In my first blog post I mentioned a skill triangle that consists of Technique, Creativity & Presentation. This week I’d like to share another diabolo perspective I’ve given some thought.
The elements
You can divide your play up into 3 elements. The Sticks, the String, and the Diabolo. They all have a certain level of “basic presence” (i.e. the diabolo acting as a counterweight, or the sticks to control the string). When you’re doing a trick, you are shifting the balance between these 3 elements. We’ve all been doing tricks without realizing there’s some kind of “model” behind it, so what if we use this model to build tricks, rather than using the model to analyze your tricks? Hopefully, this will lead to new moves.
An example
Let’s take the basic magic knot as an example. You need 1) the axle of the diabolo to make the knot around, 2) the string to make the knot, and 3) the stick to support the hanging string. Obviously, the level of String manipulation overrides the Diabolo and Stick element. You can see 1) and 3) as the basic presence of the Diabolo and Stick elements, respectively. Now if we break this basic move down into its elements, we can try to change it into something more interesting.
Option A) Let’s up the Stick element ante by throwing in a suicide (no pun intended). We can now create a quicker, instant magic knot.
Option B) Another possibility is to incorporate the Diabolo element by throwing in a sun (instead of a suicide) to change the style of the trick from static to flowy.
You can also boost the String element itself further, but I’m leaving that up to you guys.
Option C) The real interesting tricks begin when you’re combining 2 or even all 3 elements of the manipulation triangle. Let’s take the basic magic knot again and increase both the Stick and Diabolo element by deliberately missing the string during the suicide. Then, you can swing the diabolo back to OS (open string), which makes the trick more visual.
Missing elements
Another way to use this perspective is to decrease the basic presence of 1 or 2 elements. You have probably done it yourself without realizing it. At some point we’ve all tried to control the string with our fingers instead of the sticks by taking both sticks in one hand and the string end in the other. Recently, I have been trying to take out the counterweight effect of the Diabolo element by catching the diabolo in a grind in the middle of a suicide trick, instead of on the string. At first, it’s pretty odd to do stick releases with semi-slack string; however, I believe it’s possible to create some interesting moves with this concept.
It would be cool if software engineers could design diabolo simulating software using a GUI where you can slide a button to either of the 3 corners of the triangle, or more interestingly, in between 2 or 3 points.
And the body…
Arguably, your body can be seen as the “4th element”; however, since diabolo is a hobby for me, I approach it as a skill toy most of the time. Therefore, I’m using this model to create new tricks here. Body movement is more style related – which is a whole different topic for me to blog about!
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!
I was just browsing my website at Circusplanet, searching for some basic tricks I could discuss at the workshop I have next Thursday, when I realized my website has gotten old and my own vision on diabolo has changed tremendously. Not to mention the poor HTML!
Anyway, I then got the idea to make something new and use the Diabolo.ca front page as my outlet. Not so much to explain tricks, but rather to present my current vision, my approach to practice, freestyle, improv, analyzing diabolo moves, music, video, making diabolo your own, and more of that matter. Pretty much everything that keeps me occupied concerning juggling and diabolo in particular.
I’m going to kick off with the big question: How do you create something new?
Some people state that they’re not good enough to make up new tricks. That’s nonsense. How are 3 diabolo FTS (feed the sun) combinations going to help you explore the unknown?
Technique, Creativity and Presentation are 3 different elements. You can’t deny either of them, it’s a balanced triangle. Ideally, we should work on all 3 equally, but I sometimes get the feeling that the creative element gets neglected these days. I think it’s great to have something you can put your creativity in and bring the diabolo game to the next level. Wes Peden agrees.
Here’s something I occasionally do that might help. Whenever someone like Busk, William (aka Crackers), or Arjan shows me a new video, it’s often packed with new tricks. Tricks that make you feel: “Man, I wish I had come up with that!”
Later, when I’m practicing, the new tricks are still floating in my head. Although I can’t recall the exact techniques of the trick, the big picture is clear. I remember where the emphasis of the movement, knot, or stick release lays. Then, when I try to copy the movement and explore the concept, I can come up with something completely different and new! Of course, there’s always the chance you actually learn the trick in question, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make here!
This gives you new material to work with and a new angle to explore. Someone else beating you to it is irrelevant.
You can be creative without being original. As long as you keep the innovation juices flowing, it’s all good.