mcpPLATINUM Member
Flying Water Muppet
5,276 posts
Location: Edin-borrow., United Kingdom


Posted:
Errr, posted this on CJ.org a while, but since it deals with sticks too, thought I would post it here. Talks about some basic 'Types' of contact, that i remembered I hadn't ever posted online before.

Thread there: https://www.contactjuggling.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5947



Since I got into contact club and ball and stick, I've been think about the ways an object can interact with a person, or vice versa... without involving throwing and catching. (Except sometimes I do involve that) So namely the ways that an object can be in 'contact' with you.

[This is limited to thinking mostly about balls and entirely about ONE object]

I got these ones:

1) Grip - Controlled movement using your hand to grip the object. [Why is your hand a special case? Well cos it is.]

2) Balance - Maintaining an equilibrium using motion.

3) Placement - Gripping the object using two or more parts of your body that aren't your palms. [Yes, it's a lot like a grip but more general.]

4) Roll - A moving balance.

5) Gripped Movement - Rolling the object using two bodyparts.

6) Slide - Movement without rotation.

7) Spin - Yes, even for a ball. I guess a rotation around an axis perpendicular to the plane of your body? That sounds about right...

Suction - [Thanks to greg for this one] errr yeah, self explainatory I hope.


So that's how far I got with that before I ran out of ways something could be in contact with you. I guess this doesn't include external object like walls... got you could 'grip' a ball between a wall and your body... or someother external object.

So then I got onto the idea of ways in and out of contact... and I only came up with a few, cos this is a bit more macro scale...

1) From one type of contact to another.

2) From a throw.

3) From an external source. (Another person or whatever)

4) Creating the object out of something on your body. [Thanks greg.]


Which isn't super helpful... so I tried to think of ways to initate a Roll. Like how you physically start a ball rolling out of another type of contact. (Typically a balance, I should think.)

1) Using gravity. ie: lifting your arm and the ball will roll down.

2) Moving yourself under the object. Using it's inertia force in other words. Two types for this one, translation along a linear path or rotational body movement.

3) Using a limb or other body part to give force to the ball to roll it. An initial touch.

4) Push (Greg again) Using a wave through your body to continously push the ball along, like the ball is surfing a wave.

5) The opposite of 2 kinda... like in a car when it brakes suddenly, velocity that the passenger already had is suddenly apparent. So when you're moving and you stop suddenly, the ball continues on your path, initiating a roll.


At this point, I was going to go onto clubs and sticks. Then I decided sleep was more important, since I was on a plane across america after sleeping for 3 hours on a greyhound bus the night before.

.
.
.


So for sticks... you've cut out one axis of symmetry. This leads to lots of new things. Or at least a few.

1) wrap - using the length of the prop to wrap around a body part, without roll. A spin around a body part.

2) stall - An offcenter temporary balance of the object. Using gravity to change the direction of the object can be achieved.

3) step - combination of a stall and a spin... the contact point steps between offcenter points on the staff. (This one, being a combination, isn't so basic.)

All the ball ones also apply. They're really basic, in some ways.

I think maybe there should also be something like a push, where you're pushing the staff around in circle, pushing at an offcenter point and similtanously sliding your hand around the staff to continue the push at the right tangent... like a contact version of stirring the bowl of love. (The original conical) but I am a bit tired and I can't tell if this is implied by the other forms of contact.... Maybe it's like the opposite of a wrap...

Anyway, so there are some extra constraints in the way you can transition between different forms of contact with staffs or linear objects. Like you can have offcenter rolls, something I don't think you normally can get with a ball... there are more possibilites... like for balance, it's not just one orientation to the balance anymore (with a perfect sphere) but two ends and a middle where a balance can be achieved.

The come clubs.... Clubs are kinda weird in that their shape is even more complex. They like to roll in curves. Inside planes is almost a meaningless term since they're so small... And the push thing becomes more obvious, that you can get them to wrap around you, rather than forcing them into it... like throwing a flat into a wrap... they're so light, it doesn't take much to get them to rotate.

Plus slides are much more common, and balances have more possibilities, from contact entrances and more possibilities in terms of the shape of the club, since the knob provides an extra easy balance.

Er, yeah... then you've got rings / hoops / cylindrical hoops, like the shape of a roll of tape.

These are more interesting again, cos not much has been done with contacting these... you see little bits... palmspinning them, face balance, ear to ear wrap, rolls across the back and even an arm wrap... but I'm sure there's lots more... and some interesting theory to do with the object's prebuilt negative space.

And that's what rambling is folks... More energy drink for me....

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.


Fire_MooseSILVER Member
Elusive and Bearded
3,597 posts
Location: Scottsdale, AZ, USA


Posted:
Thanks Meg!

O.B.E.S.E.

Owned by Mynci!


ZazieBRONZE Member
There Is No Spoon
68 posts
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom


Posted:
Whaaay, I'd been hoping for something like this...

For spin, does the axis need to be perpendicular? I was going to say the axis would be better described as anywhere not parallel to the plane it's on, but actually would that be sliding; a spin would have to be on one central point is that right?... and I was going to go on to say that rolling could be described as moving along a bodypart on an axis parallel to the surface but it wouldn't have to be would it? A ball, that is, if the axis was off-parallel it would roll in a circle...? I've confused myself now. Oh, like a club. Yeah so that's all wrong. Not sure why I'm leaving this paragraph here but I will.

What about if you were to drop an object and move your hand down with that object keeping in contact but not pushing, or the same with a throw? What about centrifugal force? What about Jedi mind powers?

Also isn't a wrap more like a roll than a spin rather than vice-versa? And I think off-center rolls are theoretically possible with balls, just a lot harder.

Anyway, yay and bravo! Keep at the energy drinks, they're good for you.

Three years of my life that took. And I get; "... nice."


ZazieBRONZE Member
There Is No Spoon
68 posts
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom


Posted:
Actually, actually, I think maybe there needs to be definition between the 1) relationship between the object and your body, and 2) the forces acting on it.

e.g. a wrap is basically a lengthways roll, but in most cases it's propelled by the momentum of the staff, I don't know what force that is - is it centrifugal? But you could also do it by moving, say, your arm around the staff and relative to your arm and the staff it's the same movement. And you could do that with a ball, but you're saying wraps only apply to staffs. Relative to the prop and the surface, a wrap is just a roll.

I think a wrap therefor wouldn't be one of the basic ways in which something stays in contact: The relationship is the same as a roll, but it's the forces that are used (and the orientation of the staff) that make it a wrap. Would you agree?

I think maybe from the basics there should be practical, commonly used combinations including a wrap, and I think a step as well because it's really a move using spin.

Oh and also the definition of sliding wouldn't work with the whole non-perpendicular-axis-spin-which-isn't-a-spin-because-it's-sliding which is rotating but not moving in relation to the surface...

Oh, and just to make things that extra bit simpler apparently certrifugal force is a misnomer anyway

OH GOD

Wait it says simple theory of contact... sorry...

Three years of my life that took. And I get; "... nice."


mcpPLATINUM Member
Flying Water Muppet
5,276 posts
Location: Edin-borrow., United Kingdom


Posted:
A wrap isn't a roll. If you think of how a rolling pin rolls, it rolls around an axis the length of it, and that axis is inside the rolling pin.

The axis of the roll of a wrap, if you want to call is a roll, is outside the object and usually in the person's body who is doing the contact move.

An offcenter roll with a ball is more often called a drop I reckon. I can't imagine any offcenter roll with a ball that won't have gravity effecting it in a bad way. The ball being entirely symmetrical will always have an axis of symmetry perpendicular to it's contact point. A roll is a balance move, a move from balance to balance, so it can never be off-center else it wouldn't be balanced.

Er what's the deal with slide, a slide is just a slide, surely everyone knows what that is?

There doesn't need to be a difference in those things, the forces acting on a staff or ball are always the same, gravity, me, and the weight of the object.

Basically if messing around with super strict definitions of 'basic' make it harder to understand and discover new things, I don't see the point. Wrap is different to roll and that's good enough for me. There's no name for a spin and a roll (like in a steve) at the same time and I don't mind that either. [spoll / roin]

Good response thou, better than the ones on CJ.org

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.


mcpPLATINUM Member
Flying Water Muppet
5,276 posts
Location: Edin-borrow., United Kingdom


Posted:
oh and read the bit about 'touch' - that's being in contact but applying no force. in the first post...

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.


ZazieBRONZE Member
There Is No Spoon
68 posts
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom


Posted:
OK... Yeah I get what you mean about a wrap now. What I was saying about off-centre rolls with balls - doesn't a staff fall in the same way, it just takes longer to fall... but yeah from a practical point of view it wouldn't really happen.

Anyway, it's a good thing you're doing this, I couldn't, if I did it'd be fifty pages long and of no use to anyone. grin

I might just keep my pedantic and mostly wrong throught processes to myself in future...

Where's the bit about touch?

Three years of my life that took. And I get; "... nice."


mcpPLATINUM Member
Flying Water Muppet
5,276 posts
Location: Edin-borrow., United Kingdom


Posted:
oh it's in the cj.orf thread... i'll get it inna bit.

Don't not post stuff, i was just being girrny. Just give me a slap if I'm too abusive/negative. grin

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.


mcpPLATINUM Member
Flying Water Muppet
5,276 posts
Location: Edin-borrow., United Kingdom


Posted:
The thing I was trying to get at was the most basic forms of being in contact with an object... Like the subatomic particles of contact, so that you physically can't do a movement without doing one of the basics i listed above.

So things like fist stalls and inner elbow stalls and chest rolls and so on and so forth consist of one or multiple types of 'contact'. As it were.

Thou i think there might be a new one... simply called Touch. Like when you throw a ball up and have your other hand on top of it, not affecting it's flight, not pushing it down... just touching it. Not a super useful form of contact, but one nonetheless.

I think push might apply to a ball too... but I've yet to think about it fully.

I tried to play with a ring a little... but I got distracted by clubs again...

Other 'styles' of contact juggling or manipulation in general would be a topic for another discussion. I've been thinking about MRL and it's research into Manipulation and thinking about manipulation in general... how to keep it visually interesting and what 'forms' it can take... Like trying to delineate things you can do with an object... It's quite a big area...

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.


ZazieBRONZE Member
There Is No Spoon
68 posts
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom


Posted:
Oh, the CJ thread, got it. Yeah touch, that's exactly what I was talking about, sorry shoulda read that one first. Also what I was saying about centrifugal is I think what you were saying about push, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean by it.

Three years of my life that took. And I get; "... nice."


Fire_MooseSILVER Member
Elusive and Bearded
3,597 posts
Location: Scottsdale, AZ, USA


Posted:
something i Just thought of, What about contact with the ground? Clubs sometimes bounce very nicely and i think can (and are) incorperated into many preformances.

O.B.E.S.E.

Owned by Mynci!


astonSILVER Member
Unofficial Chairperson of Squirrel Defense League
4,061 posts
Location: South Africa


Posted:
Would that count? I always understood "contact" to mean longer term touching than bouncing.

Valid I suppose, in a different way to how I have always thought of contact staff/clubs/juggling etc....

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland


mcpPLATINUM Member
Flying Water Muppet
5,276 posts
Location: Edin-borrow., United Kingdom


Posted:
Yeah push is a more interesting sort of thing. It's definatly a circular thing, like having a staff almost vertically and 'stirring' it to make a cone around the 3/4 point, constantly sliding your hand around the 'shaft' of the staff. Like the contact propellor with poi, well the droopy one.

So the short end of the staff has to be real short usually to get your arm around it... ope that description is somewhat clear...

As for bouncing, I wouldn't say it was part of contact, contact is really, contact with your body. I mention you can have it gripped between two body parts, one of which could an external object, like a wall or another person.

This might be a special case for a staff/club, because you can easily have one end resting on the ground / table / whatever... and have the other in contact with you. I'm not sure if there are multiple form of contact that that situation could make... difficult to think about without doing.

Plus that got me to the idea of throws to contact to throws, which was another topic in my lost notebook. Entrances and exits to contact, you can throw into contact and throw out again... maybe giving the impression of the object bouncing on you...

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.


DaGGOLD Member
Golf buggie driving instructor
156 posts
Location: Brisvegas, Australia


Posted:
Originally Posted By: mcp

This might be a special case for a staff/club, because you can easily have one end resting on the ground / table / whatever... and have the other in contact with you. I'm not sure if there are multiple form of contact that that situation could make... difficult to think about without doing.



in ThaiTom's FeiCha video thread the performers from Egypt demonstrated some traditional moves where the 'bottom' end of the staff is resting on the ground whilst doing ground based moves.
I am curious how doing it with a symmetrically weighted staff would change it.

*link for the lazy* the groundwork is from 1:05





ZazieBRONZE Member
There Is No Spoon
68 posts
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom


Posted:
I think groundwork would basically work in the same way as contact with your body, I don't think there's anything that would be technically possible witht he ground that wouldn't be with your body in terms of basic forms of contact, it's more limited if anything so don't think it'd need extra specifications.

There's something that Seb from Fenfire does a fair bit that might concern 'push' but with the centre of the staff...? Where it's on the back of his hand and he pushes it to vertical and back, but it's more of a stall I guess. I think maybe a stall generally comes from a push, or is related in some way... but it's all terriby crossovery.

Three years of my life that took. And I get; "... nice."


mcpPLATINUM Member
Flying Water Muppet
5,276 posts
Location: Edin-borrow., United Kingdom


Posted:
I guess I thought of that one as balance, but just moving the balance around.

I'm still not sure that the same rules apply when one end is on the ground... Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.


ZazieBRONZE Member
There Is No Spoon
68 posts
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom


Posted:
Yeah I guess so, but the end could just as easily be on your foot or another part of your body and it would be the same.

Is a push something along the lines of a balance, but where constant movement is required to keep it balanced? So when you stop that movement, it overbalances and goes the other way, and the moment between those is a stall. Would that apply to the example you had in mind?

Oh actually then it would have to be off-balance the opposite way to what you described, so maybe forget the stall bit.

Also wouldn't really apply to the example with Seb, so maybe that's different, but it kind of feels the same. In which case I guess push would actually just be moving balance, whether it would be balanced when still or not, as long as it's balanced in that movement. But then rolls etc. are moving balances as well. Maybe where the point on contact stay constant, but then it woudn't in what you described as push, or really in any constant movement unless you have swivel attachments in your joints. ARGH. That'd be well handy though.

Three years of my life that took. And I get; "... nice."


aunty_yopoi and staff teacher south africa
5 posts
Location: margate kzn south africa


Posted:
hi

greeting from south africa

we have just begun staff as we are a professional fire company in kzn poifun .sa we do all the easier moves rotators helis ect but contact give us 1 good tip to work on

thanks yo

aunty yo of the poifun and staffun academy sa.poifun does staff and poi exhibitions in kzn team aged 4 to adult i also manufacture thousands of poi and staff a year as south africa sets alight.but buugeng or s staff that my new personal project.


willworkforfoodjnrSILVER Member
Hunting robot foxes
1,046 posts
Location: Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England (UK)


Posted:
[Old link]

Should be enough there to keep you occupied for a good while wink

Working hard to be a wandering hippie layabout. Ten years down, five to go!


mcpPLATINUM Member
Flying Water Muppet
5,276 posts
Location: Edin-borrow., United Kingdom


Posted:
Or just check out the lessons above, or go to my website: https://firestaff-tutorials.co.uk
sorry it's only in english... frown

zazie: I think you are thinking more directly about the force of 'push'. I was just using it as a name to describe a type of contact, not as the actual word itself.

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.


MynciBRONZE Member
Macaque of all trades
8,738 posts
Location: wombling free..., United Kingdom


Posted:
Meg other forces that act on a staff would be rotational force. and probably also inertia and friction, all of which effect what you can do.

inertia = hard to stop / start a staff with fast movement, maintining spin on throws etc
Rotational force for your wraps.i.e propellors
friction to help maintain balance and grip.
all can culminate in say an angel roll.

A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.


astonSILVER Member
Unofficial Chairperson of Squirrel Defense League
4,061 posts
Location: South Africa


Posted:
MCP: English should not be a problem for Saffies. wink

I think I will chime into this conversation more once I have some practice....

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland


mcpPLATINUM Member
Flying Water Muppet
5,276 posts
Location: Edin-borrow., United Kingdom


Posted:
Originally Posted By: MynciMeg other forces that act on a staff would be rotational force. and probably also inertia and friction, all of which effect what you can do.

inertia = hard to stop / start a staff with fast movement, maintining spin on throws etc
Rotational force for your wraps.i.e propellors
friction to help maintain balance and grip.
all can culminate in say an angel roll.

Yeah, but going from basic principles is ridculous. Like trying to describe a teacup using the Standard Model.

I was trying to get at the different types of contact, that would be easy to understand and to use. And that would aid develop of contact staff in general, rather than as a mental exersize to figure out exactly which parts of physics you are using to do a move.

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.



Similar Topics

Using the keywords [simple theory contact] we found the following existing topics.

  1. Forums > simple theory of contact [22 replies]

      Show more..

HOP Newsletter

Sign up to get the latest on sales, new releases and more...