Yet another contact juggling thread.

Nyoooo.....

Poor Kodiac *pats*

Contact balls really arent THAT expensive. to learn you only need one of them and it will last "almost" forever. Even though dropping it will get it scratched and chipped

*chases my contact ball as it rolls down a hill hitting rocks on its way down*

Some people say its allright to learn contact with something equivalent to an acryllic ball. but i think its worth investing in a proper ball so that its not weird and you have to re-learn when you want to change to an acryllic later.

i say to all people. buy quality equipment. good props are worth the money

not yet
stupid royal mail

I learnt it all with an acrylic. I've only got my stage ball recently, but it does help to learn some stuff with.

Acrylics are much easier to learn isolations with, but body rolling is easier with a big stage ball.

I've been contact juggling for about 7 months now, and I can do quite a lot of the butterfly moves, chest rolls both ways, behind the neck roll and almost nailed the pirouette, various stalls, elbow transfers, quite a few isolations etc etc... believe the 'trick' to learning stuff is to slow it right down, oh, and practise. lots of it. The type of ball doesn't really make a difference, it's just personal preference.

the voice of reason

agree with all of what you just said mr the circus.

was well impressed with your skills at falmouth by the way.
watching you made me want to start learning the cage you know...
its getting closer but i'm still a *looooong* way off solid


cole. x

man!! *

Cages are a fun move. how are you getting on with it? Can you do prayer butterfly? That'll help you nail them.

When you do cages, your hands need to be in a bear claw sort of shape. When you roll the ball over, you'll want to give it a tiny throw in the air, just enough to take the weight of the ball off your hands, but stay in contact with the ball and roll it slowly over your fingers. you'll get it in no time.

I learned with hockey balls and then went on to making my own out of electricians tape foam balls and rice. The home made ones are better than anything else I've come across for learning stuff with since they are 217g in mass and 85mm in diameter - but I guess that's the same with any prop you make for yourself.

Basically acrylics have the perfect mass and stage balls have the perfect forgiveness i.e. they can be pressed into one another with comparable ease (unlike acrylics that slide off one another way too easily). If you are into multiball then acrylics are expensive. If you're into one ball then an acrylic is well worth the investment (although I still think a hockey ball is just as good to begin with and a fraction of the cost). However, when you are initially learning it is advisable to tape over your acrylic to avoid dents and scratches and take the tape off when you've mastered the basics, that way you won't cry early for a few months.

LTC - I'm going to invest in some monkey fists for some multiball fire CJ - next time we meet we'll play again right *fire multiball cages* will either be awesome or very painful!!! Since Falmouth I've been working much more on body rolls and elbow isolations - talking of Falmouth I'm going back there a week Tuesday with my A-level students.

I am so glad there are lots of people here with contacty skills.
i was attracted to contact juggling because its an art where you have to be in 100% control all of the time.

There is nothing in the world as gracefull or as beautifull as a well perfomed contact routine.

DAMN YOU MOSCHEN!! DAMN YOU AND YOUR SKILLS *shakes fist*

*joins in the fist shaking fun*

Gelfling- if you wait til next falmouth, I promise i'll do my best to break that other old monkeyfist poi of mine so you can have a go at 2 ball contact. See if you set your arms on fire then you can decide whether you want to do multiball fire CJ?
Also I'm going to be niggling at people to teach me some CJ stuff (tho it'll be basic cos I'm fairly rubbish). Cup of tea/ some chocolate for a CJ lesson, anyone?

Tea? Chocolate? Throw in some Curry a la Gelfling and you have a deal!!

Lesson one: Buy a contact ball.

Curry a la Gelfling? I hope that doesn't have real Gelfling in it!
managed to get past lesson one already.
please don't tell me lesson two is 'don't get it at all scuffed'
managed to get a butterfly going now, but still my electro magnetic resonators seem to be not quite functioning and it keeps falling off my skin
maybe i should buy new batteries

Where/when does it keep falling off? If it's when you go from palm to cradle, a cheeky tip for this is to put your elbow at a higher level than your hand. this is because gravity doesn't work backwards, so the ball will stay in your cradle instead of rolling down your hand towards the floor. this will help with a windscreen wiper. Butterfly itself comes with a lot more practise in order to get the nice 'figure 8' motion. To get this, try turning the downward velocity of the ball into a sideways velocity, so instead of just catching the ball in your cradle, sweep your hand outwards as the ball is 'falling' and transfer to your palm. Rinse, repeat as desired. practise lots.

When doing back-back transfers, remember that the catching hand goes in front. palm-palm I'm guessing shouldn't be too much of a problem, and then just mix the two up and mess around to see what variations you can do. Have fun!!

Thanks for the tips! I'd just started on the back to back transfers and was wondering about that. My right hand is starting to 'flow' a bit but the left is still a bit clunky... isn't that always the way! I'm actually working on arm/chest/arm rolls and palm/cradle/arm roll to elbow/catch in cradle then either another arm roll to another cradle catch or butterfly.

Also been trying to isolate between the wrists: surprisingly hard to do (for me at least) but looks quite nice when it works (in a kind of dancy way)

Thought it might look quite cool if you could keep glowsticks or something lighty in your hands in the dark with an acrylic/crystal ball. I saw glow in the dark gloves somewhere...

You two have confused me with all these descriptions -

LTC - next time we meet you'll have to tell me the names of each of the tricks and then I may be able to understand the above.

Lazy - are you going to Clapham? If so break your poi by then please

Gelfling: I'll try to get down to Clapham. Problem is I'm drowning in a sea of work at the moment so not sure if I'll be free, but if I can, I'll be there, with monkeyfists, camera and acrylic! And chocolate! *thinks: should probably do more work instead of posting on HoP *

by the way
these are the glowing gloves I was talking about

Hehehe - I'm meant to be working as well - glow gloves - why not just get some glow acrylics - they'd be just as expensive.

my acrylic cost twice what those gloves are. Where do you get yours from?

Oops - mis-read the site - thought they were charging £26 for the gloves - sorry