Is contact twirling a newish thing?

Hmm... fair enough.

For me, speed is about context. How the spinning "fits" with a piece of music, the rythym of a performance, or the performer themselves dictates wether it's too slow, or too fast.

As for the trails left by spinning, well there are two kinds. The fire trail and the after image trail. Fire looks great in photos, but I love seeing antispin done fast enough and neatly enough so that the after image joins up and hangs in the air.

mr majestik i think the trails are longer if you twirl faster but just as important to me is the fact that the noise gets better to my ears the faster i go,
i also find twirling as fast as i can a great release of pent up energy,

chrono your views on speed are very similar to mine but much more elequently put,one thing that confuses me is that many people regard fast twirling as a cheap trick with little skill involved in my experience some of hardest stuff i do is my high speed twirling,

ben...........................

`as a cheap trick with little skill involved in my experience some of hardest stuff i do´
Sorry Tim, don't you do JUST fast twirling?

My hardest four ball juggling trick is to juggle them split time. Oh wait, I just know the one 4 ball trick.

And yes there are fast contact twirlers out there, its just a matter of practice, if thats what you want for a style. My chinese teacher was constantly harassing me to practice the same moves faster.

And as far as the acrylic ball jugglers I know go, the more they practice a certain contact move, the SLOWER they are able to manipulate it cleanly, which creates a greater aura of magic behind the feat.

Probably your biggest problem with contact twirling Tim is that a lot of people that present moves are still at the beginning stage. To get any difficult contact move solid and visually clean takes years of constant repetition, and after that, when the move is clean, its the artist's decision whether or not s/he wants to present it fast or slow.

entheogen,iam currently working alongside a director and performer on a veryslow/veryfast choreographedfire staff routine,i also juggle with staffs in the style of the amazing rubber heart,and have fouund both styles very hard to get drop free,

mcp you are totally right sorry for dragging this interesting thread down to the base level of fast and slow good or bad,
my point is this
i am a fan of all styles of contact juggling from victor kees crazy five ball to the beautiful work of full moon performers and ministry of manipulation,
i recently saw a guy performing an acrylic contact routine where he would change tempo from very slow to very fast the contrast blew me away especially because he remained in total control throughout,
i wandered if a similar style had evolved with staff?

one last thing what and who is a steve?

it's just a name given to a roll that goes up the arm, around the back of the neck and down the other arm.

fast spinning: http://homepage.mac.com/kenrom/iMovieTheater136.html

and who is steve??

Nominally mushypeasteve as far as can be said. Thou he nor drew would give it that name.

is that steve from hebden bridge3........tall bloke with a seriously intelligent approach to juggling?if its the same bloke he is 1 smooth staff twirler and amazing at crossdressing

I don't think mushy pea steve is a crossdresser. He is tall, tends to wear only black, has a black pony tail and is also an amazing contact juggler, as well as hooper and handstander.

yes he is also a cross dresser for fun not kinkiness i believe..he was at a friends wedding and there was a fancy dress room
all night long new and exotic bearded ladies with fantastics backsides kept appearing,its definatly the same guy.............
back to the thread would i be right in saying steve was instrumental in a lot of the early staff contact moves?
he is very modest about it but apparently he is a bit of a legend in the con tact staff world?
as for his acrylic juggling ive seen a short preview of the soon to be released beard and fullmoon contact dvd and yes he is amazing withy one massive acrylic ball,details of this video and release date will follow asap..

here are details of a dvd release you may be interested in,ive seen some un-edited footage and it looks awesome,

http://www.fullmoonperformers.com/isolation/index.html
having read this properly i am totally aware that this is the real steve?!??!!?!!?!?!?!?god knows why hes called mushy pea though?

<pats tim on the head>

Yes tim, I think everybody has heard of in isolation by now.

The mushy pea name was because he ran the mushy pea juggling store in <insert city in england name here>. Weather he gave it his name, or took his name from it is unknown to me.

Yes, he was instrumental. Many older school Contact Staffers would credit him with some 'instrumental' status also.

thanks mcp your great,my ego is in constant need of deflation please keep up the good work,
jago is a good friend of mine and i will continue to plug this video cos i know how hard he worked for it.
no wonder he feels a bit isolated....

Tim, sorry I was a bit mean on my last post. It was rude. No hard feelings?

Don't be deceived by the chinese style Steve. From a glance they look like really similiar moves, but the technique behind them is quite different. I would even go as far to say knowing the one is not only not easier but detrimental to knowing the other.

From how I understand the half steve, it was inspired by the similiar contact ball trick, in which the stick gathers its momentum from raising/lowering the arm, and or turning the torso.

The chinese steve (or at least thats what I call it, I tried to find out the chinese name, but they simply refer to it as : this is the second thing you learn. Any more insistance to the name of the trick just gave me strange looks) on the other hand is more of a passive acceptance of the sticks inherent rolling momentum from the base move, which not only works as a go between for other moves but also drives the stick. The feicha's unique shape also helps in this aspect; not only can you visually see how fast the feicha is spinning from the strange shape of the head, but it also doesn't roll on its own, it would mearly just tip over.

entheogen no hard feelings at all,i am passionate about all types of maipulation(by the way how do you know i twirl fast?)contact for me is very much a spectator hobby so i am uneducated in its ways.

mcp i was deadly serious i am a muppet and you constant ability to bring me down to earth keeps me from talking to much poo.
im glad you have the dvd
would you consider a professionally made staff or fire dvd collaboration a possibilty some time?

I would love to make a dvd similar to in isolation, os it would then rock...