Juggling practice during december...

...has not been as productive as I had hoped. I was originally planning on practicing every day or every other day. SIP research kind of got in the way of that though, as I have been reading books and academic articles about ethnicity, education, and identity formation of ethnic minorities in China pretty much all day every day. However, two days ago I finally decided that I should take some time to juggle. I felt good to move again. Of course, lots of moves were a bit rusty due to not having been practiced in a few weeks, but of the three moves that are my biggest goals (crab catches, behind the backs, and five-ball cascade) the state of two of them still pleased me. Once I get a couple of my current moves out of the way I think I will start working on slams and shuffles. They look kind of interesting. I also did a little more with shoulder tosses and penguin catches, and I think that wouldn't be terribly difficult to get better either. I also downloaded some music from Armin van Buuren's A State of Trance, and it is really good for juggling to. A good beat, steady, repetitive... that is pretty much all it takes for a song to be good for juggling.

I saw a nice video of a couple of guys juggling mixing some smooth hip-hop dancing in with their very fluid juggling. It was a really nice display of the potentialities of mixing juggling with other physical disciplines, as well as throwing in a little bit of comedy. I think that the entire piece was very well choreographed too, making use a variety of different kinds of juggling moves, moving through the space, and playing with each other.

Airport Security

I'm not gonna go into extensive detail as my trip to California, other than the depressing fact that it is now more than a week since I have practiced juggling, and the hilarious fact of how my juggling balls are a potential breach of airport security. Seriously. While preparing to fly out of Minneapolis, just after I had placed my backpack into the x-ray machine, a security guard came over, asked me if this bag was mine, and called me over to a little side table where he started unpacking it, assumable looking for contraband. As he pulled out one, then another, and then several more of my small orange balls, he furrowed his eyebrows to wonder what on earth these could possibly be: explosives? Poisons? Advanced electronic devices? He turned to me and asked what I hope will become a standard security question at airports: "Are you a juggler?" I smiled, and told him I was. He put my juggling balls through the x-ray machine again, and sent me on my way.

I will be in Duluth tonight or tomorrow, so hopefully I will be able to start practicing regularly soon. I would really like to get some new tricks down well by January.

Fall quarter is over

Now that my classes are done until January I have some time to focus on my one things. At the top of my list are juggling, research China's ethnic minorities, and study Spanish.

I was playing around with my contact juggling ball last night and it was feeling really smooth. I actually did a roll with the ball going up my right arm, behind my neck, and down my other arm. Kind of like Aladdin does with an apple in the Disney movie. It felt really cool. I also finally practiced juggling again today. Crab Catches and five ball cascade are feeling better than ever, although my continuous back-crosses were not so hot today. Machine/Robot feels really sharp, so maybe I will take that off my practice list soon. I think I will remove the weave/tornado combination too, since it is pretty boring. I also tried a few Oli-style toss-and-turns, which felt pretty nice. Maybe I will review a video of his soon and try to glean some more moves from it. I plan to spend the next part of the day reading about ethnicity in China, so it won't be so physical.

Sporadic, but with Improvement

My practices are becoming less organized. I used to have a list of eight or ten moves that I wanted to get, and I would just work through my list, practicing each move for five or ten minutes, or until I got bored with it. When I got through the list, that was the end or my training. However, since Erika's not-dad gave us the advice on how to train juggling moves, I have focused more on a few moves that I really want to be able to do (Chinese crab catches, continuous back crosses, and five balls), while not practicing other at all (tornado, weave, flash three balls 180). I feel that I am making more and more progress with these fewer moves that I am working on. Five ball cascade was feeling REALLY good yesterday, with me consistently pulling off five catches, and occasionally pulling of seven tosses and seven catches. That in itself is nothing super amazing, but I was feeling really relaxed doing it, which felt nice. Crab catches weren't so good yesterday, but back crosses have been feeling better. I have gotten four in a row sometimes, and I am consistently getting three in a row. If I practice a lot during December, I just might have some of these new moves my Christmastime.

Good practice lately

Erika's family came to Kalamazoo today and her not-dad gave Cirque du K a little juggling workshop. It was really neat to see so many circus kids all learning to juggle at once. He didn't really have any advice for me, because his specialty was teaching beginners, but he had good advice about training new moves in general, and I had some good runs with Chinese crab catches, four ball shower, five ball cascade, and continuous back-crosses.

A few days ago I started to put a routine together, but I decided to scrap it since I feel I still can't do enough stuff to make a good looking performance piece.

Three times a week

Circus club's play-times have changed so that now every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday I have an excuse to practice. Today especially, moves were feeling good. I spent some time this afternoon on JuggleWiki, and I found some new moves that I can do, so my repertoire have suddenly increased by three or four moves. My five ball cascade is feeling a lot better, and my crab catches are slowly improving as well. Practice was good today, and I even printed up a sheet with all the moves that I am able to do and all the moves that I am working on. I am also gonna run a tumbling workshop this weekend for circus club kids. Things are going well. :)

Busy with classes...

...Particularly the readings for my political science class, but studying for French and Spanish definitely take up some time too. In fact, today was the first day in the past week that I got to juggle (during circus club's playtime), but it felt really good. Not just that I was happy to juggle again, but I was pleased with unexpected progress. I got three backcrosses in a row, and my five ball cascade was feeling better. The moves are still a long ways from completion of course, but it is nice to see progress. I am gonna try and mimic a Micheal Moschen juggling routine. There is nothing terrible difficult in there, but he does it really nicely.

Practicing more

I have been practice about every other day for the past several days. I just finished an evening practice stint. I am going to start pursuing continuous back crosses more seriously as a goal. Getting that move down would be so sweet. I have basically stopped working on behind the neck catches. It just seems to be too much work for too little pay-off. I also haven't worked on Oli's behind the neck toss at all, and I have rarely even practiced five balls. Chops are getting a bit better though, despite the fact that they still feel really sloppy, and the Chinese crab catches are similar: still really sloppy, but feeling better. I am starting to really get the 3 ball shower from my left side, although 4 ball shower from the right is still gonna take some more work. I should have most of these moves (box, chops, three or four back crosses in a row, Chinese crab catch, my 180 degree quick turn while tossing one ball over my shoulder, columns variations, and the shower stuff) fairly good by the end of this quarter... as long as I keep practicing. 加油！

Also, a just saw a Vicktor Kee video on Youtube. What an excellent juggler:

Second Week of Fall Quarter

I certainly have not practiced juggling enough during my two weeks since arriving at Kalamazoo. I practiced both today and yesterday, which feels great, but I need to keep up the plan of practicing at least three times a week. My back crosses are getting better, so that I can do two in a row sometimes. Once I get that cleaner I will go for three, and then four in a row. Just little steps toward continuous back crosses. Chops are still really sloppy, but I am getting better with a nice looking "flash one ball 180 turn". I was surprised by how good my handstands felt today too! I have been practicing almost every day against my fall since I arrived at Kzoo, but today was the first time I had done them out in the open, and I think I walked more than 15 feet, plus I even managed to turn around once and then keep walking in the other direction! Miscellaneous tosses are getting cleaner, nicer, and more dancy (cause I do it while listening to music I like), so I may be closer to actually making a solo performance piece. I want to get a few more moves down much more solidly though, before I go on to perform them in a serious environment.

There was a little Cirque du K performance in the Student Center this past Saturday, in which I did some clowning stuff, plus a little ball juggling and some diabolo. I dropped my balls and tangled and dropped my diabolo, but I feel the group performance as a whole went well, and the audience (K students) was pretty receptive. The only ball trick I did was juggling columns with the fake carry up and down, then side to side, then around the head, imitating Micheal Moschen. There is a lot that I can learn from him

Back to school

I got back to Kalamazoo, and I got to see my suite-mates again. It is absolutely wonderful to have us all together again. I start classes tomorrow (French 101, Spanish 101, and Into to American Government) at 8:30am, as well as my first time being an art model over at western tomorrow evening. One big fear I have is that I won't have the time/energy/commitment to keep up my juggling practice. I am right on the verge of getting several different moves. I just got box, so that needs cleaning up. I am getting close to having 4-ball shower, and by combining a shoulder toss with a quick 180 degree turn I have also stumbled across a cool variation. The Chinese crab catches and throws of getting better too. With all these moves right around the corner, I should have excellent progress within the next two weeks. I'll have to find some new moves to work on!

Since arriving back in Kalamazoo I have practices twice, and I am currently mid-way through my third practice session. I don't know if I will have time to practice tomorrow between classes and modeling in the evening, but I will certainly have time Tuesday.

I saw another video of Oli's, and his smooth turns in it give me another goal to work towards. Thanks Oli! Here it is:

I am probably not gonna get too much practice in today. My grandparents are coming to visit me, and it will be the first time that I have seen them in over a year, maybe even two years. I think it would be a bit tube to practice juggling instead of hanging out with them. But this morning I spent just a couple minutes going over the patter called rainbow. It wasn't too hard, but it doesn't seem like anything special either, so I think I may just drop that one and never bother with doing it again. After all, if I am not gonna use it to perform and if it is not something I am specifically training, why bother practicing it? I got really into practicing the shoulder tosses and the penguin catches yesterday, so hopefully with the play/practice I am planning on putting in those should be getting decent within a few weeks. That would be really nice, because one I get those down I think I will be able to do all kinds of smooth transitions with the balls going front in front of my body to the behind me and back. With back crosses, shoulder tosses, and the blind catches in back, that will be really cool. If I can eventually manage to combine it with turning like the Japanese jugglers in the video do, I will be really pleased with that! Anyway, I saw two really cool videos of some very entertaining performers and a very artistic piece at some TED conferences, so here you go:



EDIT: I hardly practiced at all today. Probably less than 10 minutes, but I did find out who Michael Moschen is, and look up a lot of his videos. I am definitely going to focus more on him in the future.

Work on Columns

I have decided that with all the variations, fakes, and the pure increase that my accuracy and control will have from practicing them, I need to work on columns and columns variations. Today I think I will work specifically on carrying on ball to make a slight optical illusion. I need to get better at controlling the height and angle of the balls when I toss two in one hand. In addition to working on columns, I also will stick true to the goal I set for myself yesterday: to work more on chops and to be able to keep the 4 ball shower going for a few seconds.

I am gonna go eat a sandwich(I didn't eat peanut butter and jelly the whole time I was in China!), and then work on the 4 ball shower a bit. Wish me luck!

Begining to Practice New Tricks

Having just returned to the US from my two semesters of studying (plus one summer of working/studying) in China, I find myself with a little more than a week of downtime before my fall quarter classes start. Trapped in Northern Minnesota, with none of my old friends up here in this barren wilderness of a landscape called Duluth, I find myself needing something to fill my time. This need, combined with my desire to actually become a proficient juggler, had lead me to the realization that I should practice. Let's just do a review: Arriving in Minnesota on Sunday I was able to fairly reliable do:
-3 ball cascade
-reverse cascade (plus all the little variations, like juggler's tennis)
-3 ball shower (only on my right)
-mill's mess
-one behind the back (on both sides)
-two ball multiplex behind the back (only on my right)
-a trick that I like to call "My Hands are Faster than Gravity", which is really a three ball multiplex behind my back
-flash 3 balls

And these are the tricks that I would consider to be works in progress at the time I arrived in Duluth:
-flash 3 balls 180 turn
-two ball multiplex behind the back on my left
-5 ball cascade
-3 balls in one hand

Since arriving in Duluth I have watched some excellent videos online (primarily Oli's videos of the Japanese Jugglers) which have inspired me to learn some new tricks. This, combined with getting on EHow/ExpertVillage/Youtube for some nice juggling tutorials has propelled me into a new phase of juggling. Now I practice. Before I played for fun. Now I want to really improve. Watching the smoothness of the Japanese jugglers in really inspiring, and I realize that although I am still a novice, many new tricks are within my reach if I just put in a bit of effort to practice them.

Since arriving in Duluth I have started learning:
-Chops
-Japanese back toss (a move from about 4:14 of the video Japanese Jugglers 3)
-3 ball shower in my left hand
-4 ball shower in my right hand
-Oli's behind the neck toss (I am not sure what to call this, but I consider it to be almost his signature move. I've got a video of him doing his stuff)


Today was my first day to do chops. I do it very sloppily, without much hard, fast emphasis on the chopping motion, but it is a start. With a move as easy as this, I should have it down decently before I head back to Kalamazoo (next Wednesday is when I leave Duluth). The same for the 4 ball shower. I had never tried it before, but I apparently it is just within my ability, so I should have that down okay soon too. The Japanese back toss and a shower from my left hand are a little but harder for me, and they will take some time to blend together with other moves, but it shouldn't not be terribly difficult. Oli's behind the neck toss is one of the harder ones, and I am just working with one ball for now, trying to get my throws accurate. My goal for tomorrow is to get chops better, and the be able to do the 4 ball cascade for about 10 seconds or so.

Here is my latest inspiration: