Somewhere to go into various areas of juggling that I have been exploring or I would simply like to talk about, hopefully for the benefit of someone else.
It's been a while since I wrote anything on here, mostly due to me running out of new ideas to write about. However! I've had a few things I have been working on which could turn into useful topics, so expect another burst of posts over the next month or two (probably anyway).
This time I wanted to briefly mention something that I have found really useful for coming up with new routines or tricks, and is in fact the biggest reason I decided the make the Salaryman video last year. Is it some mind mapping technique? Maybe daily research into other types of juggling? Actually, nope! It was from simply being bored, and having nothing else to do or think about to pass the time.
Now I'm sure most people get bored in class or at work all the time, but there's a big difference between idly switching between Facebook and Twitter all day and actually just sitting back and letting your mind wander off somewhere. It's usually in those moments of total boredom that my brain seems desperate to come up with something for me to do and somehow leads to a weird juggling idea popping into my head. I can't explain why or how the idea comes about, it just does, and once something has been randomly thought up you can then concentrate and go deeper into the idea and try to see if it could lead to other variations or something new.
Seeing as there's no "trick" to letting your brain come up with something unexpected, all I can say is don't always feel the need to keep your brain stimulated during those boring moments, if you let it run it's course some totally new unexpected idea might pop up which you would otherwise have never thought of. Meetings and classes are generally super inefficient with plenty of wasted time, so it's no surprise that these times tend to be goldmines for ideas if you are in the right mindset.
I'll leave it at that for now, I should try to keep my posts more concise to save on the translation effort and also get a bit more output going...
I sometimes notice on forums and places like Facebook/Twitter that people get in slumps and find it difficult to get new ideas for routines and tricks. So, I thought I'd write down a few themes which might be useful in order to get you thinking in a different direction and give you some new ideas. This can really apply to any type of juggling, so hopefully this post is of interest to everyone, not just contact jugglers. 1. Taking ideas from other types of juggling This already happens a lot anyway, but when you consider the different types of juggling and all the styles within it, there are a nearly an infinite range of tricks that can be done. That doesn't necessarily mean doing a trick exactly the same with another prop, you can take an idea and try it, and maybe due to limitations or the type of prop you use find another way to do it. In doing so you most likely come up with something you would never imagine normally. Examples: Toss/contact Rings/clubs Cigar boxes/stacks? (I'm playing with this now...) 2. Taking ideas from dance. Getting inspiration from the movement of the body and the shapes created through dance is another good choice. Choose any type of dance you can think of and find a video on Youtube. Pause it at any point and see if you can find a way into or out of that position using your props in the process. It's simple but surprisingly effective. Of course there is also the option to do a style of dance while juggling at the same time! Examples: This is how different contact can look with a tutting influence (Noiseassault!)
If you want really out there stuff watch Storyboard P for some weird influence.
3. Creating shapes Take the tricks you can do and try to create a certain shape out of them, be it a square, circle, or whatever else you can think of. Then try to think of ways to going into that shape again but in a different body position. Creating this start and end point for yourself is limiting, but makes you think in a different way than you usually would and quite often leads to new ideas. Examples: Yamamura Yuri (3 ball triangle shape)
Some guy (Contact style triangle shape) http://youtu.be/rXUzWu730xc?t=23m47s 4. Using colour This is something I've been thinking about more and more recently. Having a two coloured object or a single prop of one colour and a lot of props in another makes you think about ways of differentiating the colours, either by revealing them at certain moments or or finding new patterns that contrast/compliment the colours used. From the perspective of the viewer it looks really effective too. Examples: This scene from a Japanese skate video actually set me off on this...
Some guy again (sorry...)
5. +1 +1 basically means adding an extra ball or whatever prop you are using to the tricks you are doing. This is really simple but I would often not consider it for a lot of tricks, and then when I did I realised it created something new or interesting that I didn't expect (and sometimes things that are too hard to do...) This doesn't necessary mean just sticking it in the middle of the pattern to make it harder either, just the fact that you have this extra thing in your hand might mean the other method you always used will not work any more, so some sort of change is needed. 6. Mixing props Again, this is another thing I have spent a bit of time on (particularly with RdL rings). Thinking about ways to use the other prop to throw/roll/balance on, or in the case of rings go through/around, you get a whole new range of pathways that open up which aren't otherwise possible. You can also combine two types of props and do both individual styles at the same time. Then there are bridges, new shapes etc. Go mental! How about mixing a contact ball with thuds?
Another example (again, sorry...but it fits the topic!)
7. Putting limitations on yourself I find limiting myself in some way a really effective way of making routines. Doing it is really easy too, any kind of limitation is fine. Examples would be only using a certain part of your body/not allowing yourself to use your hands/always keeping a prop in contact with your body a certain way etc. I could go on forever on this one, but I'll leave the ideas to you! Try to make a routine of a set length (1 or 2 minutes) in order to force yourself to keep coming up with new things instead of giving up after getting stuck. It's usually those points that lead to an interesting breakthrough! 8. Using sound The sound of catches/making noise with your body/hitting the props against yourself or the floor is also another direction to explore. I haven't tried this personally but there are plenty of people who have! Examples: Wes Peden
9. Modifying your props This might sound like a strange one, but by attaching something to your prop, be it another prop or something like a magnet or string, it completely changes the dynamic of the object and allows for completely new tricks and routines. Examples:
10. Using the world around you Who says you just have to stand there and completely disregard everything around you? There are no rules, so just look at all the paths/objects/gaps/hole etc. around you and fit it into your routine! A particular recommendation is going to a playground with climbing frames/various fun objects you can go in/around/on. Even if it's stupid, who cares? 11. Using your clothes This is something I got from watching Wes's Synthetic video. Using something with a zip/hood/something baggy gives you extra places to roll or stall the objects you use and thus leads to tricks that otherwise aren't possible. This isn't really explored that much outside of the use of hats so there's bound to be a ton of undiscovered stuff still to be found. Examples: http://youtu.be/rXUzWu730xc?t=11m29s
12. Buying a ball/club/ring shaped object not meant for juggling If you look around at toys for children/pets you can sometimes find some really interesting things that will also work as props for juggling. A few good examples: Babal ball (Thanks RdL!) Hol-ee Roller (Lots of uses for the holes, plus if you press down on them with an object it will shoot it up quite a decent height. Expect a video soon...) 13. Look outside of juggling Pretty much anything is ok here, whatever gets you thinking creatively. I tend to get some good ideas from skate videos, there are some really creative videos out there amongst all the generic stuff. Examples: Gou Miyagi
William Spencer
Daewon Song
14. If all else fails, find another person Doing things with a new person basically opens up a whole new world of possibilities, even for the most basic of tricks due to the many different ways you can share/pass props between you. And should that ever get boring you can apply the above to get even more ideas... Examples: Wes & Patrik Hopefully that's enough to keep you busy for the next few hundred years! If not, here's some more. Jay Gilligan
As a little addition to the last post (The Outside Arm Rollover), I thought I should mention two more types of rollover that are a bit easier to do. Again these names I made up myself, so feel free to call them whatever you want. For the jackknife rollover you want to to have your arm as parallel as possible in order to get the rolling ball up and over the other, then from there you can bring your arm more diagonal to get the bottom ball to roll out. Just try to think of it as a regular rollover but with your arm 180 degrees. Someone better at jackknife stalls could probably repeat this trick if they wanted to. The twist arm rollover is easily the hardest of the two, as catching the ball while getting the other one back up to the stall point is very tricky (which is why I usually let that ball drop into my other hand). I should also point out that in these positions stacks are also possible...
This is a trick I have been thinking about for a long time, but I have never managed to find a clean/reliable way of doing it. For anyone not sure of what a rollover is, this video will explain. As you will notice, this trick is done along the "inside" of the arm. This opens up a lot of ideas/paths for multiball and generally makes it easier to get 2/3 balls to flow around the body. After learning this, I naturally thought I should try it on the outside as well, as this would open up a lot more paths for multiball and allow for a lot of cool new tricks, such as some back to back variations or allowing you to do a regular style chestroll with 3 balls (instead of the slightly ugly inside arm version which everyone does now). At first this seemed like it shouldn't be that hard... Which is why I am writing about this now, in the hope that someone might be able to take the idea and figure out a decent way to do it! (Please note I posed for sections of this trick just to show how it would look in reality, it wasn't taken in one go!) Simply having the ball on the back of the hand and bending the wrist down to do the rollover like the above pic seems like the most ideal method (and mirrors the inside arm version), but in reality it's a pretty uncomfortable trick, plus it's really hard to get the ball to roll over. To stop the ball in your hand rolling off you need to grip it with your fingers, which isn't exactly the most comfortable thing for your hand, plus you then need to bend your wrist down at the right angle so that the the rolling ball can roll up without getting jammed by the other ball. This could be made easier with a smaller sized ball, but that would mean changing everything else for the sake of that trick... The advantage of this method is that after the rollover, the ball should be on a relatively straight course rolling up your arm again, making it much easier to go into other rolls, or go back down the arm for another rollover. The next method I tried was a type of claw grip. With this method it is much more comfortable and easier to get the ball to roll over, however the release of the bottom ball is much more difficult. If you can get the bottom ball out between your thumb and index finger, the next problem is getting it to roll straight from your hand, as it will want to roll away from you off the arm. Should you manage to figure that out, you just need to grab the top ball in the claw position again (NOT easy) ready for another rollover! All in all a slightly easier method but still no good. These two ideas seem to be the best options I can think of but neither are quite there (at least for 125mm balls, the first method could work for someone else...). So, I'd like to ask anybody reading if they can think of a better alternative? Maybe some other way of getting the balls past each other that I haven't even thought of? If you have an idea, reply and make a video! If this trick gets figured out a whole bunch of new tricks become possible, so I figure it's a worthy cause. Give it a go, and good luck!
For the next post I would like to go into a few different combinations which I find useful, as well as going into some harder/impossible stuff to give you an idea of how far I think finger stalls can go. I'll go through in order of difficulty giving a little explanation of each combination along with any tips I have (if there are any). More than anything I just want to open peoples eyes to some the combinations that are available, then from there you can go off and create your own weird and wonderful stuff that I haven't even considered! For most of these explanations I am assuming you will be trying them first with the 1-2 stall, but please try them all any way you like! It will only help to improve your balance in the end. EASY Rolls into Finger Stalls Most likely when you practice a stall you place the ball on your finger tips/thumb and balance from there. After you get comfortable with the stall you are learning, try going from having the ball in your palm to the stall position (so the ball rolls up your fingers). This applies to the cradle position on the opposite side of your hand as well. When you have these two learnt you can go from pretty much any roll into a finger stall. There's not much of a technique for this one, it's just something that gets easier as you get better at the stall. One fun trick to try is to practice the "handerfly" from Brinechild's video below, then you are able to stall at the mid point of a butterfly! Another interesting example can be seen in this vid by PePPyOOO on Youtube. Butterflys are usually done just between the 1-2 fingers, but why not do it between all of them? And when you get really good why not finger stall at each mid point of the butterfly? MEDIUM 1-2 -> 2-3 -> 1-2 This is one of the most basic switches between finger stalls, and one of the most useful. To get the ball to roll over your middle finger you will need to give your hand a small jolt towards you, so you end with your middle finger pointing more towards your face than being vertical (basically the usual 2-3 hand position). If you notice the ball falls off the end of the 3 finger, then you know you need to be rotating the hand further towards you. There's not much else to say for this other than practice, and have your 2-3 stall down really well too! For the 2-3 -> 1-2 part, reverse the above steps (you should find this easier than 1-2 -> 2-3 as you are presumably landing in your strongest stall). It's best to practice each individual step first before trying to do the whole thing in one go. Throw to Stall Getting used to doing throws into finger stalls is very useful! There isn't much to say for this one, start small and then build your way up. It can help to spread your fingers wide to get a stable catch. From there, just see how high you can go! Hops After you get throws into stalls down, try doing it from finger stall to finger stall! It's not as hard as it seems. Back to Back Pass Another fun one to try is to do a finger stall version of the back to back pass typically done on the back of your hands. This time you want the hand you are passing to to be on the inside (so the side closer to your body) as opposed to the outside like in the regular pass. Just to make it more clear I'll include a grab from a video so you get the idea. Not much to say to this one other than practice!
Outside Arm Roll to Finger Stall A bit more advanced version of the above, try doing an outside arm from from your hand to your elbow, and let the ball keep rolling off the end onto the fingers of your other hand. As the ball is moving it will want to roll over your finger tips, so try to make the ball roll up your fingers a tiny bit to kill some of the speed. 1-4 -> 2-3 This one isn't so hard but looks pretty cool. Do a 1-4 tall, then pop up 2-3 at the same time so the ball is raised and rests on those fingers instead. HARD 1-2 -> 2-3 -> 3-4 All I can really say is practice each individual section both ways, and really make sure you have your 3-4 finger stall stable! Try not to rush the process, do the switch then let yourself regain balance before trying the next part. Keep one digit the same This is something I haven't done yet (and maybe I physically can't), but how about always using a single finger (such as 1) while constantly switching between the others? For example 1-2 -> 1-3 -> 1-4 or 1-2 -> 2-3 -> 2-4 etc. Clasp With this trick you exchange which hand is clasped and which one is doing the stall in one fast motion. If you have reached this point there isn't much in the way of advice, just try to keep the moment where both sets of fingers are "up" as short as possible to keep it looking clean. I'll attach a video as it shows how I get into/out of it. It is the third trick. H -> HTU/HTD This is a difficult one, but it's possible to roll the ball from a horizontal 1 stall along your index finger and then turn onto your thumb, in either the HTU or HTD position. Again, not really much in the way of tips for this other than have all of the stalls very solid! Thumb Butterfly! (Thumberfly?) All I can say is start and end in the HTD position as it is the most stable, and it helps to make it one smooth motion rather than stop/start. You can see this in the video posted in the "Clasp" section. DEATH This is the world of speculation, I'm sure it's all possible but it's a long way off! I'll just leave them here for now... 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 (aka Single Finger Switches) The big shiny goal at the top of the mountain. Give it a few years/decades! How about a single finger butterfly? If you can get really comfortable stalling the ball on all parts of the index finger then this is definitely possible. How about combining fingers from different hands? So 1-1 using both hands, or any other combination! This is a lot harder than it sounds... There are loads more but I'll leave it here for now. I think I'll leave the finger stall series for a little while and move onto something new, but I might come back if I find something new to talk about. Have fun playing around with all these variations and go try coming up with your own! The possibilities are endless.
So, for the next part in the series I figured I should write a few useful pointers for learning the various types of finger stall. For the most part these tricks just require practice, there are no real secrets behind learning any of this. But at least these may help the process speed along a bit! Firstly, nails! I get asked a lot whether I have grown my nails in order to do this trick, and the answer is no! While having a little bit of nail can help you get into a stable position, if you rely on this too much rather than actual balance it can mess you up quite badly when it comes to switching from other stall positions/learning hops. After you learn the trick via balance and only using your fingertips it is OK to use them a little, however at first I recommend toughing it out and trying without! In fact, for the most part I find the opposite side of the finger tip to be the easiest to balance (especially in the case of stalls done on both hands at the same time). The best thing is to try out different parts of the finger to see which feels most stable for you, as it will most likely depend on the person. Another thing to mention is that I use 125mm balls, as these are the most stable for this type of trick, and also have more room to switch fingers around and do little combinations. Everything I write below can be done on a 100mm ball or less too, however I should point out that if the ball is too small for your hands it will end up just being lodged in between your fingers instead of actually being balanced! I will use the notation I talked about in the part 1 to name each of the tricks. 1-2 2-3 3-4 The 3 most obvious stalls to learn. Most people do this anyway but just in case, 1-2 should be the stall you start out with (along with possibly 1-4). 2-3 is actually pretty similar to 1-2, so this can be learned pretty quickly after 1-2 without much hassle. 3-4 is very hard, and is still something I can't do comfortably for a long time yet. Starting with 1-2, it is best to learn this with your fingers spread wide as it creates a more stable base for the trick. Don't spread them too far, as then the ball will just be jammed in between your fingers instead of being balanced, which is a big no-no. Other than that, experiment with different parts of your finger tip, trying close to the nail etc. to see what is comfortable for you. As you get better you will find you can bring your fingers closer and closer together until they are actually touching while still maintaining the stall. In fact, if you are bored with the regular 1-2 why not try scissor motions repeatedly? The above applies to 2-3 also. 3-4 is a big step up in difficulty, mainly because most people's pinky fingers are weak and not used to having weight put on them. Less strength also means less ability to make tiny adjustments to maintain balance. The only real solution to this one is to practice it a lot! you will find that gradually your ability to control the balance using your pinky finger increases, although it's very slight and nothing like what you can do with your other fingers. It is also worth noting that you want your finger tips pointing more towards your face (as opposed to straight up) in order to balance the weight on each finger equally and stop the ball from falling away from you. 1-3 1-4 As I mentioned before, the wider your fingers are, the more stable the balance is. In the case of these two stalls the gap is naturally wider, making them nice and stable. It may depend on the person, but for me 1-3 is a little bit uncomfortable (my middle finger wants to pop up), so I would recommend 1-4 to start with. In fact, 1-4 may be an easier trick than 1-2 to learn... H (Horizontal finger) This trick doesn't really need much explanation, the only thing I can recommend is to try to balance the ball on the joint closest to your nail (J1) as that seems to be the most stable point. Double jointed people have an advantage with this trick, as they can bend just the tip of their finger in order to create a more stable base! T (Thumb tip) This trick looks like it should be very hard, as balance is being done by the tip of the thumb alone, however after a little bit of practice you should be able to get a bit of a stall going. I'll confess now, for this stall a tiny bit of nail is very helpful (the same applies to all single finger stalls), although it should not be to the degree that you can just rest the ball on it, as I consider that cheating :) You'll want to hold out your arm a bit in front of you, as otherwise you will most likely be looking down on the ball and you won't be able to see where your thumb is in relation to the ball's center point. Other than that, it is just practice! HTU (Horizontal Thumb Up) HTD (Horizontal Thumb Down) Of all the single finger/thumb type stalls, HTU is probabily easiest. That is because you are able to move your thumb slightly at the joint in order to maintain balance. There isn't much else to say about this one other than keep the ball in the center of the thumb, and as you get better you will find you can move your whole hand around to balance while also making tiny adjustments using the muscles in your thumb. That sounds hard, but it just happens naturally in the end! As for HTD, this is a relatively stable stall as you place the ball in the little hollow between your nail and the first joint. Thus, the main balance is only side-to-side. It still takes a little while, but when you have it down it can be a convenient stopping point in a conbination (after a butterfly from HTU for example). X This is really like doing a 1-2 with a very narrow gap between your fingers. Depending on the way you twist, you will either have your hand very vertical (the middle finger should be on the "inside" of the twist), or have your hand pointing towards your face (the middle finger on the "outside" of the twist) in order to offset the height difference. The first is obviously the easier option to start with, although I only noticed it after learning the hard way first... Dual stalls This is one I have only started having progress with recently. All I can really say for this is to learn the 1-2 stall without needing to look at your finger. If you have the 1-2 down well this shouldn't take that long. When you can do this with both hands, give it a go! I wouldn't recommend looking at either hand when doing this as it can mess up the other side, plus it looks a bit odd when you stare really intensely at one ball only...This can be done with any combination of any finger stalls on either side, but it is really really really high level (far beyond me so far!). Single fingers Lastly, one that is still a work in progress for me. I don't really have much advice for these other than work on them for a long time, and maybe use a tiny bit of nail to help! In the case of 1, it may be helpful to angle your hand at a 10-20 degree angle as it seems to be a little bit more stable there rather than directly on top. One last thing, a slight warning. If you feel your fingers or wrist starting to ache, STOP IMMEDIATELY! This especially applies to people using Jea9s and other heavier balls. When you try the weirder stalls or start working on combinations, it will tire your fingers/wrists out fast so try not to overdo it too much, otherwise you can develop some nasty problems which might prevent you from doing these tricks at all. Safety first! OK, this post was meant to be a short one yet turned out massive, so I'm going to run away now before all this notation and finger talk drives me mental. In other news, combinations are next!
For the first (proper!) post in this blog I figured I'd start with a theme I've been playing around with for a good few years now. A lot of people call them "dipod" stalls, but before I heard this I gave them the name "finger" stalls as it just seemed to make sense, and especially since I branched out for the regular index-middle stall it seems a lot more apt for me to use now.
To start with I should mention that I started trying this trick because of a video MCP posted several years ago. As far as I know she was the first person to really explore this kind of stuff and did a lot of the switches/passes that I do now back then. After learning the more basic stalls and the switches through this video I began to realise that there is a whole world of stall points around the hand, and thus a huge number of combinations that can be made by switching between these positions. Obviously, getting the regular stall point to a good level of consistency takes a lot of time, so going on to learn countless variations and then figure out these combinations is a bit of a daunting task at first. However once you get over the challenge of learning that first basic stall, the whole process gets (slightly) easier and progression is a lot more apparent. Next I should probably talk about the notation I use to make it much easier to type and explain this kind of trick (at least at first). It might also help to get across the scale of the tricks that are available to you just in this one tiny section of your body! This could be complete nonsense and only legible to me but bear with it, I will only cover the more practical tricks here as going into every variation would take far too long (and scare everyone away from this blog from the beginning).
Looking at the above picture, I label the fingers as follows; T = Thumb 1 = Index finger 2 = Middle finger 3 = Ring finger 4 = Pinky/little finger Thus, the trick done in the picture above would be simply called "2", or a "2 stall". Please note this isn't meant to be an official declaration of what these tricks should be called, it's simply being used to make things easier to understand and make the following text a lot easier to write!
Using the above notation, this trick becomes "1-2", meaning the index and middle fingers are used. If you used the index and pinky fingers, it would become "1-4". As you can see, using this method it's nice and easy to understand what trick is being done and how to keep a record of it for little sequences (to me at least, not to anybody else!). The problem is, this currently only applies to the hand in a vertical position, only using the tips of the fingers. So, what about the knuckles?
This diagram should (hopefully) explain. In these cases the same vertical trick is done, however instead of balance on the finger tips there are 3 sets of joints which can be used, starting with J1 (the joint closest to the tip), down to J3 (the knuckle). When combined with the typical 1-2 stall, this becomes J1 1-2, J2 1-2, and J3 1-2 respectively. In the case of the thumb, there is only J1 T and J2 T. Makes sense right?
Next up, non-vertical hand tricks.
I chose to name this one a "Horizontal" for pretty obvious reasons. In this case theres not much point doing it on anything other than finger "1" so I chose to write it down simply as "H". If you want to get super deep/obsessive you can of course label this for each finger (H1/H2/H3/H4), and also do the same for the hand turned upside down, starting with the pinky and working down! Also, in this position you can balance the ball on the finger with your palm facing up or down (as opposed to the 90 degree angle I chose). This could be given a notation as well but seeing as I never use those stalls I won't do it here. Kyle Johnson on the other hand seems to use the palm down type in a few videos, so it's really up to the person.
I used the same idea for the thumb also. In this case it's probably worth splitting this into 2 types, "Up" (the left picture), and "Down" (the right picture). So, it should be HTU (Horizontal Thumb Up) and HTD (Horizontal Thumb Down). It's useful to differentiate these two as they can be used to butterfly between each other or be used alone, but I'll get into that later on.
The last worthwhile one to point out is crossing fingers. In this case simply put an X before the number, so it would now become X1-2! Again, these could be done flat or mixing fingers with joints, but I'm not lunatic (or flexible) enough to do much of it, so I'll leave it at this for now. Feel free to try though! That should be about it, hopefully this all didn't confuse you too much! For the next post I'll go into some tips for balancing different stalls, and then after that go into combinations and ways of putting them together. To finish I'll write a little about where I think this stuff could go if someone took it far enough. At least everything should be a whole lot easier to describe now this bit is out of the way. If you have any questions or thought of something I missed out (which most likely I did), please let me know in the comments! For anyone not interested in finger stalls, bear with me I'll be moving on to another topic soon enough! There will be quite a wide range of topics (not just notation/trick tip type of things), so there should be something for everyone (I hope!).
I figured I should write some sort of introduction to this blog just to give everyone and idea of what it's going to be about, and also to introduce myself to anyone who doesn't know me already (although given who is going to read this it's probably unnecessary).
Starting from the beginning, my name is Darren (going under the name Teku online) and I am currently living in Japan working as a translator/proofreader, and in my free time (among other things) I love to do contact juggling. Recently in order to keep juggling interesting for myself I have been trying to figure out new directions to take my contact, either by taking ideas from other styles of juggling and trying to find an equivalent (such as taking a toss idea and doing it on my body via rolls), or by using other props/things to create new routines/tricks that would not otherwise be possible (such as rolling balls on rings etc).
The idea for this blog is to explain some of the ideas I have tried exploring, and to pick up some new topics to write about in the hope that it can generate some new ideas and lead somewhere interesting for me and maybe other people too (regardless of the type of juggling you do). I figured there's not really much space to rant on about these things on a forum without annoying everyone, and I don't particularly want to speak in front of a camera for Youtube to get the point across either, so this blog is here for anyone interested to share ideas and hopefully get something out of the mish mash on nonsense that's likely to follow. I figure if even one person gets something out of a single post it's a worthwhile task, right?
I plan to write everything in both English and Japanese in separate blogs (There is a link on the right to the Japanese blog). By doing this it gives me a chance to practice my writing for a change and also share ideas with Japanese friends who may not understand the English. I should say I'm not really much of a writer, so don't expect any wonderful beautifully written articles or anything like that. If the point gets across that's good enough for me!
Anyway, I'll most likely start off on finger stall/dipod stalls as it is something I've put a lot of time into up to now. Hopefully you'll find it useful!
