Contact Juggling – Where the magic never leaves your hands…

… okay, actually, sometimes it does. And then forces you to chase it down before it rolls into the foot of a stranger, or careens off the head of a passing child.

With time and effort, the ball begins to obey your will more often than not, and with each success, the magic of contact juggling penetrates deeper and deeper into your flesh, tunneling down to merge with your bones and even the marrow that nourishes your life force.

Or at least, that’s the theory.

What actually happens from the moment you pick up your first ball is a sort of cat-and-mouse game where, unfortunately, you begin as the mouse, and hopefully end up as the cat. You see, when most people try ball contact for the first time, one of two things happens: either they give up after a few rolls, saying “No no no, this is too hard,” or they get so addicted to the feeling that even when they die, you still have a hell of a time trying to ply their cold, stiff fingers out of their death-grip on the ball. If you do actually manage to do so, whatever you do, do not leave it lying on their grave.

A bit morbid, perhaps, but it tends to be the way things go. “So who invented this strange sport?” you may ask. “Some fan of old-school black and white zombie movies?”

Well, I might answer, probably not. The truth is a little more colorful. You see, its exact origins are actually lost in the mists of time. It has existed for millennia in some form or another, usually as a “head roll” performed by the king’s fool, and sometimes by the king. But in those olden days, “head roll” took on new meaning if the ball landed on the king’s foot…

Other cultures to include a rolling ball in their national pastimes include China with their medical Bǎodìng balls and martial T’ai Chi balls; and 9th century Japan, as part of a traditional ceremony called kagura.

Contact juggling made major developments as a performance art in the 20th century, led by such great artists as Enrico Pastelli, Francis Brunn and Michael Moschen. Soon enough, a book was published, a DVD was released, and then all hell broke loose when Youtube came online and wave after wave of mystified surfers flooded forums and conventions everywhere.

Modern ball contact is divided into three separate styles, which are often mixed together during practice sessions and performances. The first is directly inspired by Chinese Bǎodìng balls, and involves two or more balls being rolled around and between the hands. It is often referred to as palm-spinning, or multi-ball contact.

The second relies heavily on the use of tricks and gimmicks to perform what amount to sleight-of-hand techniques. These are what make people stop and say, “Wow, a magician!” Foremost in these illusions are the isolations, in which the ball seems to float in place while the artist’s body moves around and beneath it.

The third and most difficult style of contact is called body rolling, and involves rolling the ball onto the forearms, past the elbows, and from there to any and all other parts of the body. Balance is the key word here, just as it is in acrobatics and the Olympic sport of rhythmic gymnastics. Although most contact jugglers use a few moves from body rolling, due to its difficulty very few actually specialize in it.

So what ties all of these different practices together into one united whole? And what brings many artists back from the grave for “just a few more minutes, please?”

To put it quite simply…
… the need to play with a rolling ball.

For a visual taste of contact juggling, see this short video introduction.

For some introductory moves, you can freely read and download Kae’s Guide to Contact Juggling on docstoc.com.