Forums > Beginner Staff Moves > horizontal moves and transition

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elementsmember
5 posts
Location: Calgary


Posted:
Hi. I am having troulble find a way to go from vertical moves to horizontal. I am using a staff. Any suggestions.

every snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty


CharlesBRONZE Member
Corporate Circus Arts Entertainer
3,989 posts
Location: Auckland, New Zealand


Posted:
Best thing to do is to just do horizontal moves when practicing, then try to go into a vertical move FROM horizontal.

Lots of people have this problem because they are used to doing vertical. Starting with horizontal uses less practiced moves and the flow happens easier.

Aside from that, do your normal patterns slowly (eg a figure8) and get the feel for the ends of the pattern.

That is, where the staff is turned around to come back again and repeat the motion.

It's easier tomake plane changes at the outer end of each pattern. Try bringing your elbow down as well as using your wrist to force the plane change as well.

Hope this helps.

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[Nx?]BRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,749 posts
Location: Europe,Scotland,Both


Posted:
There is an old thread on transitions here and some more stuff around try search


L8r

This is a post by tom, all spelling is deleberate
-><- Kallisti


i8beefy2GOLD Member
addict
674 posts
Location: Ohio, USA


Posted:
Well, I have a semi-ugly one I do from a forward spin at the side... I let my hand slip just a little off center, and snap my whole arm across my body in an arch. It push's the staff around and I can then do a helicopter above my head from there.

For something a little prettier, try rotating in a full circle, but let your hand slip down the staff to about 2/3, allowing the shorter end to rotate by your body, and the longer end to sweep out. Should make it turn horizontal around waste level, and then you can do a quick horizontal pass behind the back to the other hand to whip it up into a helicopter. Perhaps someone else can explain that a little better...

I've been working with stalls a lot lately to do this. From a forward rotation, I let it rotate over the back of my (right) hand. As it rolls up over it I curve my hand inward, around the staff and push it into my armpit (So that it is caught in my armpit, with my arm curled down around it, staff resting on TOP of hand). The staff is about diaphram height. I then sweep my (right) arm across my body, bringing my hand up towards my left shoulder. This makes the staff roll up a little, so it is the inside of your elbow pushing it inward, the other end still in the armpit. This makes the staff roll around my chest and up onto my shoulder (Get that right hand out of the way by bending the arm at the elbow outward as it makes this move). This will put you into a contact shoulder roll, so you can allow it to continue on a horizontal plane around the neck and up the arm or wherever you want to go from there.

Contact rolls done right always look like the smoothest way to transition (I have two others I use a lot), but if you throw your whole body into the move it can make it look just as good IMHO.

[Nx?]BRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,749 posts
Location: Europe,Scotland,Both


Posted:
yo beefy,

that catch is tremendously versitile, you can go to neck horisontal, straight to the back horisontal (by taking it the other way), you can take it to the shoulder vertical (either one) and if you snap your arm back it pops into the air. if you swing out away from the body and above you and up with back-of-hand spin.

good work.

N

This is a post by tom, all spelling is deleberate
-><- Kallisti


i8beefy2GOLD Member
addict
674 posts
Location: Ohio, USA


Posted:
Nix, yeah I figured most of those out. I havn't been able to nail the back spin one yet, its the only one that I hadn't discovered until a few days ago. I accidently did it when I was spinning really fast, and I still need to go back and figure it out. It is my most used stall now...

I just found out that I can turn my body 90 degrees while forward spinning, and somehow bring the staff around behind me and into my armpit where I can roll it up over my shoulder. I think I saw a thread where Glass mentioned this one in a nice combo move that I'll have to look at now that I can do it.


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