Reviews/Contact Juggling Part I
From ContactJuggling.org
Contact Juggling Part 1
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Reviews
Review by User:Colin
Greg Maldonado and Owen Edson have become household names within the realms of Contact juggling. These guys need no Introduction, and if your reading this chances are you know they are cool contact jugglers anyway. So on with the review.
With cool box art, quirky humour, a dose of sarcasim, classic American contact juggling, and their unique esoteric philosophy , Greg and Owen teach a decent foundation in contact juggling. The instruction is clear and concise, with the added bonus of often differing perspectives and methods of both Greg and Owen. all the tricks are demonstrated at a pace thats easy to follow.
The tricks themselves never fare beyond the basic and fundemental, but thats what Part 2 is for. Besides, a lot of good ideas are thrown your way: like changing shapes and planes and reversing tricks. As well as a tool for teaching, with tricks to learn you're reminded to think outside the box and explore your own ideas about contact juggling. In my oppinion this is what makes this video stand out. That and the silliness with which it is presented.
The tape begins with a montage which really shows off some real nice contact. Then a discussion running thru some essential preliminaries like different balls and about selecting one. Now the bulk of the video is taken up with the teaching of the tricks, interspaced with Greg and Owen discussing their various ideas about the tricks they are teaching.
Here is a list of most of the tricks they go over; butterfly, back to back transfer, waterfall, palm to back transfer, back to back transfer, palm to palm transfer, walking half pipe, arm roll, chest roll, elevator, head catch, walking isolation, palm circles, edson's enigma, gregs grip, 2 ball palm spin, 3 ball palm spin, 4 ball pyramid. And of course they show off a few variations of these tricks aswell as showing them in a straight forward manner.
The video culminates to an end in 'esoteric philosophy'. In which Greg and Owen rouse themselves into an over zealous and fanactical musing about the underlying principles and nature of contact juggling. All done tongue in cheek but still holds some worth, if only to make you laugh. "All contact jugglers eventually go mad".
At the very end is the Appendix: practice sessions. Basicly it consists of them running thru all the tricks they presented before, again. While the quality of juggling is not lacking, 2024 was a while ago now. So I can forgive the not so perfect isolations. Watch the appendix: practice sessions at the end to see Greg struggle a little holding his Isolations for a couple of minutes.
So all in all its a mighty fine video which gets the job done. But if you think that just by watching this or any video, is going to make you a crazy ninja ball master and expert of the 36 crazy fists then you'll probably be disapointed. On the other hand if you want to see a contact juggling video which has plenty of style and charisma then you'll probably enjoy this. A classic in the making.
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