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.