talkmagic.co.uk

My 6 year old daughter's year at school had a "circus skills" day, which culminated with a circus show put on by the kids. Being a huge circus fan I think I was more excited than her!

The day was led by a circus trainer from some circus skills workshop kind of place. He began the show by doing a few crazy man's handcuffs routines and sponge balls. Then the kids did their show, and the trainer bloke finished the show by doing a 3 ball contact juggling demo with 3 large crystal balls. It was amazing! I was applauding like a maniac, trying to egg on the other parents to applaud too.

The parent next to me (who knows I'm a "magician"), turned to me and said "How's that done then? I suppose the balls are filled with helium or something to make them float?"

At first I was outraged by this insult to the guy's talent - he told me afterwards that he'd been training for 6 years to perfect his 5 minute routine. But then I thought no, that is actually the biggest compliment he could be paid. A lay-person was so taken in by his display that the only way they could imagine it worked was by having helium filled balls.

Really amazing. Would love to have the time to dedicate to learning to do this well.

Contact takes a long time to get smooth. I remember spending six to eight hours a day just on the butterfly (obsessive tendencies were manifest almost twenty years ago!)

These days I'm very rusty - it's something you have to keep working on. I can still do the moves, but with a lot less style.

Take care, Ian

Yeah id agree took me ages to be able to do anything, even my other half who is part of the local cirus school took ages to get decent....

Magic is deffo easier lol...

F x

Yeah, think I'll stick to mind-reading. Far simpler!

I love contact juggling it just looks amazing, i even went i brought one of the crystal balls, i still cant do it tho,

Check this guy out.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mjNLTZOJOCA

Watch it till the end it's amazing.

I can't even juggle normally, I'm hopeless. I endup running all over theplace trying to keep hold of the juggling balls. (anyone who edits that and puts it in bingo is in for a shin kicking)

IanKendall wrote:Contact takes a long time to get smooth. I remember spending six to eight hours a day just on the butterfly (obsessive tendencies were manifest almost twenty years ago!)

Those were the days!

last night I spent an hour trying to get head transfers down, still no where near it!
Leeds juggling convention next weekend though! bring on the prouncing!

Theres a juggling convention in Leeds???

Id be quite interested to go actually, depending on what day its on...

Like LoMster, I can't juggle to save myself. I've tried and tried but I just can't get the knack for it.

I'd dearly love to though.

If you _really_ want to learn, have a look at www.virtualmagicshow.com/stuff and follow the links to the juggling lessons. This is the system I used when I ran a juggling shop and did workshops.

If you follow the instructions carefully, remember to speak out loud (the main cause of failure) and make sure you have each step down before you move on, I can almost guarantee you'll be able to juggle. I've not had a fail yet.

Take care, Ian

For those interested in learning contact juggling - which should be all of you, because it is amazing - I'd recommend popping over to www.contactjuggling.org and looking at the forums there, it's a very friendly online community of contact jugglers and they'll be able to point you in the direction of tutorials and the such on the same website (if it's still there the Essays section is very useful).

If you're REALLY keen, there's a James Ernest book called "Contact Juggling" which is good for butterflies and body rolling stuff, but less good for illusion/isolation stuff (the floaty ball material).

I also highly recommend a book by Drew Batchelor called "Multiball Contact" which is the absolute bible for people who are interested in learning the isolation based stuff and multiple ball contact (my preferred style of contact, but I was initially taught to CJ by Drew, so it's not suprising).

Jim Henson called contact juggling "the closest thing he'd ever seen to real magic". I open my two man show with it, and contact juggle as part of my wandering set. It's an incredible tool to have at your disposal as a magician and as a juggler.

Mark Waddington wrote:Theres a juggling convention in Leeds???

Id be quite interested to go actually, depending on what day its on...

Saturday the 6th of Decemeber in the Uni's sports hall 12 til late (i think), followed by a show. then mucho drinking!
http://www.circsoc.com/Leeds-Juggling-Convention-2008

Serendipity wrote:For those interested in learning contact juggling - which should be all of you, because it is amazing - I'd recommend popping over to www.contactjuggling.org and looking at the forums there, it's a very friendly online community of contact jugglers and they'll be able to point you in the direction of tutorials and the such on the same website (if it's still there the Essays section is very useful).

If you're REALLY keen, there's a James Ernest book called "Contact Juggling" which is good for butterflies and body rolling stuff, but less good for illusion/isolation stuff (the floaty ball material).

I also highly recommend a book by Drew Batchelor called "Multiball Contact" which is the absolute bible for people who are interested in learning the isolation based stuff and multiple ball contact (my preferred style of contact, but I was initially taught to CJ by Drew, so it's not suprising).

Jim Henson called contact juggling "the closest thing he'd ever seen to real magic". I open my two man show with it, and contact juggle as part of my wandering set. It's an incredible tool to have at your disposal as a magician and as a juggler.

I'll second every word of that!

I've had a couple of lessons with Drew (Colin and Ed too, you may know them) too, and somehow I still don't do multiball!

If you haven't got Drew's book, get it, it's brilliant. Also, have you seen In Isolation? There's some really inspirational stuff on there, including some incredible multiball.

Youtube a guy called Jago, he does some really, really nice 3 ball stuff.

I know I know I know.... I just can't be affording the balls