Is contact twirling a newish thing?

apart from whats here on hop and on poi in the park (much thanx to the makers the videos have opened so many doors) i havnt been able to find any other contact twirling info anywhere. most of "contact staff" on the net is about contacting staff i know twirling has been round for ages but contact twirling doesnt seem to have been around for as long, although i could be totally wrong id be interested to hear how ppl found out about contact staffing and its origins

[ 15. September 2003, 06:13: Message edited by: ben-ja-men ]

oi oi...
yeah you're right...contact fire twirling hasn't really been around for that long...not in the state it is now anyway...neckrolls and the like have been round for a while....

speaking personally...I saw two London guys called (Stick man) Dan & Toby (who I believe enlightened Rob/Bluecat) doing basic contact stuff a few years ago...then Mushey Pea Steve at Bristol 3 years ago (he was the forerunner really)...but then a girl called Stephanie came from France to a juggling workshop one night about 1 1/2 years ago.... She was a baton twirler and showed me and Fairy Ben and Tim Ogre a few CRAZY moves that helped us develop heaps....

So that's it from a London perspective... it's all developing right now Ben...you're/we're all part of it too

dave

yuh, I got into it cos of CubeFX, wo is also stunning, but contact in baton has been around for ages. otherwise my influencfes have been glass and bluecat on here, but then i started off totally removed from any spinning community but this one...

T

i guess even the name contact staff is an acknowledgement to a whole branch of sweet staff moves that were worthy of formalising.
As this development continues, i guess we can expect tutorial vids as this process contuinues.
but the question remains, who killed laura palmer?!? :worries:

that wraps everything up nicely then

actually I started doing contact about 5 years ago, long befor any outside influence, and I was using a spear.... a sharp spear....

about two years ago I saw cube fx.... playing with a trident and I realized there was much more that could be done.

then I saw nix? and glass and blue... in that order...

Cole, what the hell was that about? :confuzed:

T

just helping bender out with his bob query

ahhhhhh..... all is clear!
poor laura.

I've seen contact spinning that was out of this world in the Chinese acrobatic circus and a very similar style of spinning in an African circus i saw on tv. The chinese performer had a thick wooden staff around 170-180 centimeters long and the other end had a blade for weight so it was balanced differently. There was two performers in the african circus and they had similar but thinner staves and they were also passing the staves. Anybody seen these kind of shows?

A lot of similar tricks to the ones people here do but light years ahead of anybody i've seen through hop or col..

so...... i think it's been around a long time. i'd love to know more about the history of this style. i got to meet the performer from the chinese circus after their show and we spinned together! he did his thing and i did my double staff juggling. i wish i would've understood cantonese

I think it is interesting to try and find when something 'started', with manipulation arts like staffing and juggling etc.

It is such an esoteric area, that poeple and cultures have come up with spontaneously all over the world and throughout most of time. Particularly when dealing with something as simple as a stick, I think we would allbe very surprised how many times it has come and gone, with masters doing crazy things and never being recorded or showing a prescence on the net.

Just coz we haven't heard of them or found them on google doesn't mean they weren't around...

(oops , baby crying, gotta go)

Earliest I've seen was a couple of basic ideas in that infamous gun twirling routine from 1899, which hints that other people might well have been doing more.

bumpity bump.

Anybody got more information, know of any books on the trident / rolling form of spinning, that cubeFX does, and that antti saw in the chinese circus?


from

http://www.juggling.org/papers/history-2/ ::

"One particularly amazing trick which was quite common was the rolling on the body, in all sorts of ways, of a large trident. This trick, as was common with most Oriental juggling, was usually coupled with amazing contortions and acrobatic skills."

An example of it can be found at the end of this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1QW0ubtZP5g&search=janitors%20contact%20staff

The trident you are speaking of is known as Feicha in Chiniese, and is quite different than the european form of contact staff, not only because the center of balance is 2/3 in, but also from philosophy. The chinese style has a base form contact move, that all other moves flow into and out of. This moves also gives the stick it own momentum, meaning that you are not actively manipulating the stick to make a given trick, but are passivly reacting to how the stick is rolling.

The feicha is by far older than baton twirling, and I might add the contact styles have no similarity to each other. How old I'm afraid I can't tell you. My teacher didnt speak a word of english, and its hard to get concrete historical facts through pantomime, but apparently the origional feicha was double as longe as the 1.6m today, and was used as defense against tigers and other wild animals. Where the idea came to make contact moves with this weapon is beyond me.

Coooooool!

Where / who did you get taught by?

and just to press my luck: Any websites / link / other info you know about it?

Fei_Cha - Flying trident (Xiao Cha, Fei Cha or Ma Cha)

(+video)

I found some relation to Tai Chi too.

lighitng,

:R

ps: As far as I remember, there were group performing with trident(thinking it was on earlier COL).

does anyone do contact staff FAST by anychance,some of the top acrylic contact jugglers have started picking up the pace but i have yet to see fast contact staff,before you all go mental at me i know speed isnt everything but surely its nice to have fast and slow?
ive thought about trying it myself but i m not sure if contact really is for boys so i think ill leave to you hippy types
long live robert the worlds fastest ever?!?!?!?

@ Mr Majestik- people generally don't do fast contact because they can't. Nothing inherent in the style demands that the staff moves slowly. As skill increases so does the possibility ( but not necessity) of greater speed. The only thing contact staff juggling is about is contact juggling your staff. The way in which you perform it is a personal choice, and I enjoy seeing a wide range of styles.

@ tim_marston- nice way to bait the contact staffers! Even got a reference to Robert Heart in there, nice one....

In answer to your question. Yes contact staff is done fast, it's just that it takes a lot of practice to do this safely and in control. Speed for speeds sake looks like you don't know what your doing and results in missing teeth. I agree that a contrast / progression between speeds feels and looks great, especially when spinning to music.

I do not try and spin quickly. This does not mean my staff moves slowly.

Oh and thanks to Entheogen an Richee for the info on the flying trident. Good work!

when spinning fire i dont really see that spinning fast makes much of a visual difference. theres more or less a point where the trails dont look any better no matter how much faster you go.