So there’s this gig right? I agreed to be this person’s partner for it.

It involves juggling on a unicycle (I think).

I can juggle. I can unicycle.

But not both at once.

It’d be interesting I’m SURE.

No I haven’t got arrested because someone mistakenly identified me as Mas Selamat. My webhosting bill apparently came and I didn’t receive it because I’ve since changed my email address. Paid up today and everything’s fine again.

Anyway.

I’ve a gig this weekend and I went shopping for a costume. I should really have gotten a costume a long time back except I don’t do gigs often enough and I’ve always resolved to hatch better money-making schemes but I’m easily enticed by the pay juggling/unicycling gigs offer. It’s like whoring yourself. I don’t necessarily enjoy it but I need to act like I do. And the pay’s good.

I’m a good actor.

This time it’s unicycling. I much prefer unicycling gigs to juggling ones because it involves riding around and is really good exercise. It’s also not too bad a job because it requires very minimal brain work and you end up sitting in a corner for half a day reading a book while waiting for your runs. Lots of entertainers I know are very smart people possibly because of that.

Usually I’d rent a costume mere days before but rental’s really expensive and saps quite a bit of what I’d make. Rental for 3 days from this shop with the widest selection of outfits cost almost $100. The cheapest place I know of rents their outfits from $20.

That’s me in the background. That outfit costs $65 to rent. It’s a last minute thing. As always.

I bought a costume finally today. It occurred to me that since people are having worse taste in fashion these days, it might actually be possible to get a decent outfit for a reasonable price. What’s worrying is that I actually managed to find what I want in the heart of town at a popular teen hangout. I am pretty sure I got ripped off though and paid at least $20 more than what my outfit was worth.

I’ll get pics up over the weekend. Wonder if anyone actually wears what I bought out…

It started as an intention to show off how to do a certain juggling trick to a few people. I figure I’d break down the trick into steps and heck, since videos take up a lot of space I’d put it on YouTube. There’d probably be a bunch of people watching the vid at most because come on, how many jugglers are there in the world. And who cares if I had the crappiest haircut in the history of the world (the jobless don’t need haircuts) or that I was in what i woke up in (see, things you do impulsively usually happen in the morning. When you just wake up.).

Well, sixteen thousand views later, someone finally brought up the obvious and asked if I were male or female. It was funny so I left it be and a day later, the same person left a follow-up that went ‘Oh you’re female.’ or something to that effect.

EXTREME JUGGLING! Actually, the trailer isn’t any much too extreme but I think it’s interesting to explore a mix of juggling and le parkour. Which reminds me of the first day I learnt club juggling - I thought it smart to learn at this little field area so I got my clubs and tried to jump a rail to get there. It’s evidently a stupid move to do that while your hands are full of clubs; the rail caught my shin, I fell and couldn’t block my fall.

Worst. Juggling. Injury. Ever.

After almost 10 years of juggling, I think I’m starting to figure out my identity.

I’d like to get torches, anyone has anything helpful to say?

This is pretty cool although it’d probably not be as easy to pull off as a close-up trick or when the audience is seated at wide angles close to you.

Tags: juggling, disappearing ball

What I like best about the Sandbox Shuffle is the snap-stop-and-throw action just before the sweeping motion of the arms. The trick’s invented by this guy called Michael Karas (check out his site) and looks somewhat similar to Romeo’s Revenge and Rubenstein’s Revenge but has a bit of Yo-Yo thrown in so it would help if you’re familiar with those already.

The most difficult part of the learning process, for me at least, is the 2nd of the 2-ball part of the tutorial. Do watch out for the timing because that’s not meant to be a simultaneous ball swap and the balls are supposed to be exchanged (i.e. land in the respective hands) with about the same time difference as in a 3-ball cascade. If you’re having difficulty doing that, start by tossing the ball in the higher hand much higher than regularly, then adjusting as you get more comfortable.

The music, as usual, by the Bees, is titled The Russian and you can hear that from their Free the Bees album.

I’m wearing a Threadless shirt in the video; it’s called The Frog Piper. Unfortunately, even if you’re interested, it’s unlikely you can get it since at last check, there’s all of 4 Small guy sizes left and a bunch of kids’ sizes.

Tags: juggling, sandbox shuffle, tutorial, video

If it weren’t that I’m currently preoccupied with other seemingly impossible tricks, I’d be trying this out (and failing of course). Oh, and of course, it’s useful that breaking the TV set by kicking a ball into it is not very entertaining.

Tags: juggling

There would be a day where you’d sit in your recliner and ponder the mysteries of the universe. You’ll think deeply about many questions including popular favorites like “Why does grandpa smell funny?”, “Where is the remote control” and “Why am I sitting here?” but the one that you’d think most deeply about would be “How can I give money to Jiahui so she can buy herself a new camera?” (refer to fig. 1)

fig.1: Picture of Jiahui from last month when she still had a camera.

Thankfully for all of you, that most important question is now solved. By clicking on

you can now contribute US$10 towards my camera/camera-fixing fund and make me very happy. I’ll send you virtual cookies and a thank you note. AND I can continue making my juggling and unicycling videos. Isn’t that awesome?

Remember how your kindergarten teacher used to tell you that you’re special? She’s absolutely right! You are special and only you can make the difference (i.e. making me happy) by giving me money.

If you’ve $10 to spare, think to yourself WWJD (What Would Jiahui Do?). That’s right, Jiahui will donate that money to herself so she can buy a new camera! What are you waiting for? Donate money NOW!

Someone requested for a basic juggling tutorial on YouTube so here goes.

2-ball juggling is pretty important if you want to be doing some 3-ball routines like The Factory, Pendulum, Yo-Yo, etc and is necessary for moving on to learning 4-ball juggling. In fact, you can actually learn 4-ball juggling without ever learning to do 3.

Music in the video’s called Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On by Jerry Lewis, the same guy who sang Great Balls of Fire.

I’m wearing a Threadless shirt called My Pet Human.

I’m quite fond of Threadless shirts for juggling because unlike MOST female tees, they’re actually long enough to not have half my torso showing when I raise my hands. It’s also good that they seem to complement my bedroom walls.

Tags: threadless, juggling, humor

… where you feel so lazy and don’t want to go out because it’s wet and gloomy.

I spent the good part of the afternoon juggling, first playing around with bounce balls and underleg bounces and then moving on to regular (meaning unbounceable) beanbags. I found out this week that my bounce balls are similar to the oddballs that are being sold in juggling shops except there’s probably less quality-control for mine since they’re being sold as kiddie toys. The ones I have have 3 sets of bounce heights so they take a little getting used to.

After an hour or two, I think I’m starting to get the hang of 5-ball cascade. I’ve got a little problem with keeping my throws regular though - my left throws higher than my right - but hopefully that will iron out soon. I’m also getting the hang of backcrosses but I can’t do them continuously (I’m assuming it can be done since I managed 2 iterations a couple of times). Backcrosses ought to look rather impressive when combined with some of the other tricks. The last noteworthy thing I worked on today is a whole new trick inspired by cigar boxes and uh… Romeo’s Revenge.

My next goal now is to get my juggling up to scratch, hopefully learn and be solid in 5 ball juggling and compile a video. That will probably be end May or beginning of June. It’d be fun I hope.

Does this trick have a name already? I’m fiddling around with juggling and thought this can look rather cool. It’s rather sketchy in the video so does anyone have suggestions on how to make it look more elegant?

This is in reference and response to a blog post at Juggling Mike’s about homemade juggling clubs. There are quite a lot of FAQs on the net that talks about how to make juggling clubs of your own, most of which advocate using rolled up newspapers taped together to form the handle. This makes the clubs unnecessarily heavy and clumsy to spin. The ones at Mike’s uses wooden sticks as handles and most interestingly, half-tennis balls to cover the head of the clubs.

I’ve made some clubs myself some time ago, improvising and using plastic pipes for the handles (the same ones that you have around the house to transport water and which you can get at the hardware shop for cheap) and cutting each bottle into half so I can fill a section of it with beans to weigh it down.

They worked rather well for clubs that cost like $4 or so each and I could even work Mill’s Mess and double spins with them. Unfortunately, after a while, the tops of one of the clubs split and broke and I’ve never got around to fixing it. I bought a set of one-piece clubs after that so these were made redundant. Still, given clubs are rather expensive for the beginner juggler who’s unsure whether or not to venture into club-juggling, homemade ones are the way to go.

Here’s what I used for each of the clubs:

• A roll of colored plastic tape
• Paper
• 2 bottles
• Beans
• Stoppers that you plug onto the end of stools so they don’t slip. The FAQ suggested at Mike’s calls them ‘Furniture Tips’.
• Pipes - Try to get those of a diameter that fits well in your hands. When you wrap your fingers over them, your fingers should just about touch your palm. Try tossing some of the store-made clubs to see what feels best for you and get a gauge from there I guess. Oh, but make sure the mouth of your bottle’s wide enough to fit the pipe into.

The making of the clubs is pretty self-explanatory but let me talk a bit about how the club heads should be done. I chose bottles that are curveous in a way that when I cut one in half, it fits over the base of the other nicely. This creates a little compartment for me to fill up with beans (hence creating a nice weighted feel). You should check out websites like Dube or RenegadeJuggling to check out the weight of the clubs they sell and then weigh the parts you have to see how much beans you’d need to put in.

The weakest parts of the homemade clubs (and the parts most prone to spoiling) are the tops and the mouths of the bottles. There’d usually be some space between the mouth of the bottle and the pipe walls so do stuff some paper to fill up the space and secure it well with tape. As for the tops, I suppose tennis ball halves or rubber discs or an equivalent would be good.

Tags: juggling clubs, making clubs

I bought 4 of those Made-in-China imitation ‘Superballs’ today. They were from those capsule machines that kids (and I) love. I used to have quite a collection of the smaller ones when I was a kid and I distinctly remember them feeling a lot harder and bouncier than these though. Still, they’re waaay lighter than my current lacrosse balls which sound awful on the marble at home so no one’s going to be complaining of an earthquake anymore, I hope.

Videos to come as soon as I figure out what to do with them. In the meantime, I’m learning 5-ball juggling after being quite inspired by some people. More on that after I actually can juggle that.

Tags: balls, juggling

Sometimes, I amuse myself.