Fishy Tails - Staff Inspiration

If your staffing has got in a rut and you need some ideas of where to go next, this video from Simon Janson is a very good place to start. Watch, ingest and enjoy!

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.

Oh Yes, Contact Staff.

Here is a video that makes me more determined to practice staff even though I don't seem to have a flare for it. Chazz Parham posted this on Facebook earlier and I want to be able to do all of it!


Practice! Practice! Practice!

Thank you Chazz for the inspiration!

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!

Staff Inspiration

In a blog post earlier this month I explained how, in the New Year, I am going to challenge myself to learn a new prop. I am still trying to decide between learning contact staff, Diabolo and after last nights flowerstick workshop, devilstick. To help me choose I have been looking though lots of You Tube videos and for staff inspiration I went straight to Meg's channel. Meg, or MCP, as she is more commonly known online, has been staffing for many years. She is inventive, devoted and, I think, amazingly talented. I hope you enjoy this video of her from earlier this year. If you get motion sickness you might want to skip the very end of this, but it is only the very end.


I know that I'm never lightly to have on 100th of the skill Meg has, but even that much would make me happy, so maybe staff is the way to go...

Reservoir Mogs - Staff

The lovely Rob Bluecat and Sandy "do it naked" McRa showing off their staffing skills back in 2009. Who knew, they'd look so good in suits? Bring on the spinning!




All you ENI members, send out "come hither" messages in your mind to both or either of these two, in the hope they might come and teach us some stuff.

Rob is a legend in his own lunchtime and to list his achievements and work would take forever. Just look at his website and read about him yourself. Sandy is one of the founders of the fire troupe Chimaera and founder of the website inspinerate.com.

Contact staff inspiration

This is a most beautiful filmed as well as technically fantastic contact staff video. The staff spinners are Jon Crott, Olivier van itterbeeck, Michael Tono and Kevin Arleri. Filmed by by Franz and edited Ladislas. Nice work!



Now off you go and pick up a staff and try and learn some of this stuff!

Staff inspiration

Here is a bit of partner staff spinning to inspire all you budding staff spinners to practice.



See you up the hall tonight!

More Inspiration

This video is full of wild moves. Poi, fans, meteors, hats, staff... loads of fabulous stuff. Check it out!



Some of the moves will confuzzle you... but don't let that worry you just let your jaw drop and enjoy them.

Learning staff?

A friend of mine, Meg Pike, who I think is one of the best staffers in the world, has made a comprehensive set of tutorials for staff that you can access and use to improve your staffing skills.

This is a video of Meg doing her thing.



This is a link to a "Steve" Tutorial for Robert. This is the thing I have been trying to show you for the last month or so, but since I'm a terrible staff spinner I'm guessing what I have been doing in no way resembled the real move