Contact stalls and foot juggles...

Fun things i've been working on recently...

Contact stalls: Stopping a spinning staff horizontaly on a body part and restarting it in the other direction. I found it when trying fishtails one time, i fishtailed to one side, stalled the staff, and then did a reverse fishtail back the other way. Theres other variations like if you're spinning anticlockwise in front of you, stall it on the back of your hand, then make it roll back over your wrist and stall it on the back of your hand again, or roll backwards over one shoulder, stall it on your back and roll back over the other shoulder. Then theres throwing the stick high, and catching it on the back of your hand so it stops dead horizontal in front of you which looks incredible.
Then i found you could stall it on your foot, so it stops dead level with the floor and about six inches above it and flick it back...

Which leads nicely into
Foot juggles: Catching the staff on your foot, and throwing it continuously. A bit like that game on California Games where you kicked the bag around, but using a stick. If you catch the staff right, you can roll it up onto your knee, onto the other knee and catch it on the other foot.
Me and a mate were trying to juggle the staff between us, which was a bit hard (particularly in the kitchen...)

Anyone been playing with these? I don't get to see many other staff people except martial arts type staffers who tend not to be impressed by contact and stuff. Although they did teach me some nice acrobatics.

--Ben

sounds amazing, how do u

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Then theres throwing the stick high, and catching it on the back of your hand so it stops dead horizontal in front of you

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without it hurting? i can only see much pain and brusing from such a move.

ive been playing with a stall reverse direction thingy

http://www.firetwirlers.com/lessons/staff/28

is the move ive been practising and when i get off center it stalls horizontally then i go back in the other direction

Wow, wicked i've been playing with exactly the same things recently - i like the foot one tho, that's a brilliant idea - must try that tomorrow.
Also pinch-type-stalls and reverses are nice, e.g. neck/shoulder pinches.
Another nice variation is: a fraction of a second after catching it horizontally on a hand (at one end to make it go dead still) slide the hand really quickly into the middle of the staff and then go into tricks like globetrotter and other rolls ..

Mike

btw, i love that fire volley ball video on that site! What was used as the ball ???

mike

always good to hear nice ideas!

I've been working on some straight up balancing on the back of the hand transfer stuff. It looks really nice to go from stupidly fast spinning to a dead stop.

One thing i've been doing is hand stalling it then rasing above my head and spinning my body underneath the staff while it remains still.

Maybe try some non spinning through the legs but it might just look bit messy if not done well.

sort of the oppesite of stalling, from the staff laying still on the back of the hand slide the hand down the staff then straight back to the center and into fish tails. prob looks shit but got a really nice feel to it.

I like the spinning your body under the still staff thing, or letting the staff turn 180 as it goes over the head so you can restart in the same direction. I've been trying to do this on my right foot, by stalling it, jumping and turning 180 in the air with it balanced on the foot and stalling on the other side... only worked once, though.
More new stuff: Foot stalls into ankle fishtails. Continuously kicking a spinning staff on the left then the right foot, or left hand, right foot, right hand left foot. Foot throws, where you kick it into the air and the staff turns 360 rather than 180. And foot stalls from a throw (at least 360' spin). And like that hand roll, stall, roll back, stall thing, but around your foot. Only worked once properly, but it's easy to practice with a hand to make sure it makes it... Oh, and throwing the staff to have it land on the ground verticaly, then kick it back up in to the air...

So much more fun than just using your hands...

--Ben