No. 270 - Contact Juggling

I wasn't really feeling like myself yesterday. Hence the partial philosophical post. The feeling carried over until today when I posted on my Facebook that I was "in a funk. Someone please teach me something new because I've apparently lost my ability to learn."

I got some great responses and appreciate the enthusiasm of my friends. The one that stuck out for me though was the post that said, "Go for contact juggling. It makes me happy!"

I especially liked this response because it may have been meant as a combination post -- teaching me something new as well as breaking the funk with an enjoyable activity.

I learned that contact juggling is a form of object manipulation that focuses on the movement of objects such as balls in contact with the body. Although often used with "toss" juggling, it typically involves the rolling of one or more balls on the hands and arms to create visual illusions without releasing the props into the air.

I was showing my kids a YouTube video similar to this one and told them that it was what I learned today. They both said, "That's a fushigi ball!" So I googled it.

At Fushigiball.com it says that "FUSHIGI is a brand new, dynamically designed ball used in the mysterious art of contact juggling. With FUSHIGI the operator exploits the reflective properties of a sphere through specific hand and body isolations and movements that are designed to give the appearance that the FUSHIGI sphere is moving on its own or even floating. Using FUSHIGI is an incredible, therapeutic form of relaxation."

I asked the kids how they knew that. They said it's always shown on TV commercials. So nothing new for the kids today. Just me :)