When people find out I juggle, they always have the same two questions. "Do you do fire?" and "How many things can you juggle?" I don't like my responses to these questions, because those are two aspects of juggling that I don't really like or care about very much. I usually end up sounding kind of lame because I don't do those things or like kind of a snob because I hate all the things you like. Anyway I was planing on trying to write out a good response for these questions, but I don't really feel like it. Instead of talking about things I don't like, I would rather share some things I do like.
0 Comments
You may be wondering how we plan shows. We have never come up with a formal process, but basically both Darren and I have total veto power. Historically, it works as such. In a typical month, I come up with 20 ideas and Darren vetoes 18 of them. Darren comes up with 5 ideas and I veto 3 of them. We both end up contributing 2 ideas. (NOTE: I have done no research on these figures and they are completely made up. I will send this to Darren before posting this, so he can provide alternate figures if he wishes)
Now, part of me thinks this is a bad process that could lead to complete paralysis and nothing happening, but in actuality it has worked out pretty great. If we tried to use every idea, the show would be constantly changing and never become something solid like our Themes Show. There is definitely a part of me that likes the idea of having a constantly changing show, but I can see how what we have now is better. Now to be clear, I am not complaining about Darren vetoing 90% of my ideas. If anything, I think we need more vetoing. I legitimately think it is a cool process and decided to write about it this month since I had the word veto scribbled down in my list of possible blog ideas. Recently however I have noticed two possible flaws in this process. I posted these on Facebook, but I forgot to post these here. If you missed them the first time here they are again.
Here are the videos from June. Darren finished his on time. Even though he was much more successful at bouncing five than he was at his balancing trick, I still think I enjoyed last month's video more. July has been super busy with shows and things, so I didn't get around to editing my video till now. My act didn't turn out as cool as I was imagining when I thought it up, but here it is. Maybe this concept could be improved in the future.
Well, here they are, the Tricks of the month for ... May. Both videos took a long time to shoot, and a long time to edit, but I do like the way they turned out. My Harder Better thing will need a lot of tweeking, but I am glad that it is at least more than an idea now. I think Darren's video might be my favorite one so far. Make sure you guess how many tries it will take him before you watch it.
What does dancing during a rain shower have to do with juggling? Well, Darren worked on his dance moves by practicing the gliding factory. I learned to do a five ball half shower. I did it by itself and transitioning to and from different tricks. I also finally completed last month's trick successfully (not on film though.) We have super ambitious plans for next months tricks, can't wait to show them to you.
Once again I am a little late with these. I really like how we haven’t repeated a prop yet. Darren decided to mix it up with a snowboard trick this month. I was trying to learn a three club trick. I ran into a lot of problems, but on the bright side I figured out how to make a video without the black boarder. Next month, I am going to work on a five ball half shower. Hopefully this will be easy enough for me to take some time to work on my old tricks. I haven’t worked on two diabolos since January. I think I may take page out of my instagraming friends and start throwback Thursdays where I will only work on old tricks.
Last year for my March post, I made a list of ideas for our Fourth of July showdown. We haven’t been asked to do that show again this year, but hopefully we will get to do something like that this year. The three rounds of the competition are a different solo skill, a shared solo skill and a new act. I already told Darren that I wanted to do 5 ball juggling as our shared skill. I haven’t put much thought into what my new act could be, so I decided to once again come up with a bunch of ideas for new acts this March. I have been jotting down ideas for the last week, but I lost my little piece of paper. Here are the ideas that I remember.
I know it’s March 4th, but I am getting closer to posting in the correct month. Anyway this month(or maybe it’s last month), you are getting a bonus video. That’s right Darren is joining in with his own Trick of the Month, so from now on you can expect two videos each month. Who knows maybe Darren will even start his own blog thing. I wonder what it would be called. I hope it would have a D in the name, maybe “D - Tales” Back to the tricks, this month was much more successful than last month. I was able to make a lot of progress with my trick. I came up with the trick last summer, but never was able to get more than 5 catches. I figured out how to continue the trick, and I can consistently get at least 10 catches. Of course, Darren nailed his trick as well.
My first Trick of the Month was two diabolos. I didn't master it, but I definitely figured some things out. Sorry it took so long to post this. Hopefully from now on we will able to post these in the first week of each month. My goal for next month will be to juggle three balls while doing a three beat weave with poi. If you have any ideas for future tricks I should try or suggestions for improving the videos, let me know. If you want to learn any diabolo tricks diabolotricks.com is a nice site. |
Kevin McCulleyThe K in the DKers Archives
December 2023
Categories
All
|