A Marathon Without Training

Running a marathon is on my list-of-things-to-do-before-I-die. Over the past year, I've made running a regular part of my life, and I've normally gone on one or two runs a week. This culminated in my participation in a half-marathon in Albacete, but that was just a mid-level goal, not the final objective. Although sometimes I've had convenient excuses to not run (no audiobooks to listen to, temperature too hot or too cold, my work hours don't allow it), since the half marathon I've tried to continue running weekly. My running in Murcia is much less than my running in Albacete was, but today I came across something that made me question whether I even need to spend so much of my time running (according to Sports Tracker I've spent nearly 70 hours running over the past year, an amount of time that would get me an excellent base in a new language or some other skill): Sean Ogle, a mobile travel guy, ran a marathon with practically no training.

What?!?!

I don't doubt that it can occur, but although I am tempted to immediately sign up for the next marathon in my area, but I am dubious of the soundness of planning to run a marathon with such limited training. What about injuries? What would the physical consequences be of running a marathon without training properly for it? It is possible that I am in better condition to run a marathon now than Sean Ogle was when he ran his marathon, but I am still not completely sold on the idea that I should enter a marathon without far more significant physical preparation. I am tempted though...

Dancing

I haven't juggled in a long time. I haven't done any skill-based physical activities (circus, martial arts, dance) in a long time. I've been running occasionally  to train for a marathon someday, but even that has been quite spare recently. But I went out dancing with some friends last night, and I thought about this: Lots of people told me that I was a great dancer, but I don't think that really has anything to do with my skills. It only has to do with confidence. And confidence is just a code word for not caring what other people think. If I am not self-conscious at all, then I will be able to enjoy myself without concern for other people's opinions. I think that many people lack that: they go to a public place, and whatever they do they are constantly concerned with how they are being perceived by others. In a dance club, or in a park, or in any number of places: people are constantly concerned with how others perceive them. So here I share my secret of being a great dancer in a bar or  in a club: Confidence (apathy towards the opinions of others).

Progress in the past six months

Like happens to most blogs, my enthusiasm for writing on this one faded after several months. It faded so much, in fact, that myself and my three (3!) readers have had absolutely no action happening on this page for more than six months. So here is a brief summary of my juggling life since then:

• Practiced with little bean-bag-like balls, which were really helpful for training 4 balls.
• Purchased 4 sil-x balls, plus one additional small orange-sized ball
• I visited the Katacomb in Berlin
• I attended the European Juggling Convention in Munich, where...
• I met other jugglers! This was really cool, as before summer 2010 the circus kids at Kalamazoo and the gang in Beijing were basically the only other jugglers that I knew, and aside from Federico, Gus, and a few select others,I was one of the more skilled jugglers I knew. EJC was great because it allowed me to see and meet other people who were better than me, which provided some great inspiration and motivation.
• I bought a 75mm acrylic for contact juggling and...
• I´ve begun to practice a little bit of contact juggling, mostly playing with isolations, but a tiny little bit of body rolling and stall point practice, as well.
• I am getting ever closer to achieving a five ball cascade. In a recent practice I was definitely in a beautiful state of "flow," achieving upwards of 20 catches before the pattern fell apart.
• I have decided that the five ball cascade will be the beginning and end of my career as a numbers juggler. I have decided that I will focus on three balls, highlighting how...
• My juggling has become more and more "dancy." This is influenced in great part by my specific physical background, but also because I took some breakdance, locking, and popping classes while I was in Beijing during 2010-2011. After a friend made a comment about it, I have decided to actively embrace this, trying to combine various body movements with three ball juggling.
• I´ve begun to think of myself as a "low-level Stephan Sing combined with a low level Komei." I obviously have a long ways to go, but I like both of these styles a lot, and I hope to grow to do something like that in the future.
• Box variations: I like the box pattern, and after a workshop at the EJC on variations, I have decided that this is a series of moves that I am interested in learning.
• I have also decided to save up money to potentially go to more juggling conventions in the future. Which ones and when I go will, of course, depend on available funds.
• As a way both to keep track of achievements and to motivate myself, I have started to train for and record some specific moves, with the goal of repeatedly breaking my personal records.

The Umbilical Brothers

Last night I spent some time at Federico's home and he showed me a show that the Umbilical Brothers did. It was a fantastic performance; one of the best shows that I have seen in a long time. The movement, the creation of the show, the personal dynamics, the acting and the physical and vocal skills showed by the performers were all excellent. I found a few clips of the show online, but if anyone has the chance to see the full thing I would highly recommend it. Not all of these clips are from the show that Federico showed me last night, but they are all great.

http://www.pinoy24videos.com/video/c36cc4a2e182ae9/The-Umbilical-Brothers-Dog-Tricks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xokylxD78o0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xokylxD78o0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EHp4vr8yio&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImJMbexul5g&feature=related

A February juggling session

Since the Spring Festival break, which was great for my juggling, I have hardly practiced at all. However, last night at juggling club was great. Not only were there a good number of people there (including some cute girls), my practice felt pretty good. I had some good runs with my penguin catches, Gus showed me a fun and goofy looking variation on some basics (involving arm 'juggles,' 'circles' and 'pumps'), and my four ball fountain is coming along very nicely. It was great to juggle to good music again as well. I listened to a lot of Seeed and it felt great to juggle while and moving my body to the music. I tend to do a lot a little dance-like moves when I drop or when I am in between practicing moves, which adds what feels like a wonderful smoothness, playfulness and flow to my practice.

Juggling Practice

I am amazed at being able to see and feel progress over the course of just a few days. Amazing what practicing every day will do, huh? Especially today, my 5 ball cascade was feeling better. I am clearly still a long ways away from having it solid, but it feels really good to be able to see such progress. My 4 ball shower is coming along really nicely too, as I am regularly getting between 10 and 20 catches in a single run.

The cross hand machine that Gus showed me is improving too. I still can't get more than two or three really sloppy cycles in a row, but that is two or three more than I had a few weeks ago. It is a really fun move that looks really cool, so I am excited for getting that move clean and neat someday.

On the downside, by back tosses are pretty horrid at the moment, and I don't know why. Shoulder tosses are getting better though, so maybe with some more practice I can add that to the group of moves that I can comfortably do.

How I am going to use my vacation

I officially am off from work for just over a week for Spring Festival. I am not gonna be doing any traveling, so I am gonna try and spend some time every day juggling. Today went well, and it was my first time using the JuggleFit app for tracking progress in juggling moves, and I think that I will try to continue to use it. It makes for an easy and convenient way to keep track of how many tosses I am able to achieve with certain moves.

As far as specific moves, my 4-ball cascade is making good progress, and although my backcrosses weren't feeling so good today, I did some playing around and experimenting with a few little miscellaneous things. I starting working on rolling the ball on my left arm. I have been able to roll it along my right arm for ages, but it isn't a skill that I had practiced ambidextrously, so that will be a nice addition to my repertoire. The cross-arm-catch robot that Gus showed me (whom I believe he learned from Komei Aoki) is coming along nicely. During this week I want to keep working on those moves, as well as improving my claw.

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.

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.