ContactJuggling.org

AKA 'The Therapy Thread'.

*edit* Link to another equally valuable thread "Pulling it together" by Kenfucious.

As I've mentioned, I really want to start a thread that pulls us all together and takes us to a new level with our passion for ball manipulation. A thread that strives to understand what it is that makes performing Contact juggling so awesome, what makes Contact jugglers so awesome, and to give us a place where we can bring together our thoughts, feelings, desires, detests, and our knowledge and experience, so that collectively we can create something so completely awesome that gives anyone reading this such a huge buzz of inspiration that it creates an obsessive desire to not just 'up your game' but to take things to heights that you never even dreamed of.

Take the 'Follow My Leader' thread (http://www.contactjuggling.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5716) for example.

Utter utter GENIUS.

It got people we've never heard from before (or since...) throwing videos out ten to the dozen. Take a look, in two months, 19 whole pages of posts loaded with videos of people who thought about little else in life other than what they were going to for the next round. Then see how many dropped out when one awkward move was chosen as the leader (I'm guilty as charged too). As I recall, someone even proposed to their partner in this thread. Awesome! Except for the fact that it didn't totally work, because just as quick as the thread started, it finished.

OCCJD is a real thing. It gets us all at some time or another. It has a hold of me right now, and it will hold me until I can stop beating myself up over my performances.

The purpose of this thread is to help anyone who performs or wants to perform CJ, be it to yourself in the mirror, to strangers in the park who see you practicing, or to the whole of your country on national television. This is your chance to learn how to play it, how to make the most of it, and eventually let it become awesome. It's not a thread about who's better than who, or who puts on the best show, or who this or who that, it's a collective spoken word workshop that covers every aspect of performance CJ, and every skill level from total novice to world dominance. It is inspired by my quote from the Cyndi Steele thread:


But actually, I don't want this just to be for "proper" performance CJ. It is a place for everyone and anyone to be able to have a voice. It is a place that noone should feel like they don't have the knowledge or the experience to say their views on any subject; if you have any thoughts, just say them. It isn't a place where heavy handed views or "louder voices than yours" should intimidate you from speaking up. It is to all intents and purposes, an online, ongoing workshop, without any one person taking the reigns.

I'm going to kick things off by laying my recent thoughts out on the line. I'm not sharing this with you "to get things off my chest", because indeed actually I'm already growing from what I'm learning about myself. I'm not telling you guys this so you can then tell me back that "No no no, you are actually brilliant and stop worrying!" because I'm not worrying. And I'm definitely not brilliant. I'm telling you this because I want you to know what is driving my obsession to achieve "The most incredible show that anyone has ever seen". And before you say it, no, I'm not wanting or trying to be the best Contact juggler in the world, or the most talked about, or the highest profile, or everyone's favourite whatever etc. To put it plainly, I want anyone who sees my show to come away thinking, "That's the most amazing thing I've ever seen!".

It is totally achievable. People can actually say it, and mean every word. The reality is that if they stop and think about it, the moment they saw a rocket travel into space, or the first time they saw a working "mobile" telephone that didn't have a cable attached, or witnessing the birth of their son or daughter, was actually the most incredible thing they had ever seen. What I want is to have drawn the audience so deeply into my show that all they can think of afterwards is that the most amazing thing they've ever seen is the sh!t I just pulled with that ball right in front of their eyes.

For me, this thread has come too late. I've recently done two shows that should have kicked ass. One of them was distinctly average, and the other one (Cyndi Steele) was only just bearable for me because the feedback that I got on the night was that apparently I was "spellbinding". I was really happy with that show until I'd watched it back a couple of times on video. Then the nightmare began...

All the shows I've done that I'm not pleased with rattle around in my mind and drive me to distraction until I move on and do another show. I don't care how many people come up afterwards and say they loved it, all I really care about is that they thought it was "the most incredible thing they have ever seen".

On the one hand, maybe I'm setting myself up for eternal disappointment.

On the other hand, maybe I am actually slowly pushing myself to the edge of my limits? Every show, for me, is a learning curve. Every show I do I come off stage thinking "What was that? What did I think I was doing? Why did I do that, why didn't I do this, why why WHY?".

Here's a big "for instance:" That bloody Cyndi Steele show I did at The Hangar. I cringe at the fact that some of the best Contact jugglers in the world saw me attempting to wow them with essentially quite average levels of one ball manipulation. My only redeeming feature was comedy. I was "funny". Not awesome, just funny. How I blagged a "relatively sweet" routine to Goldfrapp's Strict Machine I'll never know. Relative considering the fact it was a complete blag. That part of the show is only bearable for me to watch because I know how bad the rest of the show was. Relatively, you understand

And here's the irony: I auditioned to be in a Take That video the very next day after talking with Matt and writing that post in the Cyndi thread. I wasn't expecting to audition, it came up quite suddenly, but only after I had pushed my agent for the gig, after being inspired from such a great evening the night before. At the audition, initially I blew them away with that crystal ball. I then did some other stuff, talked a little with them, did a touch more CJ and then went home feeling rather happy with myself. Until I analyzed what I'd done... It then occurred to me what I didn't say or do that might have secured my chance of getting what was potentially a massive gig. And now I'm pretty sure I haven't got it, even after they (more or less) told me I've probably got the gig. So now, the reason for starting this thread is tenfold stronger than I first thought.

I've been quite complacent with my CJ for too many years now, and have been relying on my past hard work and my reputation for a long while. Only recently have I actually admitted this to myself, and am trying to come to terms with it. I am now going through a very intense learning process about myself that isn't too pleasant. I know it is helping in the long run though, and thankfully it isn't all pain, there are some good bits popping in here and there too.

So, when I say "my past hard work" I mean the YEARS spent in front of that mirror working out what looks good and trying to hone it until it's all there in my muscle memory.

And when I say "my reputation" I actually mean that little period of my life where I was the only one doing this style of CJ and everyone else was watching in almost disbelief. This has actually been my Achilles' heel, for a couple of reasons. I'll go into these another time, no doubt, but I haven't finished thinking about them yet.

Right now I'm as fired up as I ever have been and am playing really hard, both during and outside of gigs, to get to a level that ideally will carry me much further forward than I am at present, both in my career as well as where I'm at with it in my head.

So many outside influences are driving me onwards and inspiring me. The funny thing is, I've no desire to learn any new moves or play with multiball in order to widen my horizons, I'm actually really happy with what I do at the moment. What I'm not happy with is the lack of consistently good cabaret shows, the inability to find a character I'm really comfortable with, the lack of a killer soundtrack that never fails to inspire me to move like a ghost in a light breeze...

Arrrrgh, it goes on.

Hopefully this thread will fix things for me, and for a few others too.

The one thing I really want from this thread is to make it clear that anyone here has potentially got something to say, no matter what level of CJ you are at, you are all potentially members of audience for my next gig.

Tell CJ.org what you think about the "(insert country here)'s got talent". Tell us about the gig you did in your school. Tell us what you thought about the most recent video submission in the forum (include links wherever you can). Tell us what you think are your strong points, your weak points, and your irritating points. Open up. Make a video especially for this thread and tell us why you love or hate it, and let us tell you how we think you can improve it. Maybe you've just done a show you are really happy with, then tell us why. Maybe you've never regretted any performance you've done. Maybe you have a favourite video that has been in circulation for years. What is it? Why do you love it so much? How has it inspired you? Talk about it right here. And for goodness sake, link it into your post...

I know this can be done in the individual video threads, but if we also do it here we have one decisive thread to refer back to all of the time. All of a sudden, you've got three days to prepare for a show, and you don't know where to turn (who you gonna call?) (couldn't resist at least one gag folks, you should know me by now...) etc.

I'm going to sticky this thread, but actually what I'd really like is to have a sub forum dedicated to all the different aspects of performance CJ, I think it would be invaluable to many people...

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One Love, one heart
Let's get together and feel alright

Just... wow. I've been cj'ing for a couple of years now, but it's only in the last six months or so, that I'd describe myself as passionate about it, and even then I'm still humbled by the dedication shown by others such as yourself.

I think in many ways we're always going to be our own hardest critics, and that comes across in your post. It's a blessing and a curse I suppose, since it will always drive us to improve ourselves and keep complacency at bay regardless of the compliments others may pay us, but at the same time it's immensely frustrating.

It's one of the reasons I haven't gotten around to videoing myself yet. I find it incredibly hard to watch a video of myself doing anything without becoming hyper-critical and over analysing every minute detail (sound familiar?). And it's not much fun! I'm preferring performing in front of mirrors at the moment - many moves I though I could perform only crudely look a darn sight better in the mirror, and it helps me focus my gaze somewhere other than the ball. And having something to occupy my attention prevents me from becoming overly-critical. Still, I think that if I really want to improve it's something I'll need to do. And getting feedback from others by posting videos here would probably be invaluable as well. There are a few throwaway moves I idly tried out in front of other people which I've since tried to refine on the basis of positive feedback I received.

Another thing I've found is that it doesn't matter what I've managed to achieve, it's always going to be the bare minimum. That probably doesn't make much sense but it's the sense if I can do something anyone can do it, and it can't be very impressive as a result. So I'm driven to achieve more, but regardless of what I achieve it's never enough. Bit of a vicious circle really, but at least I'm improving as a result, even if part of me doesn't quite believe it.

Given that there's a high concentration of cjers in cities like London, I wonder if it would be worth arranging performance evenings for people to come along and try out their routines in front of others. Rather than just having practice sessions actually have a stage and seating and let anyone who wants take the stage for a few minutes. For those like me who have never performed it would draw a line and sand and give us a fixed date to work towards (though I'd probably keel over from anxiety before the actual night arrived). Perhaps even arrange someone with a decent camera to record things. Just a thought.

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"Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There is mischief to have. There are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all."

Great topic Elsie!

Since I only started CJ four months ago I don't have very much input on performing CJ. However, I have done diabolo for years and have performed many times. Performances are strange. What you think is interesting might not interest the audience and often it's how you perform not the tricks that they are interested in. While many think that they are watching the ball, but that's not entirely true. They are watching YOU perform. This is something I've been working on with my diabolo performances. I want to perform CJ in the future too, but since I just started that time isn't yet.

This doesn't really have anything to do with CJ, but my the last performance I did I thought was the worst. I dropped more than ever. BUT the audience loved it. Some of them who had seen me perform before said that it was my best performance. They didn't care about the drops. I remember laughing at the drops on stage and that was all that they needed to enjoy the show. Even though technically it was my worst show, I performed better than before. So I guess even in CJ it's not the techical aspects that you should think about, it's the way you present the tricks.

In diabolo my style is not very serious. I laugh and smile all the time. (You'll see in the Sirkusteltta Collab video when it's released) This is something that I have failed to achieve in CJ. For some reason I've tried being really 'artsy fartsy' and being all serious about it. I thought that this was really working until I filmed myself. Damn that looked horrible. That just didn't work. For me CJ has always been really artistic and because of that I have forgotten to smile while doing it. I guess my style of juggling in general is smiling and laughing while doing it. This is something that I have to start working on in CJ.

My biggest inspiration has been and still is the 'Liquid Isolations' video. I even PMed you about it a few months ago. For me the whole way you move in that video really works. That video even got me interested in dancing. Other inspirations are Ryan Mellor's and Ed's videos. I really like the way you guys move. I guess I could say that I'm obsessed with movement and want to learn to move in cool ways. That's why I'm taking dance classes.

I have a lot of thoughts, but have trouble presenting them in text. I apologize if this post makes no sense. I just kind of wrote whatever came to my mind after reading this topic.

Posts like yours and iMark's are exactly what I'm looking for, and this thread is exactly what you are looking for too, by the sounds of it.

The techniques that come from this learning process can be applied to virtually any sort of performance, and vice versa. Using previous performance experiences regardless of what you were perfoming can only be of benefit, even if it only seems to stir up bad emotions. It is still something that you have learned from and will hopefully never repeat.

This is something else I'm guilty of too, sometimes I hate what I've done so much that I move so far away from it that I lose any of the little good bits. This in turn leaves me trying another totally different character, music, or theme, and once again, I have no real foundations to what I next attempt. This invariably leads to more disappointment. Moving on a little each time you do a show is sometimes much better than moving on a lot.

At this point in time, I'm trying to stick with Cyndi and stick with an edited version of the same music, because out of all of my shows this one gets closer to my ultimate goal than any others I've done.

It doesn't mean it's the only show I'll ever do with CJ, but right now it's the show I want to nail.

The whole evening spent talking to Matt was spent trying to assess how you can center yourself prior to your performance to 100% ensure that your show will kill it. The goal being that when people come up to you afterwards and say "That was incredible!" you can actually believe them without having any thoughts of your own that tell you anything otherwise.

There is only one real constant factor to your performance.

You.

You are always there. Your foundation (ie what got you to the point where you want to perform, or are able to perform, or have been asked to perform) will always be there. Your previous experience will always be there. There's not much else you can call on. Noone else can do your show for you. Noone else can psyche you up into the correct frame of mind.

Then, the non constant factors rear their ugly heads...

How are you feeling? Good, bad, happy, sad? Calm, relaxed? Jittery, unfocussed?
How are your audience feeling? Happy, excited, intrigued, intoxicated? Moody? Rude?
What is your venue like? The stage, the lighting, the weather?
What is the surrounding area of your venue like? Is it a community center in a rough neigbourhood? Is it a west end stage? Is it a field? Are you in your mate's living room? Your MUM'S living room?

What about this, what about that...

How can you let go of your inhibitions when you are performing and 'do those moves' that draw 100% of your crowd's attention 100% of the time? Very few types of performance can command that much attention.

But I'll tell you what, Contact can, when you properly nail it. It can raise emotions like the world's finest opera would. It can blow peoples' perception of gravity, it can mess with their idea of reality. Even if only for a split second, it's still well within the realms of possibility.

You may get 100% of their attention, but you won't get it 100% of the time.

This is the primary focus of this thread. How can we nail a performance EVERY time we do it? Truth is, we can't. But at least we can narrow down the margin for error.

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One Love, one heart
Let's get together and feel alright

As I don't have any performance experience, I try to look at CJ from a audience point of view (biased audience, but audience still).

I recently only started to get obsessed with how 'moves' can combine together and try to stop seing them as moves. Idealy, I'd like the ball to follow a constant flow with no separation between moves so that one would focus on the flow or the path of the ball instead of 'tricks'.

I enjoy watching CJ when there is not too much 'trick repetition', move done in the same way, several times in a row. When moves come out of nowhere it breaks the magic.

The 'dead arm' seems to emphasize on the 'serie of tricks effect' whereas when the two arms -ideally the whole body probably- are in motion coherently with the ball, it seems that it helps to give the ball a life of itself.

I really like this Silver video for the relationship between the performer and the ball, and the role of the second arm/body (even facial expressions !).
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=uHstnM7E0y0

To use an example of what may kill the magic
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=LFcez1-PInc
My first year vid : Isolations come out of nowhere and seem to be there 'just for the sake of it', the arm that doesn't carry the ball is dead somewhere distracting from the ball, I even start walking for no reason... I don't have a routine yet and improvisation obviously isn't doing any good in my case. There is no 'Oooooh the ball is flying' effect in there.

The more I think about it the more I think that this thread will become a garbled mass of mixed up knowledge, and really could do with being a sub forum all of its own.

We could do with seperate threads dedicated to different aspects, one for warming up, one for costume, one for lighting, one for technique, one for videos and critique, one for music... Eh, the list goes on.

Thoughts? Opinions?

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One Love, one heart
Let's get together and feel alright

I'll read this thread when I got some time on my hands but I'm sure it will be good

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Remember, remember, the fifth of November

it took awhile to read that, had time to roll several tabs. i love that people emulate what they can find online i see to many ppl trying like mad to find the right way to do what i found out recently is called the enigma. after studying it in a mirror (which is the best way to view illusion because lets face it you know what your aiming to achieve not someone who's never heard of contact juggling much less has hand eye co-ordination).
i've been CJing for nearly 5 yrs and at first i used 2 or 3 balls but quickly discovered the huge world that is 1 ball manipulation, isolations, stalls and optical illusions that you can achieve just by sitting down and playing to music,- ok some what off thread-

i've done alot of night club work, walking round all dressed up, best advice is what any juggler will tell you *keep it simple* there are tricks that are simple but look good for members of the public, tricks that look good to other jugglers but the public wont get, and then the really complex tricks that can either baffle or impress all or none. and to always have back up one liners for the people who think they are clever.

Throws arms into air "How fascinating"!
http://www.poptech.org/blog/index.php/2 ... scinating/
30 minute reply from Poptech.
Give me a day or 2 and I'll manage to read the rest of this thread

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Contact Juggling @ Ministry of Manipulation blog

useful nugget of the day#
see the trick
break it down to its component parts
practice each part SLOWLY
til it burns
join each part to the next
thread the trick into a combo
an added bonus of doing this is you can see which way each part of the trick can be converged into other more bizarre moves further wowing your audience and increasing your ability

this is the basic principal of kung fu! take a complicated motion/(anything you can apply this to all parts of your life) and make it simple

I agree, this needs to be broken up into subjects. This is such a loaded topic, there is a massive amount of information in tons of different areas.

Like music. I've been tossing around the idea of making a performace for a long while now, and while I'm sure I have the technical ability, I'm always stopped by what I see as the first step: Choosing music. I always want to try to conform myself and my moves to the music, and build the performance out of the music.
I think this might be the wrong way of looking at it, or at least there are other ways, such as blending the music to your juggling. I've seen a few videos where the music seemed to go perfectly with the CJ, and I've wondered, "How did they pick such perfect music?" I think it might be instead the music adding on to the contact juggling. It's like a cake, where the contact juggling is the cake itself, and then the music is the frosting. The cake without the frosting is, well, ugly, and it can often be the frosting that really makes a cake very pleasing, but at its core it's still the cake that makes it up. Frosting alone is something else, and something less satisfying, entirely.
So to make that stream-of-concioussness a little more cohesive, I find that I obsessively want to blend my CJ to match the music, while I think it might be better to let the music blend to your CJ. If it's close enough, it should be able to do so on its own.


Another aspect of CJ performance I find interesting is the smallness of the whole act. After seeing a circus-type performance, I asked one of the people in it why there wasn't any contact juggling. THey responded that contact juggling was too small for a stage like that, and it was hard for the audience to really see it well and appreciate it fully.
Some time later, I asked the teacher of a performance class about this smallness of a contact juggler in performance, and how to deal with it. She suggested that you could exploit and embrace the smallness, and really use it an emphasize it instead of trying to fight against it. If done well, I think that could work well.
She also gave a few tips of fighting against it, moving around the stage, moving the ball a lot, etc. I noticed also that in the various "got talent" shows, the CJers had to compete with a huge stage and audience. I noticed that Om used things like his giant plastic ball to combat this, and another used the flaming torches to really give definition and depth to his fairly stationary multi-ball routine. Thus another way of staving off the smallness is to use other props to help you fill the space and accent yourself. I think that whichever of these might be done would have to be based off of the media, environment, and goal.

This is a really exciting thread, and I think that the amount its had in such a short time of being alive really shows how much potential there is here. I agree that a whole forum should be devoted.
I am also excited to read what other have to say. Hopefully I will get around to making my own performance!

Amen to that.
Being able to accomplish this or that trick is certainly fun in and of itself, but mutating said tricks into other things is where the magic really happens, because only then do you really get to experiment and exercise your creativity.
Strive to go beyond the vanilla, folks.

It can also sometimes help immensely when trying to engineer a new variation on a trick, or combo to think in terms of shapes, and patterns, instead of thinking "trick A then trick B".
I'm not entirely certain why, but it does.

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The Aeon is a child at play with colored balls

So...

I have a ton to say/add....but i am in agreement that this needs to be broken up into sections, and have its own area. I think i will wait until it is a bit more structured...hope i can remember what i was gonna say.

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much Love,
Dan

Write it down now, save the file, and set it aside where you can find it later.

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The Aeon is a child at play with colored balls

eh...my opinion might change between now and then anyway...but my experiences wont...so no big deal.

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much Love,
Dan