Moves

1b Edsons Enigma

Comments

how the f#*% do you do that?

It looks like you dont even touch the ball when you move your palms toward it. Whats the secret?

Bigger balls are better for this move. I have done it for a while now, never knew it was named something as corny as this! :) Remember, that this is a clip out of a video, and it is a little slower than it is performed live.

I got the name from the video "Contact Juggling" - Owen Edson named the move - saves me thinking up a name myself.

invisible thread?how?no description share the secret!!!!!

I have a two very cool variations of this move which I came up with independantly. if the creator is intrested in them please contact me, I am sure you would agree these are neat also.
www.reedmcclintock.com

Why don't you just explain them so that more people than just the creator will know what your talking about.

I think its just alot of control. There doesnt seem to be any wires or anything like that. Possibly he/she is just a really really good cj'er.

it's an isolation. A bigger ball is better for this cause it's more visible and your hands don't tend to hide what you are doing. He is very smooth at it but to get the basics it really isn't too difficult, I believe shifty has explained it somewhere.

watch the top thumb and bottom fingers.They do nothing to control the ball(in fact they are off the ball a lot of the time in this clip) they are only there for effect( a damn fine effect!).so you could learn the basic isolation without those fingers and add em in to create the illusion........

I think I figured out what's going on here. The ball has the illusion of spinning in place due the the detatched fingers' possitioning. Note the the fingers of the bottom hand and the thumb of the top hand pull away from the ball producing the "spinning/floating" effect. This is actually quite simple, I figured it out in only a couple of tries, and I've only been doing this stuff for a week. The fingers on the top hand, and the thumb of the bottom hand never lose contact with the ball, so all that's happening is the ball is rolling on the insides of the fingers that are touching it....up and down if you will. Look very closely at the ball in this video, and you will note that some of the flaws in the surface of the ball just keep going up and down. Neat illusion!

Silver is right to point out that my hands are not even touching the ball at some times in the clip. I wish I could say I was doing it on purpose to make it clear, but sadly, I was just being lazy.

that is phat! props

Maybe I should pick up the thread again, with all the talk in the forum of difficulty ratings and good moves for beginners going on...

this is, IMHO, one of the easiest tricks in contact juggling. And it is a great introduction to isolations.

Sonic's description of the trick is half right. When starting to work on this isolation, keep both hands on a horizontal plane with fingers pointing down (the video shows the iso 'up and down', on a vertical plane)

Four fingers do all the work, in two sets. You have the pointer of hand #1 and the thumb of hand #2, and you have the thumb of hand #1 and the pointer of hand #2.

roll the ball, within the ridge of the hand, to the ends of the first finger set, and the SWITCH to the other set. This is what Sonic is not describing. The other set rolls the ball back in. SWITCH back the the first two fingers. Start again...

looking at the video, lets put a number on each finger

1 2

3 4

1 is the pointer on the top left side of the screen, 2 is the thumb on the top right, 3 is the pointer on the bottom left, 4 is the thumb at the bottom right.
The trick, then, is this... starting from the first frame of the video.

Roll the ball out to the ends of 2 and 3
SWITCH to 1 and 4
Roll the ball in on 1 and 4
SWITCH to 2 and 3

and start again..

look at the video. it should be clear now.
Learning it is just a matter of a bit of complex mechanical finger work, with all the switching being a little confusing.
anyways.. hope that helps.
Anyone up for the challenge of a one-handed version of the enigma?

i've got the one-handed enigma, but the ball needs to be a little slippery, or i need to wear gloves. but it does work. not an easy way to explain it...just try it.
-Roo

Did you try it with a clear ball? it doesn't seem quite as effective with non-see-through Balls.

Contact Juggling

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