I just singed my eyelashes
It’s times like this that make me think maybe I should stop juggling fire.
Naaaahhh…
So I spent the weekend at Jugglefest in Springdale, Arkansas. Friday afternoon a couple of the K-State jugglers came through town, picked up me and another of the KU jugglers, and we headed down.
I performed contact juggling at the show Saturday night, and got a huge response. There were so many people who came up to me after the show and said how amazing it was, and wanted to learn how to do it. We were all packing up to go for food, so I told them that I’d be around this afternoon, the last day of the festival, and that I’d show them anything they wanted to learn then.
Except that I found out later that the other people I’d come with weren’t planning on sticking around for any of the open juggling time today. It was only about a four-hour drive to here, and they had to continue on to Manhattan, but they still wanted to leave town before 1, which was when the building opened, and we could return to goof off there in the gym. I was a mostly annoyed about that, that they wanted to skip town early, but also a bit because I ended up standing my prospective students up. But oh well, that’s what I get for not driving myself.
Then last night after the food, we hung out in the parking lot of the shopping center where we’d been eating and threw torches at each other, including our first attempt at a Kansas Shuffle with torches. Video of that will probably be up on YouTube in the near future. But as you can see, the pattern involves a lot of moving around, and the biggest problem with juggling torches is that you can't see the handles, only the flames. So I ended up carching one on the left cheekbone, and I've still got a red mark there from it. I've got another one just above my left elbow, and you can actually see the pattern of the weave of the wicking in that mark. Kinda cool.
So lots of fun this weekend, and really looking forward to the Little Apple Juggling Festival in another few weeks.
EDIT: I forgot to mention initially that I've apparently become a bit of a legend among the jugglers in the midwest, because of an incident from last year's Flatland Juggling Festival, and no, I'm not talking about all the stuff getting stolen. Last weekend, a bunch of the other jugglers went to another festival in South Dakota, and heard various other people talking about me, the guy who had spun fire poi in a kilt. And as they were relaying the story to me, the euphemism "toasting [my] oysters" came up, which then became a running joke throughout the rest of the weekend. Upon telling Lindsay about it, she asked if they referred to me by any silly nicknames, like "Great Balls of Fire". Not that the other jugglers mentioned, but who knows what my legend will grow to. :)
Naaaahhh…
So I spent the weekend at Jugglefest in Springdale, Arkansas. Friday afternoon a couple of the K-State jugglers came through town, picked up me and another of the KU jugglers, and we headed down.
I performed contact juggling at the show Saturday night, and got a huge response. There were so many people who came up to me after the show and said how amazing it was, and wanted to learn how to do it. We were all packing up to go for food, so I told them that I’d be around this afternoon, the last day of the festival, and that I’d show them anything they wanted to learn then.
Except that I found out later that the other people I’d come with weren’t planning on sticking around for any of the open juggling time today. It was only about a four-hour drive to here, and they had to continue on to Manhattan, but they still wanted to leave town before 1, which was when the building opened, and we could return to goof off there in the gym. I was a mostly annoyed about that, that they wanted to skip town early, but also a bit because I ended up standing my prospective students up. But oh well, that’s what I get for not driving myself.
Then last night after the food, we hung out in the parking lot of the shopping center where we’d been eating and threw torches at each other, including our first attempt at a Kansas Shuffle with torches. Video of that will probably be up on YouTube in the near future. But as you can see, the pattern involves a lot of moving around, and the biggest problem with juggling torches is that you can't see the handles, only the flames. So I ended up carching one on the left cheekbone, and I've still got a red mark there from it. I've got another one just above my left elbow, and you can actually see the pattern of the weave of the wicking in that mark. Kinda cool.
So lots of fun this weekend, and really looking forward to the Little Apple Juggling Festival in another few weeks.
EDIT: I forgot to mention initially that I've apparently become a bit of a legend among the jugglers in the midwest, because of an incident from last year's Flatland Juggling Festival, and no, I'm not talking about all the stuff getting stolen. Last weekend, a bunch of the other jugglers went to another festival in South Dakota, and heard various other people talking about me, the guy who had spun fire poi in a kilt. And as they were relaying the story to me, the euphemism "toasting [my] oysters" came up, which then became a running joke throughout the rest of the weekend. Upon telling Lindsay about it, she asked if they referred to me by any silly nicknames, like "Great Balls of Fire". Not that the other jugglers mentioned, but who knows what my legend will grow to. :)