2 contact questions....

hullo all!

there 2 things ive been reflecting about...

1. clothing.

when generally practiciing around in my backyard, i prefer contact staff with no shirt simply because i find its infinitely easier to grip and 'feel' what the staff is do - esp with backspin deviations.
i quickly learnt this is very silly when on fire due to numerous burns on the torso - so i gravitated towards the sleeveless tshirt - but now have numerous burns up and down my arms - probably from the hot metal more than anything.
so now im only spinning in a long sleeve t-shirt - but its taking a while to get used to it. im finding it so much harder to control and predict the staff movement - but i suppose its a question of practise.

what about others?

question 2.

doubles contact - ive been mostly working on reasonalby light 4 fters - cos thats all i had - but now have a matching pair of 5 ft contact staffs.
despite my initial excitement - im not sure which i prefer...

the larger staffs are much smoother and longer - good for contact - but are much more likely to collide into each other, and much harder to flick around.

im almost thinking of making some doubles halfway - mb 4.5ft!
maybe its just my style i need to change?

what are other doubles contact preferences?

thnx!

you get burns? You're obviously keeping the staff on too long. I'm of the philosophy that as soon as a move goes wrong on fire, get as far away from the staff as possible, as soon as possible...

Also generally the staff shouldn't burn you if you have some dowel in the end to provide a bit of heat absorbtion / deflection... The only time I've been burned is by the metal when the dowel had moved out of the end of my staff and it had heated up more than normal...

Usually I am spinning with at least my forarms uncovered for contact, if not my whole arm... Any clothing without a funny collar is fine. Hoodies you have to relearn neck tricks with, and shirts too.

I find the difference between bare arms / fully clothed is just a question of rotation... The staff spins slightly differently on clothing, adn the grip of the staff affects it too.

Heavy 4 footer doubles rock! Light four footers - Imagine how good you'll be when you go back up to contact weighted 5 footers!

5 footers generally mean as mo-seph says: Planes come for free. Cos if your not in plane, they clash. Plus it's easier to transfer moves to doubles from learning with a single five footer. But whoever said contact should be easy?

Just learn with everything then you'll be very good.

That's just my opinions.

Also I should possibly tell you to do a search, cos I'm sure there has been some discussion of this before... Beats me where thou...

for burny stuff everyone gets one every now and again but if your getting lots u need to ask urself why, are u trying tricks that u dont have solid with fire? i think meg may have hit the nail on the head with the cap ur ends bit for the metal heating up.

if your 5 fts are colliding u probably need to clean ur planes up go play infront of a mirror it helps loads flicking around staffs is evil and generally naughty u disrupt the flow and rhythem of the movements you must transition between your planes smoothly imho

i suppose its slightly hazardous that im reasonably spontanous with my contact moves - i randomly stall/backspin/flick and generally do what i feel like rather than keeping to any set moves.
i can always nail all of my trick as individual moves, but im really trying to link everything smoothly together.
maybe i need to have more of a set routine rather than impulsively contacting.

well - the ends are plugged - but its probably that i take a bit too much risk sometimes. i suppose i dont get burnt THAT regularly - probably once every 3 weeks - and only just over 1 degree grade.

maybe ill graduate to long sleeves for crazy experimental contact and limit myself to sensible contact when wearing less clothing.

thnx for your help!

its not so much keeping to set moves and having a routine persay but its doing the moves as cleaning as u can and doing the moves you intend to rather than just prolonging dropping the stick imho prolonging dropping the stick without intent of motion is when contact looks unpretty

i got myself some 5ft doubles so's i could use them for contact and they're lovely. seein as ben taught me most stuff using planes i found them fairly easy to get to grips with. like meg says heavy 4ft'ers should be good as well tho.

oh..and i definatly agree about contact without a shirt feeling nicer!

I'm also intersted in what part of the staffs are burning you, an dmaybe what you class as a burn.

During busking sessions, I frequently kept relighting one or two staffs for several hours at a time only burnt myself once to the point where it blistered a tiny bit.

Are the screws holding your wick on sunken so that they do not stick out from the wick?

Could we have a more indepth description of how the wick is attached and what the ends are like?

i do 4 foot doubles usually.

i've tried 5 foots quite a bit, just don't like them. They're my favourite for single staff, but for doubles they're really fussy and annoying.

My 4 foot 'nesbit' staffs kick ass for contact. They're fairly light, thin solid steel cylinders, and they're balanced really nicely.
in my humble opinion: The weight of a staff isn't important for contact. It's all about how the weight is distributed (see: baton twirlers)