Struggling, Staff Challenge day 9-16

The this week has been a bit difficult for many reasons and it has impacted on how much I have picked up the staff. I am feeling a bit disheartened by this, but I will start spinning it again once I have got past wisdom teeth issues, hospital appointments and severe headaches. There has been no progress at all this week. I will keep you updated once I start spinning again.

Staff Challenge - Day 5-8

12-11-2006 © abjectphoto

I have been playing on and off with the staff and have started working on the contact lessons on the DVD. The only problem I have is space. I find it hard to really have a good try at any of the moves, because I fear smashing things in the house and it hasn't really stopped raining long enough to play outside in the garden. I need to find some cheap/free indoor space to learn in, where there is little chance of me breaking anything or hitting anyone else.

So far I have been practising hand rolls with some success, although I need to learn much more control over the speed of the rotations. Shoulder rolls are going ok when fed in with the other hand, but same hand feeds are still a bit hit and miss... more hitting than missing. Neck pinches hurt, so I think I must be doing them incorrectly. I think my fear of dropping and smashing things isn't helping with this one. Maybe with a lot of space I will find it easier and less painful.

So all in all, I'm still practising and slowly progressing, but most of all I'm sitting staring at the rain and pleading with it to stop raining for a week or two.

If any of you readers are joining in with the New Year Challenge, I'd love to hear how you are getting on.

The above photo is one I found on Tribe and I liked the flower pattern. It is copyright abjectphoto. The staff spinner is credited as Lucky

Staff Challenge 2013 - Day 3-4

Not much progress to report here. I didn't have time to post yesterday, but in all honesty I had a day of being frustrated with the staff and myself because I just feel like I should be better at this than I am, but I think I just need to get past that and get on with it.


 Today I have woken up with a raging toothache, so have absolutely no desire to do anything. So instead of picking up the staff I have gone in search of videos that can make me go WOW! and make me want to keep going, rather than picking up the hoop instead and ignoring the staff. This is Meast doing a double fire routine at Summerflame juggling Fest, Novi Sad, Serbia.

No doubt, later I will guilt myself into practising, but until then this is as far as I have got on day 4.

Staff Challenge 2013 - Day 2

Today it has become very apparent to me that unless I concentrate really hard most of the moves, beyond a basic forward or backward figure of eight or rotor, seem to convert into something other than I thought I was trying to do. I believe this is because my muscles have a lot of similar moves stored in them from hooping, so my body, when my brain has drifted off in a daydream or is more interested in making me sing along to a song I'm listening to, does it's own thing, and it' own thing is more often than not a hoop move that is similar to the move I have started off with the staff. Obviously, this isn't always turning out too well as a staff isn't circular like a hoop. This has resulted in a lot of dropping and body bashing.

The way I plan to remedy this is to do some heavy duty drilling of moves. Repetition of the same move over and over, whilst in a quiet place with no distractions for my brain has been the order of the day, so much so that I've started not to be able to tell if I am in forward or reverse rotation. I think that bit might be quite bad, but on the good side I have managed to get double rotation figure eights solid in both hands in both directions.

Another oddity I have found today is that simple one beats are anything but simple for me. I have no idea why I find them so hard. After all, the only thing you are doing is drawing a circle in front of you with the end of the staff. My right hand does it, with some protest of wanting to do other things, but will my left hand do it? NO! My stubborn stupid left wrist has decided that it doesn't want to do that. Why? I don't know. I will be having stern words with it later to make sure it starts playing the game by the rules. If I don't stare at, and concentrate very hard on the end of the staff and watching it do the circle, it wonders off into a figure of eight.

I have a feeling that the first few weeks of learning the staff is going to be very frustrating for me and WILL involve a lot of rather rude words and a fair few toddler tantrums. BRING IT ON STAFF! I will win. You will do my bidding.... or at least I will learn how to control your bidding, so I don't end up black and blue.

Staff Challenge 2013 - Day 1 Getting Started

Flames and Games Coloured Practice Staff

Today, I sat down and watched the video, picked up the staff I borrowed from the club library and started my quest to be able to spin a staff and then move onto contact staffing. Oh my, do I have a long way to go. I have hit the back of my head, my leg and my laptop with the staff so far. I really need a bigger space to learn in, so roll on some nice warm weather, so I can go out into the garden without the fear of coming back in looking like a bog monster covered in mud.

Most of my problems are down to the staff having it's own momentum once it starts spinning and plan control once it gets spinning. I am used to spinning poi, which only have one end, and hoops, which have no ends. Staff have two. One end I'm watching and another that is coming up right behind it to thwap me on the head or leg. I am hoping with time I will remember that. Haha.

I am hoping to spend a lot more time tomorrow on variations on the figure of eight and making the basic pinwheel look a lot more exciting.

I wonder if I should invest in a crash helmet....

The staff I am using is a 1.2m Flames and Games practice staff from Oddballs.

Are You Taking The Challenge?

Will any of you be participating in the New Years Challenge I set?


I have decided to start with staff and give it the first 6 months of the year to see how well I do. I will keep you all up to date on how I am getting along on the blog. I'll start right at the beginning as I really have never done any of the basic drilling of staff moves. I think this way I will stand a better chance of not developing lots of bad habits. I won Meghan Claire Pike and Steve Wilson's "Staff [Manipulation]" DVD at our last party, so will be using that to start me off in the right direction. If any of you want to learn alongside me, the DVD is in most of the good juggling suppliers online shops. It would be fun if some of you did. We could compare notes on how well we are doing.

If you don't fancy the staff, you can do something else for the challenge. How about devilstick? Club juggling? Hula hooping? Acrobalance? You can pick anything you like. Come on! Join in the Challenge and get the year started off in a fantastic way by learning a new skill!

New Years Challenge

Hi all you lovely circusy people. I have decided to challenge myself in the new year to learn a new prop. I'm thinking either Contact Staff or Diabolo. I know I have kind of had a go at both in the past but never really put enough effort into actually learning that much and I never practised enough for any of it to really stick, so I'm going to give it another go. So, which do I pick? The stick that, because I am concentrating so hard on one end, always ends up smacking me in the back of the head with the other, or the spinning spindle of doom that spend more time running away across the floor, or hitting me in the face than it does on the string? Vote in the comments please. Yes, this is interactive learning. You pick the prop and I get the bruises.

My Challenge to you is to give it a go too. Choose a prop and give it at least 6 months worth of learning, practising and attention. I'm going to encourage as many of the ENI members to do it as I can and get the more wordy and video minded ones to chart their progress here on the blog. If some of you readers fancy joining in and set up your own blogs to record your failures and triumphs (yes there will be failures, that's all part of learning) I'd love to read about it, so let me know by commenting here with links.

I know it's no New Year yet, but I'm telling you all this now, because it will give you time to get ready to start and maybe hint to a loved one what new prop you might like for Christmas. *wink*

Bring on the bruises!

Unicycling challenge

Well, ENI unicyclists, if these lot can do this I think a bit of maypole dancing is going to be easy! What do you say? Do we get a maypole team ready for the SpringFest in the Village or not?



I say YES! Do it!

366 Tricks - Challenge time

My friend Gale posted a link to Sam Goodburn's You Tube page, where he will be posting a trick a day for 366 days, so every day of the next year. He is using the challenge not only to show case what he can do, but because he has limited himself to 30 seconds of edited film per day, he will be learning to shoot and edit film in more interesting ways to make those 30 seconds really count. I think it's a fantastic idea and reminded me it has been a long time sine I set myself a challenge. The 30/30 challenge was the last recorded one I did, but maybe it's time to set another. Would any of the ENI club be interested in doing something?

I'm not sure what it will be yet, so I'm open to suggestions. I am thinking along the lines of challenging myself to pick up a prop I'm not all that good at, like Diabolo or staff and bettering those skills, or trying something completely new. What do you think?