/poi term…)

do a basic back roll(vertical) but drop the opposite arm and catch btb in the hand that let go. let the end following do a half circle in front on the opposite side, then return to start position.



simple waistwrap(proper wrap this time!)

hold the staff in your left hand about 15cm off centre.
spin anticlockwise and horizontal all the way round to the back so your left hand is nearly touching your right hip. at the same time put your right hand btb so it is nearly touching your left hip.
release the staff so it wraps round your waist(belly/tummy/stomach/pot[in my case]) and it should go into your right hand.

make sense?
I hope so.



shoulder grabs . ultimate for keeping a trick going and stupidly simple.

put the staff on your left shoulder(or right shoulder. it doesn’t matter.)lift the arm adjacent. turn round and round and round. lower your arm. let the staff roll down the arm(or if going the other way then around the neck and down the other arm) to your waiting hand. tadaaa!

try going into it from another contact move… makes a loooovely transition.
morkai does this particularly nicely


two handed fishtails .
a beautiful slow move that has helped me enormously in smoothing out my fishtails.

put the staff on the backs of both hands to your right side.the hands should be approx 40cm apart on a 150cm staff... the hands will not move from this position with regards to the staff, so i will refer to the staff ends as the left hand end and right hand end...

so the left hand end is pointing in front of you.
lift the right hand end and drop the left hand end making 1/2 a revolution and moving both hands to the other side. this should end with the staff is the start position but on the other side of your body.... repeat but the other way.

the second hand stabilises and makes fishtails easy... the movement of both hands is veryvery similar to the movemnet on one hand fishtails, hence why i use it as a practise.


for backwards you use the same start position...only you lift the left hand end and drop the right hand end. make the half revolution. and tadaaa! you should be there or thereabouts.




headspins.
i learned this one early on and still use it nearly every burn i do ans a play...


(for ritght handed people. left handed just reverse spin direction)

hold the staff slightly off centrin your right hand with a couple of extra inches showing in on the thumb side...
spin the staff horizontally and anticlockwise..if you go from a standing start it will probably only make a 1/2 revolution before being placed onto your head.
make sure you look at the centre of the staff as it approaches your head... and make sure it is coming in COMPLETELY horizontal. look forwards as the staff goes onto your head and try to keep very still and balanced(you, not the staff). if it has gone on cleanly then you will definitely get 1/2 a revolution, and probably more. first few goes just try for the half revolution. i generally get 1 or 1 1/2 but on good days can manage 3 or 4. very good days that is
take the staff off your head with your left hand, as this way it falls comfortably into the hand(if you try with your right the trick not only feels difficult but looks untidy as it is much less symmetrical.)



here is a start to a doubles list...:

a hint for doubles… try a lot of singles tricks with the staff returning to the hand that released. this way the other staff only has to keep going… then try it with the other hand. hehe.

horizontal back spin into cross…

the staffs must be traveling at approximately the same speed.

the right hand staff does a horizontal back spin, and is caught in the middle of your back. at the same time the left hand staff does a horizontal pinwheel and the staffs come together at the middle of the back, just as the right staff is returning to its hand. grab the staffs in a cross grip and finish the pinwheel, you will find this comes out quite nicely


waistwrap butterflies from back rolls.

staffs spinning in reverse in alternate timing. the left hand staff keeps going and does nothing out of the ordinary) the right staff does a waistwrap from backroll as described above. they should come together at the left hip to do a butterfly. try both sides. it’s a bitch…



outwards neck rolls. (bit of a signature trick this one….)

try with one hand first.

right hand spinning horizontally and clockwise. a single roll round the neck and back into your right hand
left hand spinning horizontally and anti clockwise. again a single roll round the neck and back into the left hand.
now try with one hand just holding a staff and do the trick with the other. then swap. then repeat left, right, left, right, left, right ad nauseam. the knack to it is to make the ‘stopped’ staff keep moving slowly and smoothly. if not the you’ll burn yourself if you try it on fire!!

.



tricky doubles waistproperwrap

ok.

you see the simple waist wrap above? do that with your left hand. only it has to come back to your left hand also.
your right hand is also spinning anti clockwise, but releasing on the right hip, rolling across your stomach, then catching the same staff on the left hip with the hand btb.

so the theory is that both staffs are released in the same place, roll across the same place, and are caught in the same place. but you have to do them with alternate timing.

this is one of the craziest moves I have ever done on fire. raaaah!!!


double devilstick thingammyjig.

spinning a cross above your head horizontally and anticlockwise only holding the bottom staff(if this makes no sense at all I’ll post an explanation… but I think its on a few vids anyway so maybe doesn’t require it…) when the staff comes into your right hand make one full rotation allowing the top staff to wrap round the bottom one in the manner of a devilstick propellor(correct terminology DsAds? anyone?). then pass the bottom stick to your left hand and repeat. this can be done loadandloadsandloadsandloads.

hehe



more moves to be added over time. got quite alot of it just now so trying to understand the way i move by writing it all dow. hope nobody mids...

it's working for me cause i've already learned 4 new doubles moves just by writing all this crap!!!!!!


much love

R

Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Rob what wicked thread I can see hours of fun headed my way.

This might even bring my joy for doubles back, fingers crossed

Thank you thank you thank you

Bammy

cool.

and guess what.

i've just booked you a set of 140cm felinedoubles.

which should be a tad easier for ya

to a small and skinny bams haiving difficulty with my 150s.

R

AAAARGHH no i've just found i can't edit because the maximum time has expired...

is there a way round this mr dom? malcolm?

cause i want to keep it all in the same place and easily referenceable..?

so.

i was hoping to add these in above. but iguess i'll just have to cope with part 2


continuous no palm turns
damn hard to keep this in plane, so I tend not to bother, and end up making the movee back to start point while turning about 300 degrees. so 3 of these and you can be back facing the same way but spinning in the other direction. tho I usually go for 5 or 6 and end up spinning the same way cause I’m lazy like that and most of my moves go one way muuuuch more easily than the other.

spinning the staffing your right hand in the wall plane in reverse direction(vertical, or at least nearly so)
let the staff come onto the back of your hand, and move the hand to your right shoulder to push it up into a standard back roll. have your left hand at your left shoulder with your elbow pointing slightly behind you. this should cause the staff to transfer to your lower arm in a direct mirror of the first part of the trick.
turn to your left as the staff rolls onto the back of your left hand. transfer the staff to the back of your right hand and complete the turn. you should no be back at the start….. so go do it again!!!!



the double steve

drew doesn’t like this name. but I do cause I feel it makes sense to a lot of people so ‘m going to keep using it.

this is a stupidly hard trick. if anyone can come to me and do it 10 times in a row no mistakes I will stand on one leg in a miniskirt singing a spice-girls song of their choice!

get the staff into anticlockwise horizontal cross above your head.
when the bottom staff is about to be passed to the left hand(as would happen if you wanted the cross to keep going) take the TOP staff allowing the bottom staff to do a steve (sown the arm, round the neck, up the other arm). while this is happening you need to make at least 1 (slow) full revolution with the other staff. when the first staff has contentedly reached it’s destination(unlike an easyjet passenger) do a steve with the other staff (while keeping the first one going of course). the second staff should roll up your right arm into a cross in the right hand.

I get this most of the time now. but usually with extra spins inbetween the two staffs going because I either can’t quite transfer my attention quick enough or I can’t do the component parts smoothly enough to ignore them, not sure which.

good luck


doubles matrix
not really descriptive but it follows from the move called ‘matrix steve’ above(oooh I would change that if I could, cause the steve part of it is incidental, the most basic entry is the one described below) but no editing allowed *sniff *

both staffs spinning horizontally and anti-C(spotted a trend here?)
using the basic back spin entry described above(staff to shoulder and pushed under armpit) put the right staff onto your back and up to neck , round left shoulder and out.

while the staff is going round this path, the other staff is doing a horizontal pinwheel.(I think that’s what it is called…?)

the pass from left hand to right occurs as the first staff comes onto the neck. so this means the first staff when it exits the right armpit is caught in the left hand.

so to clarify )I hope)
when the contacting staff is going round the left shoulder that arm holds the other staff. then both staffs change sides of the body. one round the neck, one hand-to-hand. and as the contacting staff goes round the right shoulder that hand holds the 2nd staff.





Enjoy
R

Errrrrr ok so how come I could understand the first sectionof moves, but have no Idea what you're talking about this the last lot????

Mr Cat you've messed a kittens head up

140's...REALLY ...I love the 150's but wick + FLOOR + smaller than Small Boy BamBam = a mess

Heaps of thanks and hugs.

Bammy

possibly because the doubles stuff is amongst the hardest stuff i know....


but don't worry. more to come today.

in an hour or so in fact.

hehe




still.

i refuse to beleive you are the only one reading this thread, well, you, arsn and benjamen. what gives?

R

(could possibly do you the oneforties for february... but you'd have to stay an extra day in oz )

ok.

part three...as my time allowed to edit seems to be getting shorter and shorter...

( )

elbow-wrist-wrist-elbow
this move has been done countless times on video(i think the best example of it is drew on morning coffee quite early on...) and is one of the first contact tricks i teach, because it makes you think about the centre a lot...

spinning a single staff forwards in the wall plane in your right hand, put your left hand to your left shoulder and stick your elbow out in front of you.

put the staff on your left upper arm (from below) and let it make 1/2 a revolution. this should mean it is starting to fall off your arm.... the way to stop this happening is to... push your left arm out straight. this makes the staff move to your left wrist.

ok 1st half over with.

now(without stopping! hahaha)put your right arm next to your left(having allowed the staf to make its half a revolution), and the staff should pass onto the right wrist. let it make the(now obligatory) half a revolution and pull your wrist in towards your shoulder(it should now be in the same position as your left was at the start of the move... this is nothing if not symmetric!). the staff should roll smoothly off your right shoulder and into your waiting left hand.

tadaa!

fortunately this move can be broken down into all its transitions. the hand(r)-elbow(l). the hand(r)-elbow(l)-wrist(l). the wrist(l)-wrist(r). and finally the wrist(r)-elbow(r)-hand(l).

anyway. watch the clip from morning coffee and i promise the above will make sense.(its at 2.04. but drew does it the other way from right to left . and the move he does next i'll explain soon too...)


variation on above
in the middle, where it passes quite slowly from wrist to wrist(with the half revolution!!) try doing it with out any revs inbetween. what i mean is put your hands out together as if they were one limb with no airspace in between.... i think i do this on black and blue but have no way of checking until blackass gets a bloody move on and sends the tape to pk to be uploaded )

i think this variation is gorgeous and smooth and swift without being fast...

foot catch and throw
this is a continuous move, the staff never stops and never touches the ground...and can be used in singles or doubles:
nb i prefer my right hand for obvious reasons but as with all other moves this is just because of my non-perfect ambidextrosity, so if you're left handed just change in ya head what i'm saying.:

spinning vertically in reverse direction(leading with pinky) in wall plane to your right.
as the staff is coming to the front let it drop to a foot catch, slightly more staff away from you than in towards you, then do a flick up...

the easy way to practise is to get the staff to stop on the ground in the right position to do a (juggling) kick up. then slowly work oyour way towards doing it without any loss of speed or touching the ground.


back of hand thread the needle

both staffs going vertically in forwrds direction(thumb first) in wall plane(so opposite to each other)

important to not e they are going in near sametime(i.e coming to the front together, going to the back together, only about 1/2 a revolution off, with the right staff coming forward first)

spin the left staff slightly further forward than the right, and in doing so let the right hand staff roll over the left arm (as if it wer going back into the right palm). instead, allow it to roll onto the back of your right hand. by now the left staff also has to go to the back of the left hand or risk breaking the wrist or dropping the staff.once the right staff is on the bak of the right hand push trough the pattern a la thread the needle.

repeat for the other side.



make any sense?

hope so.


i hope to be able at some point to get some illustrations to these. more likely tho is a complete video accompaniment.. depends on how well i can bribbe cameramen here in NZ


enjoy

a juggling kickup is that like a hacky stall on the top of your foot then kicking it up again?

if u cant find a cameraman and if for some reason ur plans change and u find urself in adelaide ill be happy to film for you

i look forward to seeing the vids

yup.

cool.
ta

R