Forums > Social Chat > i'm not a juggler, but this looked damn impressive to me

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pounceSILVER Member
All the neurotic makings of America's lesser known sweetheart
9,831 posts
Location: body in Las Vegas, heart all around the world, USA


Posted:
chris bliss....any of your jugglers out there heard of him before? i'm not a juggler whatsoever, so i could be stupidly impressed. but i dunno, this looked really cool to me.

https://marketplace.espeakers.com/movie.php?sid=5290&aid=10558

I was always scared with my mother's obsession with the good scissors. It made me wonder if there were evil scissors lurking in the house somewhere.

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

**giggles**


colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom


Posted:
woah! and just like that, we're back on topic - nice one gayle...! biggrin


cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood


Loki_the_tricksterSILVER Member
Has sharp edges
1,266 posts
Location: Stuck in the mire, USA


Posted:
clap hooray for being on topic
OK cole .... sym....GO!!!!!!

*turns and runs for cover*
ubblol

My ADD makes it so that.....Ooooo SHINY.....wanna go ride bikes....wait....where am I.....


SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom


Posted:
ubblol I thought she was talking about the iPod video....

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees


DuncGOLD Member
playing the days away
7,263 posts
Location: The Middle lands, United Kingdom


Posted:
offtopic Sheesh sym rolleyes ubbangel

ok I've watched it now I'm home, the points that came to mind while watching it were

1) For a non juggling audience (that I imagine is 99% of the time for him) it was absolutely perfect. Not to long, not to short, plenty of body movement and well dressed to emphasise his hands and the balls
2) Not being a juggler but being quite judgemental at times of various artistic performances I thought it sucked. I'm not sure if his flailing arms were deliberate or not, but they looked terrible. And that wobbly head was like being front row at a David Grey gig, although the music was slightly better than Mr Grey (Even that really cool tune the Beastie Boys sampled on Pauls Boutique, I've never heard the original before! ubblol)

All in all, his show his perfect for the audiences he sells it to, as a juggler in the middle of a room full of jugglers he'd probably look rubbish and messy. Fair play to him, he definately deserves more credit than he gets from jugglers, but doesn't deserve the ravings of non jugglers

I'm done....

Let's relight this forum ubblove


DuncGOLD Member
playing the days away
7,263 posts
Location: The Middle lands, United Kingdom


Posted:
ok I just watched the JG diss version.....

ubblol I just had to pick my ass back up from the floor I laughed so hard....

Let's relight this forum ubblove


fiendishMember
51 posts
Location: astateofinhibition


Posted:
Yeah I agree with Plays comments. I've performed as a juggler for the past 7-8 yrs and true Bliss's technical difficulty in that routine is low, it's not that low(3 balls 1 hand). Any performance though which is based on pure technical difficulty may be entertaining for a juggler but 99% of non-jugglers would find it confusing and less entertaining than simple juggling choreographed well to music.
Whenever I perform I try to put as much emphasis into body mechanics as i do technical difficulty of my tricks.
NOTE: 99% of most audiences are non-jugglers.

"Aaah fire. Scourge of Prometheus,toaster of marshmallows & irradicator of small children..." SideshowBob.


DuncGOLD Member
playing the days away
7,263 posts
Location: The Middle lands, United Kingdom


Posted:
Hey I got called Play ubbrollsmile ubblove

Let's relight this forum ubblove


skwairBRONZE Member
Member
44 posts
Location: swampea, United Kingdom


Posted:
whoops! wrong thread!
EDITED_BY: skwair (1143077019)

Loki_the_tricksterSILVER Member
Has sharp edges
1,266 posts
Location: Stuck in the mire, USA


Posted:
ubblol rolleyes ubblol



I agree Dunc the diss is just to funny ubblol

My ADD makes it so that.....Ooooo SHINY.....wanna go ride bikes....wait....where am I.....


Patriarch917SILVER Member
I make my own people.
607 posts
Location: Nashville, Tennessee, USA


Posted:
The Diss video was great, but I would have been more impressed if he had used an apple as the 5th ball and eaten it during the routine. Everyone knows that the eating the apple trick is pretty much the essence of juggling.

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom


Posted:
ubblol

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees


artindorilmember
117 posts

Posted:
I see the spasming old man has finally got here ....he went round our juggling club a little while ago. If you guys liked that, then you're just going go love this:

https://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6283096511750618839&q=jason+garfield&pl=true

it's like he's dancing and juggling at the same time.

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom


Posted:
Did you read this thread at all?

confused

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees


Mags The JediGOLD Member
Fool
2,020 posts
Location: Cornwall, UK


Posted:
I love you Sym. ubblol

devil

"I believe the cost of life is Death and we will all pay that in full. Everything else should be a gift. We paid the cover charge of life, we were born."

Bill Hicks, February 1988


Loki_the_tricksterSILVER Member
Has sharp edges
1,266 posts
Location: Stuck in the mire, USA


Posted:
ubblol rolleyes ubblol

My ADD makes it so that.....Ooooo SHINY.....wanna go ride bikes....wait....where am I.....


UCOFSILVER Member
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales


Posted:
Patriarch... have you met Pre?
ubblol

LemonkeyStalking amidst the desert, carrying an oversized scalpel...
1,019 posts
Location: Huddersfield + Hull Uni... UK.


Posted:
 Written by: UraniumChipOxidationFacility


Patriarch... have you met Pre?
ubblol



ubblol

Willy - is bad for your health...


TheBovrilMonkeySILVER Member
Liquid Cow
2,629 posts
Location: High Wycombe, England


Posted:
 Written by: The google video description of the Bliss Diss video



This juggling enthusiast decided to parody that other juggling video that is going around. He did the same exact routine with 5 balls instead of 3, quite amazing!





Hmm, I'm not sure that Jason Garfield is quite enthusiastic enough to be called that wink tongue

But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.


BEZERKERenthusiast
237 posts

Posted:
Hmmm, many good points in this thread. I'm leaning more towards Cole though personally.

I thought the Bliss video WAS way too long at over 4 minutes. Don't mind the tune but it looked like an aging old dude at a party who'd had a few too many red wines getting up to dance to ABBA. That gets very old very quickly.

I actually skipped through parts because it was pretty one dimensional. I was impressed with his timing and thought 'What great idea for a better juggler to do....well....better." but overall felt it was a self indulgent, long performance with not enough hooks (read: key point tricks) to keep me interested.

As for the technical over the style debate....

Technical poi routines bore me, I hate BTB moves for the most part (I know, sacrilige) finding them to look messy and contorted rather than natural and flowing. I find people trying to fit in technical moves generally fall short of being entertaining to watch. I have, however, witnessed MANY routines/improvs from people off chops (or just in a mellow relaxed mood), having a boogie and just moving through variations of weave, butterfly and corkscrew that looked fantastic.

Funny thing is that without the person having fun and just 'flowing with the go' the same moves can look very dull and uninteresting.

When it comes to juggling, though, I feel a little different. I recently witnessed 8 rings being juggled and saw a 10 ball flash. This made me literally get out of my seat whooping at the top of my voice.

Highly technical mixed with style is the key for me with juggling. I watched Garfield's Bliss Diss captivated and blown out by his skill. Bliss seemed too basic for me. However I've grown just as bored watching some Maths major move through 5 ball patterns with no real flair and become just as unimpressed.

I know how long it has taken me to be just a rudimentry basic juggler and twirler and when I see someone average making a good buck, I tend to feel really sad that I know of someone who deserves to be in that position more. But as Sym said, if you want a slice of that pie, you've got to go and get it.

I think I'm more confused now than when I started writing this post. Good thread though and some fantastic footage (thanks Cole).

*goes off to make some noodles and watch Prison Break*

NYCNYC
9,232 posts
Location: NYC, NY, USA


Posted:
 Written by: Ry


 Written by: Jason Garfield


https://www.jasongarfield.com/pennradio.html

The bliss Diss Explained
(Keep in mind, you came here upon your own free will and can very easily leave whenever you want.)

chris bliss's juggling skill is...not good. The most impressive thing he did was juggle for a long time and not drop. The juggling was not difficult at all and it's not surprising that he did not drop, so it's not that anyone should be amazed that he didn't drop. But if you're looking for the most impressive thing that he did in a routine chock full of unimpressive elements, it would be that he didn't drop. He calls it the big finally. I don't even understand why he juggles at all. His 3 ball skill is fair, good enough to make it three or four minutes without dropping. The world record for juggling 3 balls is over 11 hours, and the most difficult thing about that is staying awake and peeing.

What I think people are responding to in his routine is the choreography to the song, regardless of how many times he repeated the same simple loop of tricks. People can't tell the difference so he knows he can get away with that. If it goes to the music and he doesn't drop, that's a good routine if the people also like the song. He chose parts in the music where people would clap anyway if the song were performed live to start his full body convulsion tricks. He also makes the easy tricks look hard. Maybe they are hard for him, but he's not executing them with good form at all. I suppose his goal was to make it obvious that it was choreographed to the music which is why he jerked his body around along with the juggling to the beat. it almost looks like a parody of someone else's artistic interpretation of whatever. It's fine if people are entertained by this. But they should not assume he is a good juggler just because he kind of juggled to the music with three balls. A perfect example of how little people know about juggling is that one of his strongest audience response points was when he JUST juggled the BASIC pattern. Something I could get ANYONE with basic motor skills, not even great ones, to do in under an hour. BUT, he did it when the music got soft and went just to piano, so it went with the music. If you know the song, that's not -NOT hard to work out. So something in there is worth clapping for to the audience on this video. He didn't do any 360s, he didn't do any ass catches, he did the very FIRST thing you learn when learning how to juggle and he got applause you'd expect to hear for 5 club backcrosses. (Juggling 5 clubs all behind your back) Ideally I would like everyone to know as much about juggling as I do. They don't have to think the way that I do, but just know what I know and then choose what they like with the knowledge that I have and understand why they like what they're watching and know what it is that they're watching and not email me links of chris bliss and then ask me what I think because they should already know. If everyone in his audience had seen the ball juggling competition on ESPN, I believe the audience reaction would not have been so great. And I believe that if chris bliss knew that everyone in the audience had seen the juggling competition on ESPN, he might just leave the juggling out altogether.

Choreographing a 3 ball juggling routine to music is not difficult. You can play any song that I've never heard, and I could juggle three balls to it and make up the choreography as I went along and it would look similar to the chris bliss routine except there would be difficult tricks and I wouldn't look like Leslie Neilson. There's so much room to make adjustments to the timing with three balls that you can almost always adjust it to go with the music.

Choreographing a juggling routine with 5 balls usually consists of timing your 15-20 five ball moves to certain points in the music that start with the music change but the juggling rarely goes to the music on every beat because there's just too much going on. And when trying to choreograph a 5 ball routine to the same music and in a similar way that a 3 ball routine was choreographed, it's like playing a song on the piano only with three times as many notes but to the same tempo as the original version. Now I could easily make up my own 5 ball routine and choreograph it to this music the way a 5 ball routine made up of the tricks I can already do would be put together, but it would look completely different. So i've had to create and learn new tricks that I've never done before, incorporating multiplex patterns (throwing more than one ball out of one hand at a time), and creating loops of sequences that kind of go to the music, similar to the Leslie Neilson routine. The hardest part was figuring out how to create the new moves, and making them go to the music with five balls. Really, the hardest part was having to watch chris bliss over and over again to memorize how many times he repeated a sequence and at which points he started bouncing around like a dangling monkey. I didn't feel comfortable compromising my form to duplicate the spine breaking posture of his one sided backcrosses, and some sequences I just had to label as freaking out with no apparent difference in the juggling pattern, but lots of muppet seizure movement. The multiplex patterns were required in order to hit the beats to the music as frequently as chris bliss attempted. There was lots of clawing (Snatching the balls as you would to keep someone from taking them away from you before you get to them), slowing down and speeding up of the pattern to hit some of the drum fills, and again the freaking out parts which are the most entertaining parts of this routine for me to watch because it almost makes you think that the whole routine is already a parody. And if it is, then I apologize for letting that sneak past me. If chris bliss told me that this routine was a parody, I'd start capitalizing his name and enjoy watching the whole routine. But he labels this routine as the big finish, he's billed as a world class juggler, and there's no set up for it to be a parody. And I don't know why it had to last so long. If he did every trick without a repeat he would have been done in less than a minute. Perhaps it was the juggling version of a song, where tricks are repeated like the chorus. But I don't think he meant it as a parody, I wish he did, but I think this is supposed to be art. People seem to like it, but I think that's because they just don't have all the information that would enable them to make a more informed decision. If you watch the ice skating competitions in the Olympics, I don't think you're going to appreciate some douche bag skating in circles and tapping his toes, chipping out pieces of ice to the beat of a Beetles song. But maybe that would be good to the right song. I don't like his routine at all, except for when he bounces around a lot. But he doesn't need the juggling for that.




This Jason guy sounds like such a nice, well adjusted person. Seriously.. even if he might be a more skilful juggler he sounds like a prize tosser to me.




I clicked on that link just now... did Jason go back and tone down his diss?

Cuz that's even more B*tch.

(Oh, I was browsing for this old thread because some folks on a different list were talking about it... Sorry for the Bump.)

Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]


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