My Staff Bounces Out Of My Hand!

This is rather annoying. So I'm practicing tosses and one thing I'm noticing with staff is that since I no longer have the drag of a flag to help me, I'm having a really hard time on my catches. It's not that I can't stick my hands in there and get it, I'm just finding that when the pipe hits my hands, it gets a really harsh reverberation and will physically bounce out of my hand before I can get my fingers around it!

I'm fine when I'm doing two-handed catches since the pipe can only bounce harder into my other hand. I've been working on a toss (known in guard speak as "up-down-up") with a behind the back catch. It is supposed to just drop into my hand ever so easily and be caught at the center point, but I'm finding that even that small drop causes it to bounce straight out of my hand. This is a disgustingly easy trick on flag and I've been doing it for five years now, but minus the flag bit it's suddenly be come rediculously hard!

For the record I work with a 6 foot hollow aluminium staff...a converted color guard flag pipe. Can anybody tell me how to get it to stop bouncing?!

Help! Thanks.

Well I would recommend making it heavier, so gravity is working in favor of your catching it, however I could be completely wrong Oh well, its either that or get faster reflexes.

plug it. You can put something in the staff to make it non hollow :-) This will help with the bouncing and add some weight for better control. Typical choice I believe is wooden dowel rod.

dowl is the answer

The ends are indeed weighted...so I need to make it heavier?!

Ouch! I'm just a little girl folks! I am like a wet noodle...I can bend any which direction you want, but there's no strength there.

Fill it up and practise, you'll get the strength

practice catching, simple I know but just practice throwing it up and catching the staff it's a new prop so it will behave differently.

get a non-bouncy staff???

sounds a bit like your miss timing the catch otherwise... maybe because a flag reacts slower so you are used to a diffrent timing?

T

Extra grip along the center can add a bit of weight, as you have already plugged the ends. Oodles of tennis grip should suffice!

Practice practice practice

If you're only a little girl why are you using a 6 foot staff?!

Cut about a foot and a half of it, and it should not reverbrate as much.

Its like when you twang a ruler over a table, the less ruler there is over the edge of the table, the less it 'twangs'.

Its probably the way your holding your tongue!!
Its probably your timing too, try to be moving your hand down as you catch the staff, this way you reduce the speed at which your hand and staff comes into contact in turn reducing the twang!!

When you go for the catch try to make sure that your hand isn't held to stiffly cause that will give the staff something hard to bounce off, if you have your hand slightly curled ready to close your finger in the catch, it will soften your palm and also reduce the time it takes for your fingers to close on the staff. Think like trying to catch a ball one handed.
Dunno if that helps but thats what I do.

Well, everything is easy by the time you got it "down".

I'd side most of what have been said already:

- length of the staff: a long, hollow and light staff will bounce more than a short, cored and heavy one.
- staff "fillings": a hollow staff will have more dynamics than a filled one. Fillings could be from wood, construction foam, resin and what-else-not. On the contrary fibre glass or mere aluminium staff will inevitable bounce (more)
- direction of catch: If your hand moves up, whilst the staff comes down, the two meet with opposing forces and promote bouncing. If your hand is moving along with the direction of the staff (like in contact juggling) the bounce is minimized (the faster the smoother)
- grabbing vs. catching: I find that when I actively grab the centre of the dropping staff, I get a smoother movement as when my hand is just waiting for the staff to drop into it (of course very hard to perform btb).

So maybe nothing new in my post...

Hi,
I strongly recomend not adding anymore weight to your staff,I have been throwing staffs for years and have repeatedly re-designed my staff to be lighter rather than heavier,

Heavy staffs are harder to throw and more likely to cause injury either by muscle strain due to throwing or due to collisions with eyes, noses etc caused by bad catching,.
My advice would be to catch the staff slightly higher than normal and then allow your catching arm to give slightly this will absorb the bounce in a similar way to a cricketer catching high balls.
Also if you can increase the rigidity of the staff without adding much weight this should help,you could try a snugly fitting light wieght wooden dowel,this will also help to prevent heat travelling up the core of the staff and increase the bite of the screws on your wicks(assuming of couse thats its a fire staff?).
You could also try a foam or rubber grip tape,this should absorb some of the bounce.

Finally i would practise heaps of different throws and catches to see if the problem is worse depending on how you are catching the staff.
Good luck,I know how you feel

Hi menza
i cant make it work,any ideas why?