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.