My Virtual Photo Album

Yeah right. That's nothing even close to what this is, but Angelfire doesn't have a very wide selection, so we'll have to make do with what we have, now won't we.

This page is the rough draft for help on contact juggling and arm rolls.

All of the information on this page was taken from messages on either rec.juggling or www.clubs.yahoo.com/contactjuggling both of which I belong to.

though it's a mish mash right now, hopefully it will get organized soon. Thanks.

Mistress Meghan

Page last updated: Sunday the 12th of March, 2000

In response to Arm rolls: need help

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I can do arm rolls, but remember, I do them with tennis balls, so what I tell you will probably be different from what you are "supposed to do" with Acrylic balls. Anyhoo:

A good way to get used to doing arm rolls is to use your weak or bad arm first. Put the ball on the palm of you hand, and kind of move your arm foreward and tilt it down, so the ball kind of moves down to your elbow. All the while, keep your palm at a 90degree angle to the floor. (this workes for me, I don't know if it works for ayone else) Then when the ball reaches the elbow, tilt it back, and the ball should gently roll down back into your palm. Don't move your arm left or right very much or at all if you can help it. And do it kind of slowly, because if you go to fast, it will probably continue to roll right off your arm.

Once you can do that reliably, try to learn it in the other arm. Or you can try to learn it in your good side first, and get the feel for it, and apply that to the bad side. Either way, it takes practice, but the results are well worth it.

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what kind of arm rolls are you trying to do? i learned the top of the forearm version first. where you roll a ball from the back of your hand twoards you elbow and catch it on the back of the other hand as it rolls over your elbow.

for this, you can just put the ball on the back of a hand and tip your arm twords the elbow. use the free hand to chase the ball down and keep replacing it on the back of the hand. you only need a small amout of tip in the arm. a gentle push from the back of the hand can help get past the enertia. when i perform these, i actually move my whole arm slightly twords the ball to get it rolling, this has a very fluid motion.

another thing that can help is to use a larger ball for initial practice. and as was said before, learn this with the wrong hand first. it'll go faster in the long run.

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This sounds like the hard way to do an arm roll. The way I do it, or so I think, is the easy way. Try holding the ball in the palm of your hand, and rolling it to your elbow, palm facing up, then roll it down. After getting good at it, you can learn to stop it, bounce it, and do all sorts of unbelievable stuff.

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I agree that for the beginner arm rolls palm side up are the easiest. Also, I found that a good way to learn arm rolls are to do it in small steps. Beging with a small roll from the palm to the wrist and back. When you've worked that for a while go for rolls from the palm to half way up the arm and back. The next step would be to roll the ball from the palm to the inside of the elbow and back. You can do these moves with your arms) directly in front on you as if holding a tray. After some mastery you can roll with your arms folded to the sides (palms by opposite inside elbows. Then, at least in my openion, one can more easily move to arm rolls off the back of the hand.

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A few messages back, someone said that it is easier to do arm rolls starting with your palm facing down. Did I read this right? I have always done them with palm facing up, because it is simply too difficult (for now, anyway, I am working on it) to do it the other way. Are there any hints you could give me? Are you holding your arm straight out, or close to your body? That is what would make a difference, I think.

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Here are some tips on arm rolls using the back of the arm. First start with the back of the hands. From the back of one hand roll the ball down the hand and catch it with the back of your fingers on the other hand. Alternate these back of hand rolls and catches. Make sure you're in controle at the catch point. This manuever is called the waterfall. After practice, extend the roll down the wrist to mid arm and catch it with the back of the other hand. Alternate arms with this maneuver as well. Finally, roll the ball from the back of the hand to the elbow and have it roll off the arm to the outside catching it with the back of the other hand. Repeat with that arm. You are now doing the extended waterfall. Your arms of course are accross your body rather than in front of you throughout the above moves.

Once familiar with the extended waterfall you can have your arms out in front of you and alternately roll and catch that way. But I think it's easier to do the waterfall first.

Eventually you can do a body roll off the back of the arms. But one thing at a time.

I might as well add this last point. Another practice manuever is to do the craddle, alternating arm rolls and catches palm side up, your arms horizontal to your chest, that is, do the cradle and then interject the occasional catch and roll using the back of the hand and arm.

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The last message posted described a very very difficult move. I went home and tried it, and found it almost impossible to do, even for a short distance. The problem I ran into was keeping the ball on my hand when it was on the part that is directly above the palm (between your wrist and the knuckles) I can roll the ball from my elbow to the tips of my fingers and go into a butterfly (the name of which I propose we change to "The Moschen" ;-) But I cannot make it go slow enough so that It can jump to my other fingers. It is probably the lack of practice and experience that is causing this problem, but I thought I would just post this to see if anyone else is having the same problems.

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Hey ! I've not bothered you all with contact juggling questions for quite a long time ! Let's start a new thread on the subject then. :-)

I've trouble spinning 4 ball stacks. Any suggestions ? I get 3 ball spinning OK, but the balls split as soon as I put a fourth ball on the top. Beside (must be related) my hands are not very horizontal. Any idea how to correct that ?

I'm looking for hints on the full chest rolls too. I can roll a ball up my shoulder where it goes randomly on the chest or toward the neck and I seem

to have no control of the situation and it NEVER rolls down the other arm anyway... I'm lost.

Any ideas about a 3 ball contact routine/moves ? I've stolen all I can from Moschen - for educational purposes only of course, don't want to get the 97's thread about ripping MMoschen work rolling again - but I seem to be stuck with the same moves all the time.

Can't get the bloody ball to stay on the outside elbow by the way...

I've been shown something nice tho recently. Doing a contact juggling routine with one ball and moving the other hand like a piece of string was attached to the ball (like the yo-yo trick but applied to CJ) and the results are really nice. Especially on the arm rolls or when you suddenly seem to pull the string in improbable directions and the ball follows it. Never saw that before, but I don't know many CJugglers.

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Good to hear from someone who is keen on helping us poor contact jugglers. Any tricks is appreciated. If you need a hand, I can help you set up the website and find enough space to upload/download them. I'd love to see any new videos related to CJ.

I'm currently working on body rolls with a large ball, got the butterfly and other hand transfers ok, but I'm kind of stuck. Arm rolls are improving but they're still very shaky and my isolations are at the beginning. And I can spin a pyramid now. :-)))

Any tricks you happen to think easy enough for me is warmly welcomed.

I've just beginning working on "invisible string" stuff in my one ball routine and it looks quite nice. Don't know if you ever did try that, but the effect is amazing on people. I can explain myself better if you don't know what I mean.

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At home I usually practise the 'normal butterfly' stuff kneeling down, at the side of my bed. Like in the old fashioned praying manner (knees on a foam sleaping matrass (nice for the knees, nice for the balls who always manage to -not- fall on my bed)) But I do have something of a Winter-stop in practising becouse in summer time just practice outside in the park.

In reference to. . .

a) the butterfly you happen to do while seated is a bit off the "wall plane" and you get bad habits that can make transfers more complicated. At least when you're learning the butterfly. b) you have less "correction space" to get the things going where you want them to. Like arm rolls or blocks. When you start the whole blocking business, you tend to move quite a lot at first to keep the ball still. So far, I've not been able to make decent blocks while seated. Some of the tricks seem impossible to me while seated. Like full chest rolls for example but I have troubles with curls too. Anyone got a suggestion ?

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Reminds me of a trick I've seen in a park last year. The guy used to do full arm+chest+arm rolls (from one arm to the other) while spinning himself. The result was visually nice and he told me that the chest rolls were much easier this way. It is perhaps caused by inertia, I don't know. Could prove usefull to people having troubles with chest rolls.

In reference to. . .

It'd basically be rolling the ball down from the shoulder, either cold or from across the chest or whichever. Then the ball would travel down the arms and to the tips of the fingers. But instead of just doing that, you'd be curling your arm around as you do this, and raising your elbow up somewhat, so that as the ball reaches the end of your fingers, you roll it onto your shoulder, and down again.

I was thinking this could be a continuous circular type of trick...

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Welcome aboard a thread that we'll try to make live for as long as we can just to annoy those who think CJ is not proper juggling. :-)

{Just as a note to acrylic balls being big and heavy and breaking things, etc. Am I the only one that sometimes practices sitting down?? I found if I sat on the ground, on top of a blanket, then that worked well... Sitting means less distance to fall. The blanket not only cushions, but can bunch it up to keep the ball from rolling away.}

Well, I have mixed feeling about this one. I love to practice sitting down in a crossed legged position but I've noticed a few things (mainly concerning beginners like me) :

a) the butterfly you happen to do while seated is a bit off the "wall plane" and you get bad habits that can make transfers more complicated. At least when you're learning the butterfly. b) you have less "correction space" to get the things going where you want them to. Like arm rolls or blocks. When you start the whole blocking business, you tend to move quite a lot at first to keep the ball still. So far, I've not been able to make decent blocks while seated. Some of the tricks seem impossible to me while seated. Like full chest rolls for example but I have troubles with curls too. Anyone got a suggestion ?

{Main thing is to make sure you're wearing shoes (or put the blanket on your feet) so as not to hit your ankle if you're sitting cross-legged.}

Yeah ! That's a VERY good point ! I keep hitting my ankle when I spin a four ball pyramid. The fourth ball tend to be attracked by my ankle and it sure feels painfull. Perhaps a good idea for weak ankled (?) people is to put a cushion over their feet during the learning process. Once you miss a catch in a waterfall from the top and get hit by the ball from high on the ankle, you'll feel this to be much less ridiculous as it appears to be. :-)

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1 Type of ball Many types of ball can be spun on the finger. At the lower end of the scale stage balls are often used although Francis Brunn can spin a tennis ball. Footballs come in a range of sizes and this is probably a good starting point. I prefer to use size four plastic footballs. If you can hold the ball comfortably in one hand then you should be able to spin it. Gymnastics balls are good for smaller hands or you can buy specially made balls for spinning. It is very impressive to spin a basketball. For larger balls, a two handed start is probably needed. Your spinning ball should be fairly heavy, have a grippy surface and be slightly deflated. You can use sandpaper if it is too smooth. Try to find one that doesn't wobble too much - try them out in the shop if you like.

2 The Spin The direction is important when you come to more advanced tricks with arm curls. Looking down on a ball spinning on your right hand, it should be going anti-clockwise. On the left hand it goes clockwise. A ball will spin in either direction, but this is the most common way. However, you will find it hard to transfer a spinning ball between hands because you have just learnt to spin in opposite directions! You have to twist your wrist around as far as you can. Then with a quick flick the ball flies up a few inches before settling on your fingertip. Make sure that it spins about the vertical axis so that you can catch it at the pole. Practise this until you can catch it and hold it steady. A faster spin makes the ball more stable. You can make it spin longer by bending your finger so that the ball is on your nail, but for the initial spin it is easier to catch the ball on the pad of your finger. My football will spin for more than thirty seconds. An audience will be suprised because you don't have to look at the ball, or do anything, and you can make it look easy. It is worthwhile learning to strike the ball with your other hand in order to increase the spin - it looks better than starting again. A simple trick is throwing and catching a spinning ball. Try small throws at first. With practise you can turn pirrouettes or throw behind your back or under the leg.

3 Arm Curls A classic trick. Take the ball under your arm, and then away from you with the wrist twisted. Wait until the arm is outstretched before you start to straighten the wrist, bringing the ball back round in front of you. The reverse curl is just what you would expect. An interesting variation is the backwards roll with a spinning ball. Cock your head on one side when you roll and try to go over smoothly. You should find yourself halfway through a reverse curl. This is very uncomfortable on a hard surface such as a tennis court or a motorway - be warned.

4 Transfering It takes some practise to pass the spinning ball from hand to hand. You have to be accurate and find the same point of contact. Try passing under the leg or behind the head or the back. The latter is more difficult because you can't see what you are doing. If you bend to the side it will be easier. You can also run the ball from finger to finger on the same hand or put it on a stick or somebody else's finger.

5 Two balls Try to learn everything with your weaker side. I make a very big effort to do this, but I still favour my right-handed ball spinning. An impressive trick that one sided people can do is called ball on a ball. The idea is to put a second ball on top of a spinning ball, and then let the top one spin in the same direction. It is helpful to give the top one a bit of a spin as you place it on, but do this gently. It should speed up and become more stable. The problem is with the bottom one which will then slow down. You can use your other hand to strike the lower ball or use a lighter ball to put on top; otherwise the trick won't last very long. If you learn to spin two balls at once, you can move on to doing arm curls on both sides. The balls can be curled on or off sync. Or you can curl one ball while reverse curling the other. Try curling one ball while turning around once to that side. You can make a big circle with it as you move. Now have the other ball following it close behind. The second ball doesn't curl.

Only a small number of people learn ball spinning. At conventions there are many good jugglers but not many ball spinners. Suprising, since once you master the basics there are loads of things you can try. If you perform, there is enough material for a routine. Ball spinning is good to use in combination tricks, for example combined with juggling or balancing.