Contact staff and long hair

ive recently taken up contact staff and its great fun, however i often find that the staff, specificly the grip, tangles with and pulls my hair, which gets very annoying.

i was wondering if any body else had this problem or if people knew a good way around it

thanks,
PJB21

I believe the consensus of opinion amongst contact staff practitioners, is to chop your hair off. and I'm only half-kidding; most all of them end up doing it at some stage.

I resist, and tie my dreads up in a kinda pineapple spikey thing atop my head; this works, keeping the hair away from the path of the staff, however it does, as others have mentioned screw up your balance a bit. also makes things like a head-spin impossible.

Yeah, hair really really does get in the way! Not too much you can do appart from, as already mentioned, cut it off. I'm with Pogo though and refuse! Just stick with it and accept the occasional hair yanked out of your scalp

I just wear a cap to hide my hair. It definitely helps

thanks for the advice, i think ill try and keep it out the way as much as possible since i do rather like my hair haha =)

i should be getting a decent cap soon for fire spins anyways so hopefully i can use it for practising contact as well =)

PJB21

It'll take a fair amount of messing about to find the best way of getting your hair up in the hat, especially if you have dreads. I find its easiest just wearing a headband to keep it outta my eyes. Less control of it as its rolling across the neck but no big lumps to collide with haha.

Then again, I'm not too great at contact, maybe thats why!

I just make a bun on the top of my head. that way it is held out of the way for both vertical and horizontal tricks and there is no loose ends of the hair to get wrapped up in my staff grip.

It would harder if your hair was not long enough to tie up, then i think you would need a cap.

chop it off, chop it off chop it off

I did and found it Soooo much easier

yeah i think that's what ill be doing, however im probably still gonna get a hat for when i do burns =)

thanks for the advice all

PJB21

I find it fairly easy to stick my dreads in a hat.. (but its a fairly big hat ) Stick it over yer head, gather all the dreads together, twist them round once so all the dreads are facing vertically up and stick em inside all at the same time. Will get harder as the dreads get longer though, and I've started to do the whole pineapple thing cos sometimes my hat falls off and then eeeverything goes to s**t!


PBJ21 beanies do the trick really well, and if you dont already have a hat, then hoods are just as good!
hope that helps

If you have long hair, get rid of the rubber grips! It sticks to the hair immediatly and will rip it out when you do any rolls near the neck, no matter how carefully you put it up. There's always loose strands. Unless you do a lot of staff on staff contact moves, they're completely unnecessary.

My staffs have some of the tennis grip tape around it, and I find that is more than enough, and its more hair friendly. Though I have sacrificed keeping my hair at waist length cause the bun gets in the way of pivots :-(

I just always make sure i have my twirling hat handy. Its just a normal hat which is tight enough to not fall off but not make me faint

Even with really long hair there is hat out there somewhere for you.

hi all im learning contact staff now and having some trouble with some off the stuff,could my staff be too short as im a burly sorta chap or is i just need to practic more,as in the halo and trying fishtails the balance is hard to keep ,

hi im new to hop,glad i dont have the hair problems however dreads look cool id like to grow some,its my beard i worry about ha ha,where in berlin are you i used to live in charlottenburg and would love to return to berlin its a great city,could hook up with some guys for a spin,not sure if you can get away with taking fire toys on the plane though

I used a head band for a bit, but I found that any halo-type moves kept tugging at the back of my dreads.

Beanie hats work well... but I cut my dreads off in the end... on a whim.

Made spinning easier. But it wasn't really necessary. My dreads weren't long enough to pony tail - but if they were, I think that may have helped a bit.

I found the beanie the best choice when I had long hair, though I was amazed at how quickly my contact improved after I had my hair cut off (partly for this reason).

instead of a beanie does a bandanna work well?

I'm with Mynci. CHOP IT ALL OFF! I did. All 600 grams of it. Although that wasn't technially mine...

But at the end of the day I had to choose between the staff and the hair. And the hair didn't really stand a chance.

The end question is : Do you wanna look cool because of your long hair or because of your skills?



Not saying the two are mutually exclusive... Just makes it easier...

Neither, I wanna look cool cos of my cheeky smile

And I'm almost there with the matrix now, even with the silly long hair!

Just drop the staff and pick up the poi, there are less movements where your hair will get caught... though I've come across a good number these days...

Just get yourself a big Jager bandanna. They're practically indestructible...

Yeah I refuse to cut my hair too.

You might consider getting cornrows. I had a friend do mine recently, and I'm stoked on them. Crazy braided patterns all over my head, plus its much easier to tuck inside a beanie.

Just a thought.

The problem I found with tucking your hair up is the fact it leaves a bump on your head your not used to and when I ducked under a staff i had a much smaller margin of error, it always cliped the bun under my hat (well the back of my head) and gave the staff some wobble, no problem with that now even with a foot tall mohawk, the staff pushes it out the way and it springs back.

I am using bandana simply. It does leave a bump of hair but it doesn't cause too much problems. Just get used to it

I used to use my long hair as a way to wield the staff without touching it my friends in hervey bay could tell you about some wierd techs that require long hair to do, anti-contact in a sense( it's not really cause your hair still counts as a body part)

Well if your spinning fire and you mess up the fire could take care of your hair problem. Kidding XD well it worked for me singed the bottem off my hair pretty nice even though it was really short lol, i've discoverd growing my hair probibly isnt gonna happen to fast, but i would just say tie it up and get grips that arent rubber lol

It is quite the obstacle! I've got dreads and I just wear it in a bun. Christ rolls and SNES's still kinda catch my hair a bit. I can do a continuous Matrix's and it don't effect the flow of the move. I find it's only certain moves that will give you a hassle. But Contact Staff is freakin' AWESOME! Don't chop it off, work around it, improvise!

I chopped my dreddies short(er) recently, Much easier to keep out of the way now