Viewing all threads involving CameronFord
We're doing a thing! In Newcastle-upon-Tyne!
Please come and join us at Newcastle Circus Fest, 10th to 12th March 2023
#NCF
CameronFord - - Parent #
Sounds interesting - are there any more details at this stage? Is there a website?
mike.armstrong - - Parent #
Yes there is now - https://newcastlecircusfest.wordpress.com/
Hopefully see lots of you there
mike.armstrong - - Parent #
Pre-reg is now open - link and more detials at https://newcastlecircusfest.wordpress.com/
Also we now have some (very limited numbers) aerial workshops - book them now before the FB announcement later!!
CameronFord - #
Another great edition of DJCC!
Arrived on the Friday evening and had fun hanging out, playing some dobble and doing a little bit of juggling in the hub.
Got a good night's sleep in a dorm room and woke up ready for some juggling on Saturday.
The venue on Saturday is really good, with squash courts for workshops, a nice big main hall and a side hall as well if the main hall is too busy.
I started off with some hoop passing before moving on to club passing. Managed to juggle a pattern I recently came up with: https://passing.zone/cambled-v/
Finished the day with some ring passing.
Went into town for some food before the show.
The show was amazing this year - best one day convention show I can remember for a long time. The headline act did some very impressive unicycling and rola bola.
Lisa Ellipse was amazing <3
Keith and Antonia had some really nice flowy acts and the compare did a great job.
Looking forward to next year already!
#DJCC2022 #ConventionReview
Hello, I am momo.
I do juggle since 2009 and attended several circus conventions and organized Hamburg conventions.
Spending time with other circus people, exchanging ideas, playing games and having a good time together gives me a lot of joy. I like club passing, watching people being creative in whatever way and playing diabolo.
I will be travelling to Gothenburg and Stockholm from 19th to 28th of September and would like to meet with other circus people there. So please contact me if you have advice what to do, where to go or if you would like to meet: juggling <at> bjoernb.org
Greetings,
momo.
p.s. some passing workshops I held at EJC Brunico and other circus conventions:
- https://momo.ninja/passing/workshops/
CameronFord - - Parent #
Hi momo,
Welcome! It's cool that you have resources aimed at beginners. My favourite way of teaching beginners is using this method: http://www.passingpedagogy.com/
Hope to see you again soon - I think I last saw you at the Newark EJC?
Cameron
Hi Cameron,
yes we met in Newark at EJC, in Canterbury at BJC and in Berlin. Iirc we only passed in Berlin.
I might try your method teaching passing, when newcomers want to learn it. It is very similar to the version I got taught from Aidan that is in the pdf passing for beginners #1.
Plans are trying to get to Berlin Juggling Convention next year and to EJC. Would be great to see you again. I won't make it to pass-out.
Greetings,
momo.
Hey everyone!
I just recently broke the 4 and 5 ball blind records, and I am super keen to have these records confirmed by juggle wiki and other websites. Could anybody lend me a hand in this process as I’ve never done this before? Thanks :D
Johnathan Mundell - - Parent #
Where can you find the blind records? Juggle wiki only does most objects qualified for blind records.
Brendan Kelbie - - Parent #
https://juggle.fandom.com/wiki/Blind_juggling?mobile-app=false
This one, in which I’ve broken the 4 and 5 ball run for the most juggling catches blind.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
Congrats!
Post a public video, then update Juggle Wiki.
Brendan Kelbie - - Parent #
Oh my god Mike I love your juggling! I’ve posted a live video beforehand but I got very inspired to do blind juggling from you! Thank you man :)
https://www.instagram.com/p/B72oRcAnlhp/?igshid=jy67nqgkjin5
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7suRgwHsuA/?igshid=4mcxw4m658yf
Mike Moore - - Parent #
Nice videos! I sent them to a friend who is god-tier at counting catches, he verified they were records and updated the wiki. You're official!
And thanks, I'm glad you liked the blind videos. It's great you've been able to take it this far.
Johnathan Mundell - - Parent #
Alex Lubker Has taken them off. Here are some comment excerpts: I won't be accepting any blind juggling records from you unless you can provide more convincing evidence that you're really juggling blind. Maybe if you juggled with a bucket over your head...?
Good choice. The recent 5 ball 'blind' record attempt is so clearly not blind; unless the dude has some kind of bat-like echolocation technique he'd have no way of adjusting his hand placement to make a catch.
Isn't Brendan Kelbie this same guy who have been continuously trying to fake blindfold runs to get posted here?
Johnathan Mundell - - Parent #
(those are not all from alex) Here is what I have to say: In the 5 ball video I can see your eyes at the bottom and when you take it off you push It down a bit.
Brendan Kelbie - - Parent #
I’ve seen, blindfold isn’t good enough apparently so I did it with my eyes closed
I've got to say in both those videos the blindfolds appear to be a little too high to be entirely covering your eyes, the head tilting back doesn't help either. I can see why Alex isn't entirely convinced. The problem with blind juggling is that only the juggler can verify if they can or cannot see.
The most convincing blindfold I've seen was used by a magician of middle-Eastern appearance I vaguely recall seeing on the Paul Daniels magic show in the early 90s. He took a big ball of dough, moulded it into a flatbread shape & slapped it clearly over his eyes then tied it in place with a bandanna. He then had audience members write sums on a chalk board that he would solve. He also asked a volunteer to draw a symbol for him to embellish into a drawing. The volunteer did a squiggle, then he added a load of other squiggles which formed an unrecognisable pattern. He stopped & asked, "Can you tell what it is yet? It's my wife!" before continuing the drawing into a beautiful picture of a woman in an elaborately patterned hijab.
The blindfold was thoroughly convincing to me but there is no way he could have performed these feats without being able to see. Googling reveals a magician named Kuda Bux did the same routine in the 1950s which pretty much confirms it is a trick.
& because everything is on Youtube:
https://youtu.be/Sb3h4sTFzaQ?start=124
Most of my recollections are correct!
lukeburrage - - Parent #
I think you need coins over your eyes and then gaffa tape over the coins.
http://www.lukeburrage.com/archive/juggling/videos/blindjuggling.mpg
(I should post better quality versions of some of my "proudest" renegade moments some time).
pumpkineater23 - - Parent #
Ouch! Doesn't that rip your eyebrows off?
CameronFord - - Parent #
I can’t seem to see the videos, so I’m not going to comment on this individual case but am going to respond to “unless the dude has some kind of bat-like echolocation technique he'd have no way of adjusting his hand placement to make a catch“. I can do 3 balls and 3 clubs a bit blindfold. With time your definitely learn to adjust your hand placement, even without being able to see. You do this by learning what it feels like to release a ball slightly too far forward/backwards/left/right and then how to correct it. It is possible, although I agree any massive corrects would make me suspicious about whether it was legitimate.
Brendan Kelbie - - Parent #
I did do one with my eyes closed recently, but I don’t think anything I post will be approved anytime soon
Johnathan Mundell - - Parent #
My 5 ball PB is so close to 500c but I only got 498c :(
Johnathan Mundell - - Parent #
My 3 ring best is 14:50
My 4 ball best is 8:54
My 7 ring PB is 9c
CameronFord - - Parent #
The first time I thought I was going to get 100 catches of 6 balls I got excited and dropped, ending up with 99 catches. It was my New Years resolution to get 100 catches and I had less than a week left when I got the 99.
The first time I thought I was going to get 100 catches of 7 balls I got excited and dropped, ending up with 99 catches.
Moral of the story - get excited after a long run, not during it!
Mike Moore - - Parent #
About two years ago (I think?) I kept hitting a wall at about 160-170 catches of 7b. I'd progressed up to there at a rate that made me think the plateau after that was largely mental.
After a week or so, I decided to change the way I counted catches (from batches of 8 to batches of 16). I broke 200 catches three times that day!
CameronFord - #
So it’s the start of 2018 – Happy New Year jugglers!
The start of a new year is always a time to reflect on your life and where you want it to go… or to just completely ignore that and think about juggling, which is what I’ve opted to do:
So I’ve had lots of interesting conversations about how people practice juggling, when they started and how quickly they learnt certain tricks. One topic which often comes up is how Anthony Gatto practices. Obvious he’s pretty decent at juggling, so must have been doing something right when he practiced. I decided to try and emulate his practice.
DISCLAIMER: I think Anthony Gatto has a strong claim to the title of ‘best juggler of all time’ and I in no way think I will ever be anywhere near as good as him. I respect his ability immensely and if I say anything like ‘obviously he’s pretty decent at juggling’ like in the line above, I’m deliberately understating things for comic effect. Hopefully this explanation didn’t spoil that effect too much, but I would hate people to think that I don’t respect his ability or that I’m trying to compare myself to him in any way. I just want to get better at juggling, and tell a few jokes. I also don’t think I’m a particularly good solo juggler either, so any statements I make to the contrary are also jokes.
END OF DISCLAIMER.
After reading https://www.juggling.org/help/essays/gatto.html and watching some of https://youtu.be/gtsaTMdKVTM I think these are the key things I’ve learnt about how he practices:
1) Warm up with some gentle balance exercises.
2) Practice for one hour, but every day!
3) Work on each trick for no more than 2-3 minutes, take regular breaks.
4) Have a list of about 20 tricks you are working on, if you aren’t enjoying one, swap it out for another one.
I think the idea of this is you make slow progress on lots of tricks at once, and if you do this every day for 20 years you end up being the best juggler of all time or something. Sounds like a plan- anyone want to book 43 year old Cameron for a performance, he’s going to be awesome? (See disclaimer if you think I’m being arrogant…)
This is very different to how I practice. Sometimes I’m super motivated about one trick and work on just that for a whole session, sometimes I rattle through tricks more quickly. Sometimes I have seen someone do something at a convention which I want to try. Sometimes I have a new idea and want to try and come up with some tricks of my own. Sometimes I’m driving to Austria and don’t practice for a day. The point is, it varies- I don’t have a systematic juggling practice routine. I’ve got my juggling to a level I am proud of but I’m not the best of all time like Anthony… probably only like the 7th best of all time or something (see disclaimer).
I wonder how much better I would get if I started practicing like Anthony? That’s what I plan to find out over the next month or so, maybe with a few days off when I’m skiing/moving to Germany. Who knows, I’ll do it when I can though (I know this already doesn’t really fit with what he does given he did it every day but you know I’m doing my best…).
Right, so I’ll warm up with some balance stuff, cycle through tricks really quickly (I think I’ll have a timer running to keep me disciplined) now all I need is a list of 20 or so tricks:
Balance warm up:
Turn round, kneel down, stand up sit down stand up, clap behind balance, do Macarena etc with club in both nose, chin and forehead balance (2 minutes)
3 balls, 441, 4ball sync and async, 5 balls all with balance. Maybe flash 6. (5 minutes)
Ok, now I’m warm ish, maybe mills is also a good warm up for the arm? I want to work on mills anyways so let’s put some of that in:
Mills:
3 balls, 441, 531 (2 minutes)
4 balls, run, then 531 throwing 5 as under arm and as over arm. Kick up 3 to 4 (3-4 minutes)
5 balls, go for runs, try kick up 4 to 5 (3-4) minutes
I really want to get 5 ball mills looking nice it’s such a cool trick, seems weird only working on it 3-4 minutes but hey, let’s give it a go.
Pirouettes:
3 balls, 3 ups including linked 3 ups and 2 stage 720s (3-4 minutes)
4 balls, 4 ups out of both hands, 2 stage 720 out of sync? (3-4 minutes)
5 balls, 3 ups starting out of both hands, try and get 2 linked (3 minutes)
5 balls, try and land a 5 up out of both hands (3 minutes)
5 balls, 3 ups out of (6x,4)* ? (3 minutes)
I wonder if I’ll find the pirouette section tiring? Maybe I’ll switch this to being at the end after I try it tomorrow. What am I on now? 33 minutes or so, wow, that’s half my practice gone! Ok better get on with it:
5 ball siteswaps:
744 (1 minute)
645 (1 minute)
633 (1 minute)
94444 (1 minute)
97531 (2 minutes)
(8x,4)(4,4) out of (6x,4)* (2 minutes)
753 (1 minute)
Man that’s another 11 minutes gone, how did Anthony make this work? All I’ve done is balls. Crazy he was efficient enough using this practice to get at least as good as I am at all three props, if not better… (disclaimer).
6 ball practice:
3 in one hand, each way (1 minute)
One handed siteswaps with 3 balls like 432 and 42 each hand (2 minutes)
66661 (1 minute)
Run 6 async (2 minutes)
Run 6 sync (2 minutes)
Transition between sync and async (2 minutes)
Kick up 5 to 6 (1 minute)
Man I’m running out of time fast:
7 balls:
5 ball warm up, continuous 3 ups without spinning. 771. (2 minutes)
Try and get some runs of 7 balls (3 minutes)
It seems mad only trying 7 balls for that short an amount of time- I’m used to practicing it in half an hour stretches. I wonder if this will really help me improve?
Half showers:
5 ball half shower, throwing the odd high throw as a back cross (2 minutes)
6 ball half shower (2 minutes)
Man, that’s over an hour! This is insane, I have some other 3 ball tricks which I would love to get solid for an act in the future, I haven’t done any contortionist stuff, I haven’t practiced any of my shower tricks. There’s so many more ball tricks I can think of I want to work on and just as many club and ring tricks… I guess I’ll have to gradually change what is in my practice over the next 20 years so that I master clubs and rings too. Oh and head bounce. Also might take up cigar boxes. Should probably do some passing at some point too… hmmm.
I’m planning on trying this tomorrow after I’ve done some tutoring, if anyone has any feedback/suggestions of things to add or take out I would love to hear it.
I’ll post an update with how I found the practice tomorrow, and maybe again after 5 days or a week or something. Will definitely post again in 20 years when I’m the best of all time (disclaimer). Hopefully if you've read this far that last disclaimer was unnecessary. Bye x
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
I always wonder how much this differs from his practice when he started out. This routine of his was perhaps built more to help him maintain the level he had, it could be different to the training he did when he was actively learning new skills!
CameronFord - - Parent #
So if you follow the link from the post (https://www.juggling.org/help/essays/gatto.html) it describes how he tried juggling 4 clubs for the first time. Very different from my experience of learning 4 clubs- I remember putting in lots of hours and ending up with fairly battered forearms. It seems crazy to me that anyone can learn new tricks by spending such a short amount of time on them but I guess the key is doing it every single day. I guess the fact it seems crazy is why I want to try it for myself and see if it works for me :)
Obviously I can't know for certain but as far as I can tell this really is how he learnt new tricks as well as just maintaining ones he could do already.
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Oof, different from my experience too. I spent a whole summer on 4 clubs..
Scott Seltzer - - Parent #
https://www.juggle.org/anthony-gatto-interview-on-practicing/ the last question:
eJuggle: How has your practice style changed over the years?
Gatto: It has not altered too much. I follow the same structure as I used when I was ten. What I do now more than ever is listen to my body and do not force things to happen.
CameronFord - - Parent #
Day 1 log now posted.
el_grimley - - Parent #
I used an app called "action timer" for when I had to do a bunch of physio. Basically put in the length of time for each activity, the title and hit the go button. It will tell you what to do when (including rests). If you plan to do the same thing week in week out it might be a good way of getting consistency. I'm sure there are a whole bunch of similar apps which might fit your need if you don't like that one.
Stephen Meschke - - Parent #
I have been using an app I created to structure my juggling training and collect juggling data. The Android app is called Routine Builder. It is available free in the Play store, and by email. Check out my training logs to see what the app can do.
Lets not forget that he also had a coach. Someone who watches closely from a different perspective and gives good feedback is invaluable. It is perhaps what allowed him to get so much out of such short sessions. The question is if the same practice structure is optimal for a juggler without a coach.
CameronFord - - Parent #
Very true, I guess what I'm really testing is whether this 2-3 minutes per trick style of practice works better for me than my normal fewer tricks for a longer amount of time style. It's definitely different from what he did in a number of ways.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
A while ago I was working on consistency of patterns. I made a recording of myself saying the name of a pattern I wanted to work on, then put in silence so the total track length was 30 seconds. I think I had something like 6 different tricks, so I duplicated each track 9 times to give me a total of a half hour of audio. I made this a playlist, hit shuffle, and BAM! I practiced in a very focused way for 30 minutes[1].
I did make a lot of progress during this time, but probably similar progress to when I practiced for the same amount of time by myself without such a rigid structure. Hard to tell.
[1] - For if you're having trouble understanding what I'm talking about, the session would sound like this:
"Around the head shower, right hand" [~30 seconds of silence]
"Blind behind the head" [~30 seconds of silence]
etc. etc. for 30 minutes.
As far as I understand your routine is a random circuit training, because you 'hit shuffle'.
I think that most people train in a linear way, one trick after another for a certain amount of time in a training session. I like the idea of a circuit training and for some tricks I have made good experience with something like A-B-C-D-A-B-C-D ... or A-B-C-D-B-C-E ... after a warmup and with short breaks in between. The letters are representing different tricks. At the end of a session I have repeated some tricks 2 or 3 times. 2-10 minutes per trick works well for me.
CameronFord - - Parent #
I really like both these ideas, maybe I should switch up the order I do my tricks in rather than always sticking to the same order. Revisiting them in the same session is also an interesting idea... thanks for your ideas :)
After a couple of years of on-and-off work, I'm pleased to announce the official release of juggling•graphics, a siteswap illustrator. It serves absolutely no purpose other than to draw pretty pictures of siteswaps — but that's more than good enough for me! You can give it a whirl at https://juggling.graphics/
Huge props to Craig Quat (see what I did there?) for the original visualization concept and to Jay Gilligan for an extended conversation that helped me refine the idea.
Greg
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Yeah, this is awesome!! Thanks for making this :D
Greg Phillips - - Parent #
By popular request, juggling•graphics will now run without a network connection (save it to your home screen, or whatever). And for those who might be interested, the source is now available on GitHub. Cheers.
CameronFord - - Parent #
This is brilliant! A shirt which had these diagrams and their siteswaps on would look sweet. Personally favourites after a few minutes of messing around include 966, 88441 and if you type in db97531 one number at a time they are all valid siteswaps so you can see how the pattern changes!
Thanks for making!
I want to make some tutorial videos over the summer. I don't think there are many four club patterns or trick tutorials on YouTube. Do you think I should try to fill that gap or is there a reason they don't currently exist?
nomorepoetsplease - - Parent #
I wouldn't be dissuaded by what isn't there. If you have something valuable to contribute, by all means, I think it would be a welcome addition.
CameronFord - - Parent #
I started learning 4 clubs a few months ago and can now get reasonably long runs. However, the only tricks i'm really aware of/have been working on is 534 and singles. So I would definitely be interested in a video of 4 club tricks- go for it!
How about the shower, 71, or 552, which is five with a gap, holding through the gap. You end up alternating two crossing doubles from each hand. It's also good practice for five clubs.
Juggler Bambi - - Parent #
Thanks for the encouragement. I'll give it a go.
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