ContactJuggling.org

Lexi0030 · Joined: 15 May 2024 Posts: 41 Location: JustFred's House

First, allow me to say that CJing has been (and is) purely a spectator sport for me, therefore, I wouldn't dare comment on certain moves that can and cannot be done by a performer, ie critiquing, advice, etc.

However, I can see the point you are trying to make. When thinking of CJing in a more practical or "clinical" sense, you have to concentrate on muscle control, ball speed, and gravity. When these factors are taken into consideration, there is a limitation on the amount of moves that can be made unless you're into contortionism and/or have an abundant amount of creativity and imagination, hence, I can understand how it would seem to some that the sport has gone stagnant.

Now to give you a spectator's point of view: The first time I saw someone CJing was a couple of months ago (April) at a local Med. fair and I was a captivated audience with only a butterfly move. My husband and 3 children were with me and we, my husband and I, were just as entranced as our children.

My husband started learning how to CJ and I, to this day, am still a captivated audience, even though I am now learning exactly how the moves are executed.

My whole point is this: When learning to perform, first you have to impress yourself before you can impress others. Without impressing yourself first, the interest, curiosity and desire to learn aren't there.

It seems to me that that has already been achieved by you. Kudos!

There is something you are forgetting though. To many, CJing is a form of magic and the moves that seem embarrassingly simple to you still hold the "wow factor" for the majority of people. Because YOU know doesn't necessarily mean that everyone else does. If you always execute moves that are too complicated for a spectator to understand and ogle, you are denying the different generations of spectators the same chance that was given to you: Interest, curiosity and the desire to learn.

Finally, instead of coming on this board to accuse them of a variety of "misdemeanors", try making a video clip or even a post explaining the new moves that you have learned which are so different from everything else you see. Become a mentor instead of the judge and jury.
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Loves Christmas Day · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2024 2:07 pm Post subject:

Ouch! This posting hit me right in my heart!

Yes, I can see this person's point. But....!

In my humble opinion, contact juggling has a VERY broad spectrum of skills AND styles, and like it or not we all fall into that category somewhere! Variety is the spice of life etc.
When crystals are done well, they are incredibly mesmerising.
When body popping, robotics and moonwalking are done well, they are also incredibly mesmerising. Put the two together and you blow people's minds. With two amazing artforms that compliment each other so beautifully it would be a crime NOT to combine them!
I totally appreciate ALL apects of this artform, even though I pretty much only play with one or two crystals, and always in a dance format. It's my love, my meditation, my yoga, and my bread and butter.
I will also say that my target audience are the people on the street and not cj'ers, therefore I'm not doing trick after trick. My crystal has a mind, a life, and a personality of its own. And thanks to electronic gadgetry, mine also makes its own various noises (how far removed is that from the original form?!)... Sometimes I control it, other times it controls me. When I have finished a show I get as many people checking for 'hidden rollerskates' as I do for 'hidden strings or magnets', true testament of the impact my dance skills have on joe public..
I really admire those who can roll/catch/balance balls in/on/over unusual parts of their bodies, I love watching it and will applaud it as loud as the next person, but I'm not about to start learning it. It's just not my style.

So maybe we should give it a different name? Unleash it from the confines of the cj'ing umbrella and start calling it the Crystal Boogie instead..?

Anyhoo, a big hello to all on dot org!

Nika

xxx
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ncfiala · Joined: 05 Aug 2024 Posts: 8 Location: Minnesota

I didn't expect so many replies so quickly. I'd like to respond to some of these.

Saulie: I'm not quite sure if your reply was sarcastic or not. I never said that I was capable of a full body roll yet. Although I have managed to roll a 4-inch stage ball from the cradle, up the arm, across the chest, down the stomach, and then down the leg into a toe stall a few times.

L7: Thanks man. It's nice to hear that I'm not the only one with this point of view.

Spare: I don't consider my contact juggling to be ripping off Michael Moschen. I don't really do any of the tricks that Moschen does in Light. Most of my contact juggling focuses on body rolls trying to utilize as many intermediate stall points as possible. Perhaps ripping-off was not quite the right phrase in my original post. I have nothing against taking ideas from other disciplines. In fact, it is a great idea. However, when all someone does is combine the old with moves from another skill, something is wrong in my opinion.

Fuero: Point taken. I guess you are right that a lot of the videos I have seen are not of this style.

Durbs: Of course dancing is exploring your body, but contact juggling is about exploring your body with the ball. According to your definition, masturbation is contact juggling.

Silver: You are right, I don't get out much. The only contact juggling I see besides my own is what I see in the videos that I download.

Ryan: I don't agree that developing contact juggling along more traditional lines has to be just copying Moschen. Very little of the contact juggling I do involves tricks that Moschen did in Light. Even when I do a trick of Moschen's I don't consider it just copying because I integrate it into what I am doing to create something new. If this was still just copying then every toss juggler ever would be guilt of copying the first guy who threw a ball in the air.

Remy: First of all, the other disciplines I mentioned do explore the body. Yo-yoers now do arm rolls, chest rolls, behind the neck rolls, and even stalls with regeneration on various parts of the body. They also use the neck, legs, and feet to do tricks. Devil stickers also use the neck, arms and legs in tricks. I suggest you become more informed about these other skills before you comment on them. I don't know where the valium comment comes from. Nothing in my post was of an angry or excited nature. I suggest you take the valium. Maybe it will cure your obsession with capital letters.

Drew: There's certainly nothing wrong with combining contact juggling with dance. It just seems to me that a lot of the material I have seen of this nature lately has just been to do the same old tricks and then dance
while just holding the ball.

Coleman: I certainly think that every discipline should look to other disciplines for inspiration and ideas for new tricks. However, there is a difference between integrating tricks from two disciplines together to create something new and just doing two things at the same time.
Gilligan doesn't just dance and do the the same old patterns.

I think one of the major differences between me and the people developing this style of contact juggling is that they view it as "art" (notice that I did not use the word "art" even once until now). To me, "art" does not exist. It is simply another word for entertainment. The practitioner is entertained while doing it and hopefully the audience is entertained while he does it. Nothing more. The word "art" is usually used by pretentious people who would like to distance themselves from more mainstream entertainment and attach an air of profundity to what they are doing. It is not profound, it is just meaningless fun. Get over it and yourselves.

I certainly did not want to come across as if I discourage the borrowing of ideas from other disciplines. This is a great idea and I do it all the time. But if all you are doing is doing two things at the same time, I don't think you are truly creating something new. As an example, take yo-yoing. In the yo-yoing community, there has been a huge amount of progression in the last few years by people making up new tricks and taking ideas from other skills (poi, diabolo, contact juggling,etc.). If yo-yoers just stopped coming up with new tricks and just did the same old tricks while dancing, I think people would say what the hell is going on here.

Well, I think I've made enough enemies for the day, although that certainly was not my intent. I do not mean to insult or disrespect anyone by these comments.

coleman · Joined: 11 Jan 2024 Posts: 190 Location: lahn-dahn, yookay

big respect for coming back and clarifying your position ncfiala.

this amount of opposing views could have easily given you the impression that your opinion is not wanted/respected and i'm happy that you can see that this is not the case.

you are right that just combining two things does not necessarily equal innovation, but in the case of combining body isolation with cj isolation, it does equal progression in my opinion.

i think you'll find that the cj'ers that are pushing this particular style are not necessarily those that 'consider it art' but rather those that took isolation as the main component of their cj'ing.
you have obviously opted to concentrate on rolls and stalls which is a completely valid interpretation of which direction you would like to push cj towards, but it does not mean that other people's directions should be 'alarming' to you.

an isolation to you is probably a very different beast to what matt, drew, ryan (nika, durbs and a whole load more i'm sure) would consider to be an isolation - if the ball moves even a few millimetres for those guys, it's not isolated.
personally, i think the idea of cj isolation is so closely connected with body movement that it is inseparable and as such, body popping is simply an extension of ball isolation.

the special thing about a ball isolation is that the ball stays still and you move around it (proof: do an isolation whilst staying completely still - you have been reduced to simply holding a ball in a static position) so adding full body movement to better contrast the balls' motionless quality only enhances the illusion.
add body part isolation into that illusion and you have an effect far greater than the two considered separately.

the main problem with your criticism is that you are comparing the targets of the style you are developing with the current achievements of the cj/popping style.

i'll try and explain what i mean:
you are working on full body rolls but cannot do them consistently yet.
you criticise other cj'ers for what they have achieved so far saying that they have done nothing new and that their creativity is false in your eyes.
but i think you fail to understand that the cj-poppers, like you, have way-off targets that they have had glimpses of when they are in the zone (just like you have pulled off cradle to toe body rolls and decided that that is a target for you to work towards).
you are comparing what you are aiming for with what they can already do - you should be comparing your full body rolls to moves like body rolls with body waves following/leading the ball, strobing body rolls (or any animated/strobed cj move for that matter - a series of tiny stuttered stalls) - you cannot expect the fusion to produce stunning, new, innovative material over night.

i guess it comes down to the question of what you consider to be a 'new move'.

you might say that a palm isolation is simply a palm circle with some body movement - if this is your stance then you will never see the cj poppers as innovators, whatever they come up with.
similarly, you could say that that a simple chest roll is no different to a chest roll that happens in six stages with stall points at various points along its path - but thgis is exactly what you seem to label as innovative.

i think that in any discipline, variation is the key to innovation - very rarely are new areas of moves opened up in a discipline but when someone introduces an opportunity for massive variation, it should be embraced and explored to its limits.

the exploration of full body movement based around isolation technique is in its infancy and as such, you should give it a few years before you criticise it for being a stagnant dead end - if you can see nothing innovative ever coming out of exploring that fusion then fair enough but i truly don't believe you are that close minded.

i really appreciate the fact that the field of contact juggling is still so small as to make such differences in style seem leagues apart - there is still scope for unique styles in cj, from hobbyists as well as from performers and that is something we should all embrace.

cole. x

Lexi0030 · Joined: 15 May 2024 Posts: 41 Location: JustFred's House

Drew · Joined: 29 Jun 2024 Posts: 1017 Location: Bristol UK

Quote fist post: " It seems that even though there is a huge area of the body that is almost completely unexplored (legs, etc.), "

I strongly disagree with this:
http://contactjuggling.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.html?p=9867#9867

I want to see beauty,
not false innovation

remy · Joined: 29 Jun 2024 Posts: 222 Location: Hollywood!

Thank you for your equally ill-informed reply.
Actually, I do know something of these other disciplines; I date a freehand yo-yoer and, like any good juggle-girlfriend, get to spend plenty of time being on the recieving end of the "hey, check this out!" phenomenon. As such, I think personally that I have a pretty good idea of what other parts of the body are involved there. I'm also involved in some of the activities on your list myself. These tricks are the novelty exceptions, not the rule, and as contact jugglers, I'd say we have at least as many tricks that leave the hands and arms, taking them down the spine, behind the neck, along the legs, along the ribcage, and over the head, as yo-yoers have that legitimately take the yo-yo, even a freehand, away from the fingers.
I never implied that you asked for vallium; I simply suggested that based on your state of unprovoked agitation, you might need it. And you STILL (to throw in some capitals) haven't addressed the REAL issue of my response: contact juggling as technique vs. contact juggling as applied and performed art. Why not? Is it really more fruitful to nit-pick about my use of capital letters?

p.s. beth, your post is freakin' BRILLIANT. See, I TOLD you I got like this sometimes.
rem
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Durbs · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2024 5:24 pm Post subject:

Ryan · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2024 8:20 pm Post subject:

Wow.

even Nika jumped in on this one!
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sparkle · Joined: 22 Dec 2024 Posts: 5

I just wanted to point out a couple things here. Most of what people consider evolving, is coping from other forms/ideas/disciplines. Sometimes the result is good, and sometimes it isn't. Take chocolate for example (most people can relate to it). In the 1500s Europeans were introduced to the Native American (Mayan/Aztec) drink. High society in Europe mixed it with wine or water and flavored it with vanilla, pimiento, and chili pepper. The result was very bitter, but it was popular. It wasn't until the 1800s that someone thought to put sugar in it, and Joseph Storrs Fry made it into a bar. In 1879 Daniel Peter added Nestle's powdered milk (making milk chocolate). Neither milk or chocolate was new, but what it created was. (http://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/exploring_chocolate/choc_4.html) Excuse the history lesson, but I think it shows that blending things isn't such a bad idea after all, and the end result isn't always comparable with what you start with.

Just my 2 cents.

Colin · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2024 9:28 pm Post subject:

Fuero · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2024 10:06 pm Post subject:

Well, i think it's a whole lot of opinions here and I am beginning to seesome stuff here.

ncfalia is stating that he doesn't like Dance and cj combined. Maybe he likes it, but he doesn't like the way it's used in the diffrent videos he's seen. If I understand correctly. It;s the same way Durbs finds that multiball is uninspiriering (scuse the grammar). i think Ncfalia finds the dancing form of cj uninspiering (excuse me again)

But Ncfalia, in your posts it's like you really attack this form and everybody who does it. It's probably not your intention, but it seems like it. And you do say a few harsh words towards a few people and people answer harshly back. That's not what i expect at this forum. I still have a few mental images off every cjer being a hippy.

However, what I am trying to say is that I don't like the hostile vibe that is getting here. I don't think it's not necesary, I think we all are (practically) adults.
I mean who gives a Flying feck if someone uses to many of this stuff: MDSDNASKFNASDFN or if someone needs valium. (this is just an example)
We're going beyond the point and that is: cj and dancing. Or evolement in cj.

So here's another two cents of mine:
Cj, is constantly evolving. Like the universe it expands in all kinds of diffrent directions. Multiball, body, dance and what ever is coming. As I stated earlier cj is a brand spanking new form of juggling, i think it has a lot more in it's future and we just have to be patient for what's coming.

And I do think it's an artform, because I believe any indirect way of expressing one's state of mind is art. Through music, juggling, painting or sculpting etc,etc. But that's in the eye of the beholder.
And in teh way you state it art doesn't exist. It's an interesting thought. But I can't help thinking that if you say:

The word "art" is usually used by pretentious people who would like to distance themselves from more mainstream entertainment and attach an air of profundity to what they are doing. It is not profound, it is just meaningless fun. Get over it and yourselves.

that if you aply this to everything, that you never appreciat anything. Everything is just a sort of entertainment and the expression in it is not appreciated.

Well that is just what I think.

I think this is a pretty long post, so I'll stop now and let you ponder about it. Excuse me for the grammar again.

Greetz,
Fuero
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Spare · Joined: 11 May 2024 Posts: 195 Location: London

I don't mean to become overly confrontational here, and I have a lot of respect for you defending your views.

As I stated in my first post, I don't integrate dance or body popping into my CJing, partially through preference, partially through ineptitude. I consider CJ to be a discipline, like all other forms of juggling, and an art form in it's own right. We've seen countless accounts of the clear link between dance and CJ, and dancing is recognised by society as an art form. Let us just say that in our eyes societies view on what is and isn't art has evolved a little...

I do not take kindly to being accused of pomposity or pretension. As the definitions already posted make clear, CJing is an art form. I'm not saying it's "a living interpretation of the impressionist movement" or anything like that, I am mearly stating that "art" has a number of meanings. Perhaps I should suggest that actually the truly pretentious person here is the one that assumes art not to exist. You may as well say that time doesn't exist, or thought doesn't exist. It's just a label that people use for a wide range of purposes. Art is a form of entertainment, yes, but must we use the word entertainment alone? It's like saying that Sphereplay doesn't exist, because it's another phrase for CJing.

I am not saying CJ is particularly meaningful or profound, in fact, look on another message board and you'll see me argue that it isn't. What I am saying is that CJing is "just meaningless fun", so what should it matter to you who does and who doesn't integrate dance into their work? Get over it, and yourself, to coin a phrase.

silver · Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2024 12:02 am Post subject:

~~~Whether art exists or not in your view, i am an artist in mine.~~~

JustFred · Joined: 11 Apr 2024 Posts: 60 Location: Oklahoma

Part of evolution is for the "stagnant" to find different paths for which to move forward. This allows for people work on the parts they think that bring out the qualities of their craft, we'll call this individuality, its what makes you you. The other part is to meld the "stagnant" with something not common to itself. Though I myself am not a dancer I can certainly appreciate the work spent honing their skills, and have learned alot about possible body postures from watching their videos. Just as I have with all the others videos.
So as long as we as a community continue to learn share and meld that with our own individuality, CJ will continue to grow, with many different branches coming from one common "stagnant" stalk.
Whether your putting on a show, busking for $$, or amusing that small child who seems aimlessly bored while mommy's shoe shopping.. the point of CJing is to capture your spectators with that sense of "WOW NO WAY" or "I'll be damned, will ya look at that.." You are showing them a unique craft that you have invested alot of time learning.

Of course thats just my opinion. I could be wrong

Fred
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