Acro again

I have found a new acro partner. Nadia starting coming to the Beijing juggling club about a month ago, and over the past few weeks I have learned that she used to do a lot of martial arts, she seems to be vaguely interested in dance, and she is helping Fede out at the shop. We had a couple hours of practice last night in which Fede showed is a few basic moves and ran us through a warm up, and it went pretty well. She has never done partner acro before, so there are gonna be a lot of things to teach her, but as long as I lead her through things slowly to build trust I think it should work pretty well. Physically, she is quite flexible with her splits, and although not as strong in the arms as I would like, she seems to be fine in terms of general fitness. Anyway, I have never had an acro partner who's upper body strength met my hopes. She is also taller and heavier than the girls that I have done acro with previously. She is pretty slim and athletic and pry somewhere around 50kg, but since her body is so different from that of Michelle, Colleen and Erica (each of whom was somewhere around 40kg) it will be interesting for me to work with her.

I also found an incredible resource that I am sure did not exist when I started doing acro: An acro balance wiki. I am definitely gonna try and use this to teach Nadia some moves. Fede is actually leaving Beijing to be in Italy for Christmas, and then to spend some time with his girlfriend who is working in the Central African Republic. He won't be back until February, so after he leaves next week it will basically be up to me to train Nadia in partner acro. I am a little nervous about it: I know a number of moves, but I don't know much about flying. I also will have to remind myself to move slowly enough to built trust, rather than just jumping into more fun, exciting and complicated moves.

Dance Heroes

Although not strictly juggling, this post is about movement. I have just recently discovered the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, and as I watched a few episodes I found them more and more enjoyable. First some very cool breakdancing, then some tricking and parkour-like moves, and then some excellent robot movements. It was especially for me to draw connections. For instance, in the first episode, The Tale of Trevor Drift, I recognized some of the movements from the break-dance class that I take on the weekends. In the second episode, Antigravity Heroes, I recognized a lot of the movements as tricking and parkour-like moves, and I got an especially a warm and fuzzy feeling knowing that I have done some of those moves, or similar things, in the past. The third episode, Robot Lovestory, seemed to me to have great movement similarities with Genki Sudo's World Order, and I was very impressed with the motions of the performers. They have performed at TED, and
all in all I like the group a lot so far. A mixture of Heroes and dance. I plan to continue watching LXD.

Check out the trailer here:

Post-juggling, or maybe meta-juggling

The things that some people, such as Wes, do are so amazing and creative that I am always dumbfounded by them. These people take ideas of juggling, and the apply them to the body and to other objects, making a performance that is so much more than just the tossing of balls or clubs in complicated patterns. I have just had the pleasure and honor of seeing a brief preview of one of these performances.

Getting back in the swing

Just a quick note before I head out to work.

I biked from my home to YuGongYiShan last night for the juggling club, and it took about 50 minutes. With a bike ride that long I am glad that I have my iPod, because I can listen to university lectures or podcasts or audiobooks or music on my way there and back. I got a bit of juggling practice in, did a few cartwheels, and even tried a couple of headsprings. Gus continued to help me and talk me through a "Machine w/ hand switch" (I really have no idea how to describe that move). It was nice to chat with Lao Zhou, and I taught him how to begin learning the Machine. It was a fairly small turn-out, with a high of six people at one point. This week there was a Canadian, three U.S. citizens (including me), Lao Zhou (who is Chinese) and a German-Chinese girl who is studying at Beijing Normal University.

I am continuing to use the childrens' juggling balls at the preschool at which I work when there is downtime. Sometimes when the kids are drinking water, or in the morning before many kids show up I will practice some moves with the beanbag-like balls. They are very easy to grip, so it is nice to practice with those.

Time, Practice, and Advancement

...or lack thereof. Here is a bunch of things which I dislike: I only practice juggling on Mondays. I haven't learned any new tricks in the past few months. I haven't even spent time looking at cool juggling videos online.

Since I haven't been practicing, rather than improving, my skills have been stagnating, and I fear that if I don't get back into the groove of things soon they will begin degrading. 20 minutes a day should not be that difficult for me to find.

Juggling: Alive Again

As an opening post for the revitalization of Kinetic Kalamazoo, here is an items that I came across online recently that I want to share. I found Genki Sudo's dance from a blog that I have enjoyed long before I started to use Twitter.

Some incredible movement and music created by Genki Sudo, who just came out with an electro-pop album.

Some new moves

The stress and exhaustion have been running high lately, due in great part to the fact that the circus club at my college in putting on a show (and also because of my comprehensive exams and two papers that I have due, plus the stress of planning for the future). I would prefer a different show, but I am a part of it so it is a big time drain. I finally juggled this morning, and it felt really nice, since it has been so long since I have gotten a good practice in. I practiced a bunch of new moves, mostly taken from Bill Berry's 3 ball routine. I am also starting to get takeouts, which is really nice because I have wanted to know those for a long time. I am sure that I am at the point where I can get a bunch of new moves, but I need the time to practice. In a week when this show is done and my comps are done and my papers are turned in I will have the free time to juggle for my own pleasure more often. I am really looking forward to that.

Under the legs, streamlining

I saw a great video of a award winning juggling routine yesterday. It is encouraging to know that I can do a lot of what is in it (not all of it by any means), so for those moves that I know I just need to get smooth and more fluid. Perhaps I will eventually learn this routine as well, although the arm-balancing might be a challenge to learn.

Thinking about the list of moves I have written down in my notebook, I also am thinking about practicing fewer moves each time I practice. I am reviewing a lot of things that I already have down fairly comfortable, like Machine/Robot, and Columns. I definitely want to add in the under-leg tosses as well. Watching Bill Berry do them made me realize how cool it is, and it wouldn't take much work for me to get either.

A quick update about a good practice

Before I forget, I just want to make a note of how good backcrosses felt during my practice last night. I was getting four or five or six in a row that all felt relatively steady. It is excellent progress since last time. Shuffle is starting to feel more solid, and my machine/carry variations are just beginning to leave the stage of "very shaky." My four ball shower was feeling good too, as I had several runs in which I got a good half a dozen or so tosses before losing control of it. :)

A calm practice

It was calm, but I was feeling pretty tired by the end of it. Not many people came to the skill training practice today, and that might actually have something to do with it. Although I like to focus on my own stuff, having other people there can give me a small distraction when I need to take a little break. I was feeling mentally exhausted only halfway through my normal practice routine. Back-crosses are feeling better though, which is excellent. I wonder how long it will be until I can do them reliably. I am trying to get some variations on columns, carrying one, and machine/robot. If I can, I want to work some more hip-hop style movement into a few patterns, in preparation for the show. It was a good day outside of juggling too though: I got a bunch of organization work done on my thesis. Hopefully next practice I will have a bit more energy so that I can spend more time on the challenging tricks, like five balls and shoulder tosses.

MadFest 2010

MadFest was cool. I was introduced to some new tricks, such as a 441 in which the 1 is passed behind the back, and a variation on mill's mess in which the upper hand is clawing. I got to see some pretty cool performances in the evening, and I saw some really impressive skills being practiced in the gym. Possibly the best part was taking part in the juggling games on Sunday afternoon. Nolan and I competed together in a three legged race while partner juggling clubs, and we both competed separately in a quarter juggling contest. There were also 7 ball endurance and distance passing contests, but neither of us are that good (yet!). Sara bought herself some rings, and Jessie learned a few new tricks for three balls. Erica made progress on learning three balls as well. We all got to do some partner-acro too! Unexpectedly, we ran an impromptu mini-workshop on some tumbling skills after a small crowd gathered around Nolan and I practicing somersaulting on each other's backs. Both the show on Saturday night, and the renegade show that took place later at a local bar were excellent. We saw a fantastic juggler by the name of Thom Wall, whose tricks and attitude I really enjoyed, as well as a great comedy juggling duo called Smirk, and a hula-hooper with lots of courage and style who calls herself Dizzy Lizzy Delicious. A real treat of the show was to see a juggler who has been working with Cirque du Soliel for the past ten years do some excellent clowning, some creative contact juggling, solid toss juggling, and very impressive and smooth object manipulation with his suitcase, his cane and a ball.

Below is a show reel for Dizzy Lizzy Delicious, a perfomer from both the regular and the renegade show whom I enjoyed watching very much.