h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Seems like a pretty full introduction to the art... I've been contact juggling for almost a year now, and I have to say that it's great fun... a few of my friends at college have also gotten into it.

I actually got started when I saw someone contact juggling on Deep Space Nine and decided to look up on the net how exactly you went about doing that...

Speaking of websites, there are a couple of good ones... I can't post the urls, of course, but they should be pretty easy to find so you can link to 'em...

Good work!

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One thing, though... I would personally recommend a large bouncy ball, hockey ball, or something of that nature for beginners... it should really be hard and reasonably heavy. Although I've heard of people learning with oranges...

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Which episode of DS9????? I've seen them all and I don't remember any!

Thanks for the feedback. I actually learned at university fourteen years ago (!). Basically I saw "Labyrinth" and thought "I *have* to learn to do that". What I wasn't prepared for how just how damn difficult it is. I didn't know there were such things as instruction books at that time (and in fact at that time there wasn't a book about contact juggling anyway, and wouldn't be for about three years). Because of all that, I just had to try to copy what I could remember of what I'd seen in the film. It took me a good three or four months in front of the bed to get to a point where I would do it in front of people. I actually learned using a pool ball pinched from the halls of residence pool table directly below my room! (I did return it before I left). A beanbag is a very forgiving learning ball, and has less tendency to run away, although you're right about a nice heavy, hard ball being good. I have three white hockey balls which are excellent for most juggling tasks, and make excellent contact juggling balls.

Which episode of DS9????? I've seen them all and I don't remember any!

Thanks for the feedback. I actually learned at university fourteen years ago (!). Basically I saw "Labyrinth" and thought "I *have* to learn to do that". What I wasn't prepared for how just how damn difficult it is. I didn't know there were such things as instruction books at that time (and in fact at that time there wasn't a book about contact juggling anyway, and wouldn't be for about three years). Because of all that, I just had to try to copy what I could remember of what I'd seen in the film. It took me a good three or four months in front of the bed to get to a point where I would do it in front of people. I actually learned using a pool ball pinched from the halls of residence pool table directly below my room! (I did return it before I left). A beanbag is a very forgiving learning ball, and has less tendency to run away, although you're right about a nice heavy, hard ball being good. I have three white hockey balls which are excellent for most juggling tasks, and make excellent contact juggling balls.

Hmm... it was an episode featuring some kind of festival where they wrote down their worries on pieces of paper and burned 'em... there was also a chap juggling with three electric torches which I thought looked quite cool...

I saw Labyrinth as a kid, but like most people I thought the bits with the crystal balls weren't physically possibly... grin, or, I thought they were magic.

Pool balls aren't bad, yeah... hockey balls are about right... currently I have quite a few crystal (well, acrylic) balls which do nicely... grin, although I have occasionally come close to setting things on fire with them by way of unexpected focusing of sunlight...

Those websites are definitely worth tracking down... if you haven't found 'em yet, I'll give you a clue... grin... they should be findable simply by guessing and typing your guess in the address bar, and there's a .com but the best one's a .org. This one has a whole list of moves, with animated gifs of each one as well as tips on how to learn it... it's a great site.

Oh, and... there's a video about Michael Moschen which is most definitely worth seeing... it's called In Motion with Michael Moschen (er, I think)... it's available from Amazon, but unfortunately only on a US format tape... I managed to get it working but I had to nick my brother's TV. It's not all contact juggling, but on the up-side, he does a bouncing-ball-juggling-in-a-wooden-triangle act which is absolutely incredible... grin.

I've just recently begun to get the hang of those arm roll things, grin, and I have to say they're great fun... now I just need to work on the body rolls... grin.

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