Beginning Staff Juggling?

So, Pyrolific

How's it going?
What are you finding difficult?
Anything you're not sure about?
Which move is progressing at the fastest rate? (My money's on the french cascade but everyone learns differently)

I'm finding it interesting to follow your progress to see whether the order in which tricks are made up correlates with their ease (though this will be confounded by the above advice!).

hehe - antti cascade is coming along quite well - I still cant run it, only getting about 10 catches but its coming along. I'm also working on using multiplexes to start...as I want to be able to work the juggling stuff in with standard short doubles moves.

Havent had a chance to work on the french cascade. I'll give it some time this afternoon tho!

J

ahhh tried the french cascade last night...was a bit like this I can do it with one stick ok...and I think I can do it with two, but when I try to do it with three it hurts my head!

I've got a weekend away at a festival coming up, so I reckon I'm going to really crack on with this stick juggling stuff there.

J

good luck fella, its a great feeling when it clicks, its got a great flow to it!

I would also recommend the half shower as a good beginner pattern. Unlike the inside and reverse cascades you don't have the problem with changing directions which makes the move feel more staff like, but its a much easier and slower pattern than the shower.

And as for preventing injuries, I really injured my shoulder using bad technique. Since I've finally cleaned that up I've had much less problems. Even doing cascades can be really bad for you when you don't watch it.

Warm up really well, and always begin slowly, starting the pattern using just one staff. Really try to focus that your shoulder stays down and that you don't raise your arms and or flick your wrists any more than is absolutely necessary.

There's also tons of preventive muscle building exersizes that help, like pull ups and using a spin ball.

But most importantly just listen to your body; you should get warning signs for when its time to give it a rest.

very wise word val, loving the new video by the way
x

@Val:

I know there's video of you doing a very solid half shower somewhere but I can't seem to find it at the moment.

I was wondering how you make your low throws in the half-shower (the 2x in (4x,2x)). Do you catch the staff from the high throw and do a snake throw or do you catch it, unwrap it by rotating your wrist towards the thumb (so that the pinkyside of the stick can travel under your forearm) and throw normally? i.e. do you use a snake throw for your 2x or not?

More importantly, which one is easier to learn in your opinion?

Um, if Im not mistaken I normally catch the high throw and do a behind the back half of a two beat before throwing it again. I suppose you could snake it instead but I think thats a bit harder. Normally I end up snaking it when trying to go from the shower back into the halfshower, and the snake throw is most often the part that makes the whole pattern go screwy.

hows progress

Hey, I'd like to join tripple convo too.

I'm with tripple from this autumn so abit more then half a year.
Started from shower then reverce cascade but simple cascade went much easier so I guess it's better to start.

Got some questions
How long and heavy staffs you use? I did just add one more to my doubles 1m long about 500-550g weight.
Also, does anyone know or heard of who did 1st start 3 and 4 staffs juggling? It doesn't seem to be one of common tools.
And, where could I learn about all those 31, 41 and so on. Don't understand much in juggler's language for now.

Konstantin

Hi Konstantin,

- 1m is a good length. Most people use around 1m for staff juggling (usually a little shorter).

- I don't know who started 3-staff but it was Antti and Tommi (The Amazing Rubberheart Duo) who popularized it. Unfortunately their website has gone now as they no longer perform together but their videos are on YouTube.

- I guess the easiest way to understand the "31, 41" stuff - if you're interested - is to learn the 'juggler's language' which is called Siteswap. I made a post earlier on this thread with some links that will help. Before anyone else says it, I feel that it's important to let you know that siteswap is just one way to describe juggling patterns and that if you actually want to learn the patterns that are described by the numbers, the best way is to have someone teach you / watch a video etc. However, very few (maybe 0) teaching videos exist for staff juggling at the moment, so you will probably have to figure out some patterns for yourself.

If you have a specific request for a video tutorial for a pattern (that I can do!), ask me and I'll see if I can help.

p.s. people normally reply to posts here more quickly, but the festival season has started so a lot of people are in fields at the moment

Hope that helps

Hi Konstantin,
Try and keep your staffs as light as you can, staff juggling can be hard work on the muscles and you are less likely to injure yourself with lighter staffs.

Thanks for replies.

I don't have soneone to reach juggling arround. Even with clubs that seem to be most similar to staffs. (I don't do any juggling but staffs myself)
There's no tutorials but there're couple performances in youtube like Seb's Oj that is really cool. That might be enough to get an idea.
In general, I use tries and errors way to learn.
Do you have any juggling routine videos available?

Tim,
I guess that's right. Thanks to dodge skills I don't get injured but it's really hard for muscles.
But what about fire staffs when fuel gives some extra weight? Do you encounter problems with practice and fire staffs having different weight?

Its still less effort physically to practice the pattern with light staffs and then readjust to heavier fire staffs. That way you can practice longer before getting tired and overstraining muscles. and you should be able to make fire staffs way lighter than 500 grams. Thats good for doubles but way too heavy for holding three.

And I think Antti was the first guy to juggle three fire staffs.

At least in the wall staff spinning style plane thats most often whats being described in this forum.

Well, wall plane looks so natural with staffs. Especially if you played with doubles. wheel throws with doubles are really rare thing. I did try it with 3 but not with fire.
Wheel plane is quite dangerous for your face at the very beginning

well - I can pretty much run three staffs in a wall plane cascade now.

I can nearly do the reverse wall plane cascade on clubs - so I guess 'three staff logics' will be the next short term goal.

yay! progress!

How long are your staffs?

mine are 3 foot or 0.9m long,

mine are about 70cm, and very very light. They just have about 1 1/2 inches of wick on each end, and a 1cm annodised aluminium shaft. no grip tape, although I really want to add some soon.

J

two triple staff juggling patterns, from me performing at the bjc 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOlhKexZ1kU