ContactJuggling.org

hey guys, there is this awesome trick where at the begginging of the performance, you make the ball appear out of no where. I think its a great move to start off, but can't figure out how to do the trick. I really want to know. PLEASE HELP!!

Can you give a video reference?

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I'd like to see this as well, I know several standard stage magic misdirections that would work, and have seen many performers use these to introduce say a second ball into a routine. But likely the best appearance of a first ball that I can remember seeing was an enigma floating up out of a suitcase (The famous mr O. perhaps?)

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There are lots of these... magic technique is full of 'em. Beans does a good one in the very beginning of his now very oldskool video:

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Wow, This was one of the first few video's I saw of contact juggling when I was getting into it. This was before I even had a ball.

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"What are you going to be?" . . . "a contact juggler" . . . "No, I mean what's your major?" . . . "Biochemistry" . . . "Oh, well what are you going to do with that?" . . . "Juggle."

thats called palming. its a sleight of hand technique and there are many types of palming. jeff mcbride teaches how to do them in his video, "world class manipulation".

here is a video that has some palming and ball shell manipulation

I'm a magician, and do a few productions of 75mm acrylics in a routine of mine. The basis of the move is always this:

Take a ball and stand in front of a mirror.

Now hold the ball in one hand.

Turn your palm away from the mirror until you can no longer see the ball in your hand's reflection. Congratulations, this is a very simple palm.

If you can, try to hold the ball with as few fingers as possible - I can hold a 75mm acrylic using the muscles below my thumb and the fleshy bit below my little finger, leaving my other fingers to sit naturally like they would if my hand were empty. (You will drop the ball a lot doing this).

Practise holding the ball like this (in a seemingly empty hand) and moving your hand around a bit, trying not to flash the ball - clear acrylics are good for this, as they as transparent and hence fairly forgiving when it comes to flashing them to an audience.

IMPORTANT POINT: when palming something, don't pay attention to the palming hand. Look at the audience, look at your other hand, read a book. If you don't look at the hand with the ball in it, neither will the audience.

When you can palm a ball comfortably, producing it is little more than just bringing it into view. Doing this in a large, reaching motion (as if you are plucking it from mid air) will help conceal the fact that you are just taking it out of your hand. I like to follow productions by curling my hand into a fist with the ball on top, as it's a subtle suggestion to the audience that the ball is about the size of my fist, and as such couldn't possibly have been hidden there.

Hope that helps!

Chris Ivanovich (www.chrisivanovich.com) was actually able to palm and disappear my 4" acrylic. You could still see it of course, if you looked, because no ones palm is big enough to conceal a 4" acrylic, but it didn't matter because his misdirection and bodyweight shift and all the other nuances of a good vanish were done so well the ball still vanished. I nearly peed my pants.