Inspired by Void’s article, I’d like to share my own experience in “bad juggling”.
Another method that has worked for me in the past in creating new moves: mess up on purpose. When you leave out a bit — shift the timing or exaggerate the movement of a certain trick — the trick will loose its subtlety, which leaves you with something raw to work with. This allows you to change the emphasis of the movement to your liking, which can lead to a whole new move.
The first few times you won’t be able to control the diabolo which will result in a drop or tangle, but don’t let that discourage you. After a few tries you’ll find a way to solve the problem you created and get the hang of it. This method doesn’t always work, but for me it can be great fun.
Let me give you an example.
The 2 diabolo S-Fan arm stall entry. Normally, you enter the arm stall, toss the other diabolo up, catch it in LBS (left backside), swing the arm stall out and go into S-Fan.
I have been trying to shift the timing of this trick as follows: enter the arm stall, toss the other diabolo up, swing the armstall out and then you try to grab the diabolo you popped up in a LBS at the last moment. This changes the style from a step-by-step trick to a more flowy, sloppy move. It’s still WIP (work in progress) so it might turn into something completely different after exploring and messing up some more; however, it feels very funky and I think I can use it as part of a nice 2 diabolo combination.
And another example.
Let’s take my Mini Suicide Madness VotW as our 2nd example. The first move is a combination of a suicide and a sun. I deliberately created a problem by using the wrong wrap for the slowcide, which results in a twist above the axle. To get rid of the twist, I do a clockwise sun. This sun forces me to swing the right stick on the other side (near me, under my left arm) of the hanging string, for one cycle. This results in another problem. Because of this sun & underarm swing, the twist gets transferred to my right hand that’s pinching the string. Now there’s a twist on the string near my right finger. If I continue with this twist, I’ll increase the chance of dropping. So to get rid of this twist, I swing the stick underneath my right arm (like you do with suns under the arms). Voilà – new move.
The 2nd part of that VotW is another sun + suicide combination. I didn’t have the time (or the weather) to explore this one a bit more during filming, but I did get some fluke 360 turn-around knots that could be worked out nicely! So get out there!
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