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Whenever I teach somebody to contact juggle (if you don't know what I'm talking about, this video's quite good), I always start by asking the same question:
"Do you know how to ski?"
Skiing and contact juggling, you see, work in very much the same way.
In order to ski down a slope successfully without falling over or hitting a tree, you need to maintain control over your speed and direction. You do both of these things by turning. Consequently, skiing instructors spend a lot of time teaching you different types of turns. The usual sequence is as follows:
There's also a fifth type of turn, which doesn't receive as much attention:
But here's the interesting thing: all parallel turns are hop turns. The way you make a parallel turn is by
In other words, you go through the same sequence of moves as for a hop turn, but your jump is so gentle that your skis stay in contact with the ground at all times.
In contact juggling, we reverse the teaching sequence. If I'm teaching someone a palm to back transfer, for instance, I'll first teach them to throw the ball up, turn their hand over while the ball's in midair, and catch the ball on the back of their hand when it comes down again, sinking the hand
slightly to absorb the momentum. This is like a hop turn, and works in essentially the same way. Exercise: which corresponds to the skier, the ball or the hand? :-)
After my pupil's got the hang of that, we move on to the "contact" part of contact juggling. We make the throw gentler and gentler, until eventually the ball never leaves contact with the hand at all, and instead rolls over the sides of the fingers and into its new position. This is now more like a parallel turn.
This general pattern is common. To perform a move, you throw the ball up, move your body underneath it, and then catch it again in the new balance, but make the throw gentle enough that the ball and your body never break contact. This doesn't cover the whole of contact juggling (in particular, isolations don't work this way), but I reckon something like a third to a half of contact moves (including most of the early moves that you teach to beginners) are variations on this general idea.
Personally, I think it's lovely that the same idea is fundamental in two disciplines that look as different as skiing and contact juggling :-)
Another idea suggests itself: would it be easier to teach people to ski by teaching them hop turns early on, and refining the hop turns into parallel turns?
"Do you know how to ski?"
Skiing and contact juggling, you see, work in very much the same way.
In order to ski down a slope successfully without falling over or hitting a tree, you need to maintain control over your speed and direction. You do both of these things by turning. Consequently, skiing instructors spend a lot of time teaching you different types of turns. The usual sequence is as follows:
- snowplough turns, in which you keep your skis in a wedge formation, and turn by pushing outwards with the ski which will become your downhill ski;
- stem Christie turns, in which your skis start parallel, briefly flare out into a narrow snowplough for the actual turn, and then become parallel again at the end;
- parallel turns, in which your skis stay parallel throughout;
- carving turns, in which your edges stay engaged for the maximum possible time, carving a big curved gouge into the snow.
There's also a fifth type of turn, which doesn't receive as much attention:
- hop turns, in which you jump fully into the air, swing your skis round in midair, and land with your edges engaged.
But here's the interesting thing: all parallel turns are hop turns. The way you make a parallel turn is by
- crouching down slightly, to turn your legs into springs;
- standing up tall, momentarily reducing the weight on your skis (and thus the frictional force between the skis and the snow) to nothing;
- swinging your skis round to their new position;
- sinking back into your normal stance.
In other words, you go through the same sequence of moves as for a hop turn, but your jump is so gentle that your skis stay in contact with the ground at all times.
In contact juggling, we reverse the teaching sequence. If I'm teaching someone a palm to back transfer, for instance, I'll first teach them to throw the ball up, turn their hand over while the ball's in midair, and catch the ball on the back of their hand when it comes down again, sinking the hand
slightly to absorb the momentum. This is like a hop turn, and works in essentially the same way. Exercise: which corresponds to the skier, the ball or the hand? :-)
After my pupil's got the hang of that, we move on to the "contact" part of contact juggling. We make the throw gentler and gentler, until eventually the ball never leaves contact with the hand at all, and instead rolls over the sides of the fingers and into its new position. This is now more like a parallel turn.
This general pattern is common. To perform a move, you throw the ball up, move your body underneath it, and then catch it again in the new balance, but make the throw gentle enough that the ball and your body never break contact. This doesn't cover the whole of contact juggling (in particular, isolations don't work this way), but I reckon something like a third to a half of contact moves (including most of the early moves that you teach to beginners) are variations on this general idea.
Personally, I think it's lovely that the same idea is fundamental in two disciplines that look as different as skiing and contact juggling :-)
Another idea suggests itself: would it be easier to teach people to ski by teaching them hop turns early on, and refining the hop turns into parallel turns?