Juggling has spread - juggling set at IKEA

I have spent the days after Christmas lying in my bed reading insanely many books, so I didn't bother to join my sister to IKEA.

"They have started to sell juggling equipment at IKEA!", my sister told me when she came back.

I think this is really good, even though I don't expect much from the juggling equipment itself. When I started doing diabolo, I had one from the local toy store, and then as I got better, my parents got me a better one. I hope this IKEA juggling kit will do the same for kids and juggling.

Having the right equipment is crucial in juggling, since you are going to spend so much time using it. If you equipment is so bad it actually prevent you from succeeding, you might loose all you joy of juggling and motivation. On the other hand, until you have tried something out you don't know if you like it and it is considerably easier and cheaper to get some "bad" toy/unprofessional equipment.

The key in this dilemma I think is to know when it is time to move on to get professional equipment, but it is hard to know when that is.

Back to this IKEA juggling kit; it has a description of key features.

- Juggling helps your child develop important concentration skills.- Encourages your child to train and improve. They start juggling with 1 ball and move up to 3.
- The balls and clubs can be used together as a bowling game.
- The rings and clubs can be used together as a tossing game.
- Your child can also swing the rings around their wrist or ankle, and throw and catch them with friends.
- Easy to store away in the included net bag.

I think they have kind of caught the essence of juggling: Train to improve step by step, juggle with friends and encourage new creative ways of using the equipment.

To end this article, I will include a picture of some of my own juggling balls:

La cage aux folles - a review

For quite a while ago we saw La cage aux folles together with the circus club at Norrbottensteatern.

Even though this was supposed to be a mnusical, it hade borrowed some elements from circus, when they had more of these "singing acts" where we where supposed to get glipes from what the audience at the club where the story is set see.

I remember it almost like a varity show with different acts. I was supprised that even though La Cage aux Folles was first written in the 80ths, the subject and the musical as a whole still was up to date today, dealing with subjects as cross dressing, core family or not, expectation from the society and HBQ realted questions.

My two favourite thing that I am not sure is included att all La Cage aux Folles was the fact that thwy at the end where wearing the Kiruna Hockey match sweater in all the rainbow colors (since Kiruna Hockey is the first HBTQ certified hockey team in Sweden) and that the parents dressed up as the Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst, with her dress and beard.

There where many beautiful costumes, good dance acts and singing acts.

At several points, one of the dads say "The circus horse gets ready again" in a sad voice as he is about to get changed to enter the stage. This still points out that circus still have a very low status in society.

As a whole, I really enjoyed La Cage aux Folles.

Circus and juggling update

You might think that I have done less circus since it was a while since my last entry, but it is actually the opposite.
In my last post, I happily showed my new LED juggling balls and my glow in the dark flowerstick, and even if it is just about a month since I got them I have made routines and performed with them.

The weekend 6-7 of December I went to Stockholm to attend the Women in Circus Consortium at DOCH (University of Dance and Circus). It was very nice to both see some performances, work in progress, acts, workshops and lectures.

I have also attended the DOCH open house when I was in Stockholm.

At uni, we have practised and planned a lot of our own self-made show, which was tiring and somewhat strenuous to organize and make, but I am so happy with the result!

I am now home meeting my family and friends, but I brought my juggling balls and flower stick with me. Surprisingly, I spent a lot of time on the train discussing aerial with an other passenger who was interested in circus.

As I have mentioned before, it is dark it the north in winter, but it makes the LEDballs glow even more!

My first flower stick and LED juggling balls

The snow has come to Luleå these last days. I have spent a lot of time indoors playing with my new equipment: A glow in the dark flower stick and some LED juggling balls.

This flower stick is my first flower stick ever and I am so happy with it! I did some devil sticks years ago, but then I didn't now how to continue. But since the club at uni got some members who dd flower sticks I have been so inspired! I found out that flower sticks are easier to "experiment" and invent things with due to that the flower stick also have this silicone surface.

For me, I feel that I have a pretty good basic technique from my devil sticks practice. The learning curve is definitely not as steep for those staring directly with flower sticks, but starting with deviel sticks force you to get a correct tick-tock fast and to get a good control of the devil stick. So when I went from devil stick to flower stick I suddenly saw a lot of potential in many of my old tricks.

For the LED juggling balls, I went for 4 green ones and 2 white ones. The are quite big and hard, but I don't get annoyed by the fact that you can feel the switch when juggling.

When I juggle with the LED balls I get another strange feeling of flow juggling that I have had a really hard time to find. I guess I get it because they remember me of poi spinning. I also realized that just moving the balls in unexpected patterns also make an effect, so now I am watching all the LED juggling videos I can on Youtube.

I think I have most of the props that I would like to, so now maybe I need to find some kind of prop stand, because all my apartment is filled with scattered juggling things. It is very nice.

The ultimate colors for juggling balls set

We have all seen them: These really professional jugglers that has like 9 white clubs and do amazing things. To me, having white props, black clothes and enter a black stage will give me some prejudices about what style of juggling the juggler will do.

I will soon order LEDballs, and last time I bought juggling balls I was thinking a lot about what colours to get. I was practising five ball flash quite a lot so I wanted the balls to have different colours so I could check that I caught the balls in the right hand. I wanted six, and they only had six colours, so I ended up with one in each colour. I still don't like that pink one.

So now I am buying LED-ball to use at performances, so I here are some suggestions if you like to have different colours when you juggle.

Don't get me wrong, I like when they are all in the same colour too.

3 balls
2+1 makes it possible to enhance special trick such as jugglers tennis.

4 balls
3+1 is one possible combination, but 2+2 is also an interesting one. 3+1 allows monochrome three ball if you want that, but 2+2 allows to have 2+1 with both chosen colours.

5 balls
I felt that it was difficult to fins some good combinations. with five balls, I don't see very often that any accent balls are needed. Maybe 4+1? 2+3 is also a good combination, because the both monochrome three ball is possible and also 2+2.

6 balls
I was thinking that maybe 2+4 would be a nice combination, because I can imagine that it would look nice with one accent ball in each three ball column when juggling? Also this makes many other good combinations for 4 and 3 ball patterns possible.
Also 4+1+1 is an interesting one, because it allows a three ball pattern with 3 different colours.

I wrote this article when I was thinking about what to buy considering LED juggling balls. At the end, I decided 6 balls, 4 green and 2 white like the northern light. It is going to be a nice juggling winter, and since I live in the northern part of Sweden there will be a lot of darkness to juggle in!

That is my thoughts on choosing ball colours for juggling sets. If you have thoughts about this it would be interesting to hear yours!

A guide how to make poi and circus choreographies

I finally have a new computer since my old one broke down! I spend a lot of time studying for the exam week, but we have also moved a little forward in the progress of making our own show with the poi at staff club at uni.

We will now start making choreographies and I wanted to share the process with you!

Before I started making poi choreographies I have competed with different choreographies in figure skating, which might have helped. I have also done some dance courses and played cello, so i feel that i have a good sense of music and beat.

I usually to things in this order. Below I will explain a little bit more about each point.

Suggestion on
how to make a poi choreography

1. Choose music
2. Cut music
3. Write the music down
4. Write a list of tricks
5. Pair up tricks with highlights
6. Play around to find transfers between tricks
7. Look for feelings and poses
8. Practice, film myself and evaluate
9. Rethink
10. Practice
11. Thinking about costume, light color
12. Perform

Choose music

When I chose music I always chose something that I like, because when practising you will hear this music a thousand times. It is good to chose a music that is not a super popular track on the lists, because since it will take some time to make your performance people will think that it is as old and outdated as the music. 

I also often chose something that has a good beat. Especially with poi, the beat is very important so try the music out to see if you can spin in rhythm with the beat. Remember that it is the length of the string that decides the period time!

It can also be a good idea to chose a music with many changes of style or one that contains some high light where you can put your best tricks.

Cut music
If your music is longer than 3 minuets, cut it down. I think about 3 minuets is how long the audience can hold their interest. When cutting music, make sure that the cut edition has a good start and finish.

Try to include some different moods, themes or parts from the music.

Write the music down
I always start with writing the music down. I count the beats, write them down and divide them into sections, and write out where the highlights are. If you are not so good at this or think it seems tideous, one way can be to print out the lyrics (if there is any) or just write "beginning", "flute starts to play" and so on.

I do this to get an overview over the music.

Write a list of tricks

Now, write a list of tricks you want to include. Write only tricks that you can actually do.

Pair up tricks with highlights

Now, put your down written music and list of tricks down next to each other and try to pair them up. Put you spectacular tricks on the highlights in the music. When you add in your trick, try to add them in an order so they contrast each other, like high vs low, slow vs fast and so on to make your choreography dynamic.

Play around to find transfers between tricks

Put on you music and try to do your tricks, and to find smooth transfers. If there are any empty spaces in the music, improvise and see what you think can fit there.

Look for feelings and poses

When playing around, try out some different start and finishing poses. Don't forget to put some applaud poses in the middle as well. You can also experiment with some dance moves or poses, or try to express different feelings and thoughts.

Practice, film myself and evaluate

When you are happy with your outline, it is time to practice. Just do it over and over again. Sometimes it helps to do this in front of a mirror, or in front of a video camera to watch how it looks like from the audience perspective.. You will find out what works and what doesn't.

Rethink

Did you fins something that needs to be changed? 

Practice

After the changes, continue to practice. If you want, you can continue to practice and retink until you are really happy with you piece. Then practice again until you can preform you choreography in your sleep.

Thinking about costume, light color

It is getting closer to the show. Think about what kind of costume you want to wear, what kind of fire or LED color you want, how you will enter and leave the stage and so on. How can you do this so it enhances your theme? Remember to practise in your costume.

Perform

Now it is time to show your amazing choreography. Good luck!

I know that there are other strategies on making choreographies, and there might be a continuation on this topic since I find it very interesting.

A calm plastic bag air ballet - An Afternoon of Foehn

An Afternoon of Foehn - Version 1
Umeå 7 Sept 15:00


Picture source

This might have been my favourite performance during the whole Umeå contemporary circus festival. The program said "A plastic bag dances across the stage". After seeing this show I now understand how plastic bags can dance.

An Afternoon of Foehn is a solo show and starts out very peacefully and slow. A man dressed like an old sailor entered the stage, and almost ritually he makes a "mini human" out of two plastic bags. The he slowly turn on the fans that surrounds the stage, slowly one by one. The fans make some whirlwind that the seaman can control i different ways to make the "mini plastic human" dance around in the wind to a classic music peace. It really is peaceful and beautiful.

The the story starts with more dancing platic humans, some interactin, and umbrella and different mood changes. The end is filled with melancholy and almost made me cry, so I don't want to give it away. In some was it reminds me of  Studie Ghibli films.

Picture source

This is sometimes labeled as a childrens show, but I would recommend this so any age. It is more of a performance than circus, but still full of emotions and afterthought.

Circus inspired training

I have for sure been watching a lot of circus performances lately, and this have made me very intrested in training once again. When I watch circus and other movements, I feel that I want to try it out myself!

Until I was 17, I practiced and competed in figure skating, but since then, I have just been training not so intense and with no special plan or goal. But now, my goals are directly related to various circus skills I have seen on stage (even though I am far away from reaching them).

Another motivation for increasing strengh is the fact that during the Foundation circus course I went to this spring at Greentop Circus, I did some aerial silks and static trapeze. I felt like I could get my head around the techniques relatively easy, but it was my lack of strength that slowed me down.

Now when I am thinking about how to do other disciplines of circus than juggling here in Luleå, I decided that while I am thinking about different opportunities it will help if I spend som time to build up some strength.

During my time at Greentop, I alway arrived early to class, so I spent about 10 minuets every morning trying to do a handstand against the wall. I have now pciked up that habit again, trying to build up some strength so be able to do a free handstand one day. This means that i have been slightly obsessed lately with reading about how to make handstands on the internet.

Dreamy space bubble - Underart in Gothenburg

I am a big fan of Cirkus Cirkör's productions and shows, but I have never been a big fan of their trailers. I have seen Inside Out, Wear it like a Crown and Knitted Peace and loved the shows but not the trailers for them. The trailer for Underart is 10 minuets long with a man standing on his head in a fish bowl, and that it all. It is not very up beat, but it is interesting. The trailer certainly don't give anything away.

Underart is a clean and futuristic show about the director and former acrobat Olle Strandberg's crach when he broke his neck, and the way back again. I could imagine that in that jump, it felt like time was slowing down and during just a second a thousand thoughts would run through your mind. That is the feeling I got from the show.

There where very different circus skills showed in this show from  Methinee Wongtrakoon (acrobat), Alexander Dam (street dance), Matias Salmenaho (juggling and acrobatics), Iris Pelz and Christpher Schlunk (partner acrobatics). I especially liked the group performances with hoola hoop or som kind of dance where enev the musicians join in!

Image Source

Methinee Wongtrakoon does some interesting movement, maybe reflecting how it is when you loose the control of your body. The street dance by Alexander Dam was also very good with his locking moves. he also did a balancing act that I dont want to give away but I watched from beginning to end with out closing my eyes even if it was a very slow paced number.

The partner and group acrobatics was impressive with the strength and coordination between Matias Salmenaho, Iris Pelz and Christpher Schlunk.

The muic for this show is made by the duo Ripple and Murmur (Anna Ahnlund and Andreas Tengblad), and I really like their dreamy electronic sound. I would actually have been very happy to attend a concert with only them as well. Their music matches the visual theme and the acts well. They both play the guitar, bass, violin, and my favourite instrument theremin!

Even though I liked the individual parts I couldn't really see the connection to Olle Strandbergs crash landing, and the tension and pace (with some exceptions) was quite the same. I think it has more potential that the current state, with some more changes. I would have liked to see more from this show, and to me this one doesn't beat Knitting Peace or Wear it like a Crown.

But if you have seen the trailer and then the show: Don't worry: There will be headstands in glass bowls!

Image source

Cirkus Cirkör's Underart homepage (SWE/ENG)

Mezmerizing lightbulbs - Glitch at Umeå contemporary circus festival

It has been a while and I have still many thoughts and reviews from the Umeå contemporary circus festival that I want to share with you!

Now is the time to write about  G.L.I.T.C.H, a solo juggling show by Johan Wellton. The show had a sneak premiere in Umeå before the official premiere th 18th of september at Vara konserthus.

During the festival I heard a lot of discussion about if circus i art or entertainment, and when I ased the writer Margareta Sörensson, she answered that she though La Soirée was entertainment, but G.L.I.T.C.H was art.

When we entered the room, tha show had already started. Johan Wellton was on the stage, holding a monologe very expressive about the stress in life and not knowing it which direction to go. While he was holding this monologe, he did some really amazing juggling tricks that could have been the finale for most other jugglers. But Wellton is lost in is thought, thinking about his life doing this technically advanced juggling.

"-And I was waiting for her, but she never came...I thought maybe we could have a nice time and drink some tea. Where is she? I made two cups of tea, put them nicely on the table, arranged them, rearranged them, and waited for her. She had still not showed up... and the tea got cold, so I made two new cups of tea. But what should I do with the other cold cups of tea? take them away, and pretend that I haven't been waiting, or leave them so she could see them? The two new cups got cold too, and she didn't arrive, so I made two new cups of tea! But what to do?!"

This is a part of the monolouge that I remember the clearest for some reson (translated and writted down very freely though). He was talking faster and faster and I felt familiar with this feeling that you are "juggling you everyday life" fast and fast but have no idea of why we do it. Why do we stress and care so much about things that may not matter? Why are we not happy with nothing but the perfect? My feeling was that Wellton was addressing these questions in the first part of the show.

Then it all speeds up even more, until things set on fire, fall from the floor and Wellton is almost angry and stressed and suddendly finds himself crashed on the floor.

Picture from www.johanwellton.com

The the show suddendly changes everything and the rig with the pendulum lights is suddendly present. It all consist of a bar in the roof, with cords of hangling lighted light bulbs. I was mesmerized just by the view of this.

Wellton then starts to "juggle" the hangling light bulbs i different ways to a soft background music in enjoyment. Besides the patters made from the swinging light bulbs, I also appriciated the technical aspects of the light bulb rig. There was one part where Wellton was playing music by juggling them, with a camera regristrating where the light bulbs where to give the corresponding sound.

From beeing a chaotic and hectic show, it goes to a very peaceful lightbulb swinging, and I could have be watching that part longer. In the end, he is almost not touching the bulb, but just like us watching them making their own patterns in the air with a light trace following them. Maybe the lightbulbs are ideas and thoughts that are finally breaking free?

Visit Johan Welltons homepage (SWE/ENG)

Read more about GLITCH (In Swedish)

Expressen
Västerbottenskuriren

Unexpected expressional acrobatics - Knee Deep review

At Umeå contemporary circus festival Knee Deep was completely sold out, so I was so happy that it was possible to see them in Piteå yesterday. In Piteå, I was surprised that it was not so many people in the audience, but I really liked the scale of the scene: It was a small theater hall and I was on the first row.

Knee Deep starts with the acrobat Emma Serjant walking on eggs, setting the egg and wine bottle theme that runs loosely through the show. Just like eggs, the human body can be both fragile but strong when many of them are put together. When they drop the egg from at three man high, it also reminds us how easily it breaks and that circus always involves some form of risk.

Knee Deep is a four person acrobatic show performed by Circus Casus from Brisbane, Australia. The show has a decorticated set with almost nothing on stage except the performers. The show starts with a routine of group acrobatics that shows amazing skills from the acrobats. The acrobatic numbers are mixed up with mostly aerial, but also some other acts.

Image source

The group acrobatic number where the one I liked the most. More towards the end there were one performed to more upbeat music that I preferred to the first one, but I really like how they moved in different way and did some very unexpected moves. It was refreshing to see that even if the group consist of one woman and three men, the all base and fly equally through the routine. Sometimes I really wished that there where more elements borrowed from dance to fill in the spaces between the acrobatic moves. I liked the part in the end where one of them did some arm movements like he was controlling the others with a force to do some moves.

The aerial parts seemed a little unpolished in this performance. I could see some mistakes in the silks, but they where well covered up. The straps started up by some moves that looked like they where from rope to me, which I have not seen much. In the end, there was a nice four person group trapeze. In this trapeze act they switched a lot between the moves and who would do them, but they where never all four in the trapeze. The aerial contributed with some change to the acrobatic acts.

There was no manipulation in the show expect from a hula hoop act. Men are not often seen on stage doing hula hoop, so it was nice to see. It started of with three of them on stage, and I thought about how we did hula hoop on the school yard. Then the two in the background "grow up" and stops hooping, while the one in the middle continue and does a nice little routine. Some other review I have read though this didn't fit into the show, but I liked the unexpected variation in the pace of the show.

Image source

My favorite act in the show was actually not the last act, but the later group acrobatics because I could see the joy in their eyes while doing all their acrobatic tricks.

To sum this up, I enjoyed some of the unconventional parts of the show, as well as the intense expressions of the performers. There are some details to be improved, but to sum it up Knee Deep is an unpolished diamond.

Link to Casus Circus homepage

Having a great time at the contemporary circus festival in Umeå

The contemporary circus festival in Umeå is amazing!

Beeing a volonteer at this festival has been nice since we often ca see the shows we are working at, and if there are tickets left over we can attend all other shows for free! So far I have attended or worked at La Soiree, Flown and GLITCH, and they were all good and very different. I will write some more in dept reviews when I am back home.

Also, I have attended two very interesting seminars: one called Circus i norr (circus in the north) and one called Nycirkusens historia (The history of new circus).

I feel so inspired by this festival!

Umeå contemporary circus festival

This weekend is the Umeå contemporary circus festival, and since I love watching circus I am definitely going! It started the 29th of August but I will join this weekend.

I will attend the circus festival as a volunteer because I think it is important to work for projects like this one, but also to get the opportunity to get behind the scenes.

The Umeå contemporary circus festival is the first international contemporary circus festival in Sweden ever, with many different seminars, street shows and acts. There will be seven productions and over 30 shows!

I am especially looking forward to the show "Glitch" by the juggler Johan Wellton, since I both like juggling and the idea of a glitch between how you are and what society expects and thinks of you (because that how I interpret the trailer). I like the picture of all the swinging lamps in the patterns because it looks a little like poi spinning patterns.

Here you can watch the trailer for the show Glitch:

I am so happy to go there!

The program for Umeå contemporary circus festival can be found here
The program as PDF
Homepage for the festival

Performance at the welcome dinners at uni

Lately there has been a lot of activity in the poi and staff spinning group at uni. During the weekend there has been three welcome dinners where we had a performance. The theme for this year was "Myths and legends".

We had an approximately 3,5 min performance with one LEDdevil stick, two staffs, one double staff and two poi. In the end we were all five on stage to an editet version of Adrian Zieglers Prophency! We also had a funny encore where we danced to the Swedish Eurovision participant Roger Pontare. In the end of this post you can listen to the music.

We had been developing the performance itself during quite a long time, since we had all been working during the summer, but I am happy with how it turned out in the end. The story was that a girl with a LED devil stick walks in a forest where the trees (the two staffs and the double staff) come to life. The two evil forest elfs scares them away (the other poi girl and me), but in the end the good side won!

You can see some pictures here taken by Marie Eriksson:

We didn't get as much applauses at some spots where we expected to get them, but later I heard that the audience was so amazed that they forgot to give some rounds of applauses. Maybe we can develop a better way of making pauses and applause points?

Here is the music for the performances (but we used edited versions).
Main performance:

Encore:

Juggling in the dark

Lately I have been studying intensely for a math exam. These study periods really stress me out and in break times between the calculating I have practiced some juggling tricks. In my apartment I have a gigantic sofa that works perfect as a juggling sofa to save the neighbors underneath me from getting crazy from the drops of balls on the floor.

I have been doing my five balls flash, some four ball colums tricks, juggling with arms crossed and finally gotten my head around the Boston mess!

It is becoming darker here in Luleå and I have been looking at different options considering LED or glow juggling balls. I remember my friend ha some nice LED juggling balls that was filled with small silicon pieces, which made them feel almost like beanbags. From my experience of poi and staff LED equipment I think it is a lot of variety in the market, and LED thins then to be stiff or heavy because of the electronics inside.

For me, it is important that they are rechargeable or have rechargeable batteries and that they have a relatively low price.

Here are some of the options I have been looking at after a quick search on the Internet:

Juggling Glow ball Renegade Juggling
Seems like thay are almoste the same as the ones from Oddballs but it is possible to choose a programmable version, and it is tempting but expensive since they want 9 extra dollars for that feature.

Led Glow Ball Single Color Oddballs
Seem quite good and reasonably priced.

Glow Ball K 8 iBall Renegade Juggling
Extremely cool that they are controllably by the remote and can go in all colors. But the price of 75 dollars each or about 500 SEK each is way too much for me.

Various balls from Lightupandjuggle
Impressive variety of different kind of juggling balls.

Lighted Juggling Balls from Dubé
They seem very straight forward but it is very difficult to say how hard or soft the juggling balls are.

Is there any other good LED juggling equpiment on the market that I have missed? Please let me know!

Juggling passing at the party after the final show at Greentop

Strangely I juggle more now because it forces my brain to take a break from studying. At least for me, it is impossible to think about other things while juggling.

Circus update

It has been a while since I last wrote on the blog, so here is an update of what has happened in terms of circus lately.

Since I came back from Greentop this spring, I spent a lot of time writing evaluations of the course and studying for a reexam. During the summer I went back to my previous summer work, and on my spare time I did some poi spinning and took up unicycling again.

The best circus thing during this summer was the visit to the Medieval Week at Visby at the Gotland Island. It is like a medieval themed city festival, and during that week I saw more street and fire shows than I did in total the last five years. It was so inspirational to see them all, and see their different styles.

We also spent a lot of time doing fire at the beach, talking to other people who also liked the flow arts.

As a circus artist I think we spend more time developing and practicing our own material than watching others, as opposed to other art forms where relatively more time are spent at looking at others work. In Luleå where I live at the moment, the scene for circus is very small so it is not very accessible to get to see it. I actually think the student jester group which I am a part of stands for a lot of the circus activity in Luleå.

This Wendsday we tried to do some fire outside the students night club, as it was the first day of the introduction period for the new students and therefore a lot of people waiting outside the club. But after just an hour we couldn't stand the rainstorm so we had to give up.

English and Swedish grocery stores comparision

Now when I am not on the circus course I can already feel that I need to eat considerably less food. Still, I need to eat something and the other day I was thinking about some differences between English and Swedish grocery stores.

Diary products

Sweden has a lot of diary and many kinds of yoghurt and "fil", and they are almost all packed in 1 liter packages. In Sweden, different kinds of Tetra Paks are used for milk and there are no plastic containers at all for milk. For both "fil", yoghurt and milk there are different options of fat percentage.

In England there are many kinds of yoghurt and they are all very sweet, and packed in potions. I have only found one type that is called "pouring yogurt" that resembled a little bit to the Swedish ones except that it was very sweet. There are also so many "0% fat" yoghurts which are unusual in Sweden. But the English ones are so much sweeter and almost always has some kind of fruit taste.

Another thing I noticed was that there are so many kinds of sweetened types of milk and different kind of "milkshake" type drinks in England. There are "chocolate bar milk" like Mars milk and many other. In England there was also possible to buy smaller packages of milk. In Sweden it is possible to buy 3 dl but not always, and then you have to buy 1 liter.

Deodorants and toothpaste

In England it seems to be common with those spray deodorants that looks like small hairspray bottles. This type exists in Sweden but in general I think the roll on versions are the most common ones, but here in England it seems to be the opposite.

When I bought toothpaste i saw that all the toothpaste tubes were packed in paper boxes, which they never are  in Sweden. In this case, it think it is a waste because you will just throw the box away directly anyway, and its the plastic tube that protects the toothpaste anyway?

Fresh vegetables

About the same, but the prices are generally lower in England. They also have a lot more pre-packed vegetables than in Sweden.

Biscuits and cereals

Oh so many biscuits and crisps and things there are in England! And so many cereals! The variety are so much bigger in England.

Alcohol

In Sweden, alcohol is sold by the state monopoly Systembolaget, so every time I go abroad it just feels unusual for me to see a whole line full of wine in a normal grocery store. Small convenience stores seems to sell a lot of alcohol considering how much of the shop it takes up.

Packing

Swedish grocery stores will not give away their plastic bags for free, but will charge about 1-2 SEK (~10-20 pence) each. They are made of stronger plastic than the English ones though. In Sweden you can always choose between paper bags and plastic bags, and the paper bags are bigger than the American ones you see in movies and they have hand grips.

At least among Swedish students this makes people avoid plastic bags if they can fit there things in their bags or they will bring other fabric bags so they don't have to pay for the plastic ones, and it is also environmental friendly.

In England, plastic bags are included in the prize, and they are smaller and weaker than the Swedish ones. Often in English food stores they will actually also ask you if they can help you packing, or not ask and help you anyway which is nice of them.

In England there was a long conveyor belt in front of the cashier where I could fit all my things. The I walked to the other side and packed each product directly after it had been scanned. I would pack all my things and then pay.

In Sweden, there are two conveyor belts; one in front and one behind the cashier, and sometimes it is not possible to fit it all at the same time. The after the product has been scanned, it continues to another conveyor belt on the other side. I prefer the English version, since sometimes the conveyor belt after the cashier is to strong and will damage fragile things like fruits or things packed in paper. In Sweden you pay before you start packing your products, and the conveyor belt on the other side of the cashier can usually split in two halves so that two customers can pack at the same time.

Shopping carts and baskets
In England, the shopping carts I have seen are quite shallow and will not fit as much as the Swedish ones, which seem gigantic in comparison. In some English grocery there are metallic shopping baskets, but I have never seen that in Sweden where there are only the plastic ones.

Self check outs
In England, it is very common with the self checkout stations, where you place your basket one one side and pack your things on the other side. The packing works like a scale where you need to put your things after you have scanned them. No special sign up or member club card is needed to use the self check outs.

In Sweden there are not common at all with self check outs, but some store will offer you to bring around a scanning machine so you can scan and pack directly when you take the product from the shelf. To do this you always have to sign up in advance to the stores member club and cannot be used if you are not a member.

Show what you have learned in England!

I have now been back in Luleå for two weeks, but I am already back into normal life. I spent most of the time unpacking and moving back into my room, but also studying for a math exam I did yesterday.

Today it is almost 15 degrees outside and it has started to feel like spring and summer here too. Just this two weeks I have been here I have noticed that the "boom" for plants and trees just have started, even though it is still piles of snow and ice left in shadow areas in the forest.

I also tried to do some handstands the other day, and I could now feel that I have become a little better since I last did it. I really want to learn free handstands, so every morning at Greentop I would arrive early to get about 15 minuets a day to do handstands against the wall. When I had the chance I practiced to do a free handstand and then crash down on a mat. I think it is the environment around here that makes me realize what I have learned, since skills and changes develop slowly.

All my friends seems curious about what I actually did at Greentop, and I usually say that I was playing around for 3 months which is quite true. I really enjoyed all the time I spent in England. Also many people want me to show them something that I have learned and that is really difficult. i don't know their expectations and I don't know if whatever I show them will be corresponding to their expectations.

Today I have been practicing some more five ball flashes, and it is my goal this summer to be able to do 20 throws in a five ball cascade. At the moment my all time record is 7, so I have quite a long way to go to get to 20.

The final show of the course on Greentops homepage

There is still a lot to write about an dpictures to show from the final graduation show!
Until I have written a nice entry covering it all, there is an article from Greentops homepage that can be read here.

The quote that "It seemed more like a professional show than a student showcase" made me really proud of all of us.

I still miss going to Greentop every day, but on Tuesday I was back at the poi spinning club here. It was nice to see everyone again, and we tried out some exercises and games I learned at Greentop.

I will eventually write more about the final show and the way there.

Back in Sweden

I have had a lot to do this last week of the circus course, which was fun but sad as I knew that soon there would be no Greentop every day anymore.

My family came to watch the final show, and then we looked around Sheffield and spent some time with my landlady and lodger.

After that, I had one more week in England until our flight left from London, so we went through Stratford-upon-Aven, Warwick and Oxford before we reached Heathrow to fly back to Sweden.

Now I am in Tyresö outside Stockholm and then we will fly back to Luleå late in the night tonight.

Soon there will be a boom of final show pictures and pictures from England.

Happy Easter and World Circus Day!

Today it is Easter and we had a day of from rehearsals. It is now less than a week until the show! I feel much better from the cold now and look forward to next week. Today I spent some time in town trying to sort out the last pieces of my costumes, but I bet I will find something else that is missing during the week.

Since it is Easter I bought some chocolate Easter eggs that I have seen almost everywhere since I arrived in Sheffield. I got two different types: one with chocolate mousse and one with some sweet milky white thing inside. They were both good and very sweet!

I also found out that the World Circus Day is celebrated the third Saturday of April every year. I didn't do anything special to celebrate it, but I had some energy to do some more five ball practicing.

Happy Easter everyone!

YouTube clips from BJC Simon Says game and Fight Night

I have not been feeling well and have caught a cold since I came home from BJC, The British Juggling Convention. I guess juggling to much and sleeping in a quite cold tent was not a good combination. Today I was not at the course but spent the day lying in bed sleeping and surfing the Internet for juggling things, and found two YouTube clips from BJC that I wanted to share.

Simon Says Game at Juggling Olympics
The first one is the Simon Says Game from the Juggling Olympics where you can see me juggle in white shirt and black pants in the front. I made it all the way to 3:12 when I dropped one ball trying to do a one ball pirouette...


Fight Night Finals
The other video is from the final of the Fight Night. I still think this is so entertaining to watch. It reminds me in some ways of sumo wrestling that I liked to watch on Japanese TV even though I didn't understand much. Sumo and Fight Night both shares this quick rounds and attacks.

Edit: It seems like the videos didn't work for some reason so I will try to fix it and update this post. Meanwhile search for: BJC 2014 Fight Night and Simon Says (Game) at the BJC 2014

Full time rehersals and performance tips

This week we are having full time rehearsals for the final show. It is quite different from the other parts of the course because the focus has shifted from learning to presenting. During every day of this week there is a "presenting time" when the teachers from each subject come in and "hand over" the different acts to the director. So far we have been doing aerial, clowning and juggling (and acrobatics for those who chose that).

This is the first time for me to be directed in this way, but I like it. Sometimes it is like the director is pointing out the obvious, like "remember to look at the audience", but it is so easy to get lost in your own performance that you actually forget to do that. It is also nice to have the director as the eye of the audience, and to me it also feels safer do be directed rather than trying to find out if things work or not by yourself.

To tips for performances

• Make things clear - everything you do has to be clear to the audience to avoid confusion.
• Do it more - this is connected with the previous tip to make it clear. If you are jumping - jump more. If you are happy - be happier. Sometimes it feels like you are doing it a lot but from the audience point of view it may not be completely clear.
• Look at the audience - Try to look at the audience at unexpected moments to invite them to share whatever you are doing

Fight night photos from BJC

I want to really emphasize how fun it was to watch Fight Night at BJC, The British Juggling Convention. Fight Night is a game played among jugglers with the goal to hit the other people's patters so they drop their clubs. Too bad I didn't manage to take any good photos of this funny sport with my mobile camera - it was all happening to fast for it to capture those moments. Luckily i found that at the BJC Facebook page (click for link) Richard Brown had posted some good photos that caught the drama of Fight Night.

Fight Night rules:

All participants juggle three clubs in an designated area. To get a point, you have to make your opponent stop juggling while you continue. This is done by using your clubs to hit their pattern, usually after throwing a high throw. Go get a point, you need to continue juggling for some time after the opponent has lost his clubs. It is allowed to juggle any three clubs to get a point; this means that if you during an attack manage to steal one of your opponents clubs to continue juggling you will still get a point. If both of you drop your clubs after an attack, noone gets a point. Fist to three (or any other number) wins!

Variations:

Fight Night can be played either man to man in pairs, or in "gladiator style" where everyone is just in a mess trying to be the last man juggling.

The seeding for the Fight Night

Fight Night in galdiator style during Juggling Olympics

Photo credits: Richard Brown

New Equipment Motivation

It is funny how new equipment makes you practice more. I really like my new juggling balls.

BJC British Juggling Convention

This weekend I visited the British Juggling Convention, BJC, to spend a whole weekend of juggling and juggling related activities. It was my first juggling convent ever and it was really fun.
Then convent is open until Thursday so if you want more information visit www.bjc2014.co.uk.

The BJC 2014 took place at Darton college in Barnsley. To me this was a nice venue (even though I have nothing to compare with) because the school felt modern and there was a lot of good spaces. There was a 24 hour-open juggling hall, and main space, an auditorium, lots of space outdoors and classrooms for workshops. The visitors could either come for the day, or camp around the football pitches next to the building.

The camping area.

I was busy juggling and doing other things most of the time but at least I managed to take some photos:

From inside the juggling hall on Friday

 The main juggling hall was full of jugglers most of the time. It was fun to practice with so many jugglers around us, but i could also just sit and watch what everyone else was doing. All the jugglers where really nice and happy to pick up and throw back your juggling equipment when you lost it somewhere in the hall. Jugglers are nice people.

At BJC with friends

Here I am with some friends. Behind us there is the area where there where some workshops and shows and things. I participated in workshops of three ball multiplex throws, genocide diabolo and lasso spinning and they where all very good and inspiring. The multiplex one was quite easy speaking of technique, but gave me some nice ideas about three ball juggling that i hadn't thought about before. The diabolo workshop was fun because I hadn't done this type of trick where you let go of the sticks in this way. it was quite hard and I never managed to do the trick, but I got a good start with an encouraging workshop leader. The lasso workshop was unexpectedly fun, and I was glad I did it because I don't think I would have tried lasso or figured out how to spin it myself.

At the same time as BJC there was also some other mini conventions like The Balloon Modeling Convention, which was a room full with baloons! We entered a competition where thay drew what the participants would try to make and how many minutes they got. We had 17 minuets to make a Mignion. I have never really done balloon modeling so here is my result, and I am quite happy with it.

Just a picture of people hanging around.

 There was also a traders room of which I didn't take any pictures, but it was like being a child in a toy store there! I have never seen so many props at the same time and it was so fun and nice to actually be able to touch, throw and feel everything! It was a thousand time better than just looking at things on the Internet, which is often the case for jugglers. It is also so hard to find out what you like just by looking at pictures and reading descriptions, compared to actually hold the equipment in your hands.  I got some juggling balls after trying almost all of the balls in the traders area. I realized that I like quite firm balls that are not like beanbags but with a softer surface, so I bought that kind.

From the fire show

 I saw a lot of performances and shows too.
The first one was the Youth Circus Five Rings Circus cabaret. They had made some research of the circus history in the Newcastle area and then done a show inspired by this. I liked it because it was a quite unusual approach to creating acts. My favourit act from they show was a unicycling act about a video game galled "unicycling wars".

I also saw a fire show that gave me a lot of inspiration for fire spinning. They had all the fire equipment including fakit fire, poi, staffs, fans, whips and clubs! The final was great with "fire work" staffs.

Late in the night there was a renegade show which was a little bit random but fun to watch too.

Giant baloon made my the audience waiting for the Gala show to start.

The best show was the Gala Show that took place in Sheffield city hall. The show was fantastic and all the acts was awesome! There was two Swedes performing; Gustav Rosell who did some funny clothes and ball juggling and Emil Dahl who did arty juggling with white clubs. My favorite was the MHD Crew who did a very nice group diabolo routine.

Five ball challenges

There where also "Olympics" which was some funny games for everyone. I couldn't take photos of the one I participated in. The best things with these was that everyone could participate. There was one "Throw the diabolo in the box" competition, "coin juggling", "unicycle gladiator", "club balancing" and many other funny games. It was also possible to take impressive photos with so many jugglers doing the same thing.

Unicycle gladiator

Club balancing game

 The most entertaining game to watch was the "Fight Night" game. The rules where like this: Try to make the other person stop juggling while you continue and you win one point. First to three wins. The equipent used is clubs and the two participants are juggling three clubs each. Then they make a high throw, and while the club is in the air, they had the time to try to use the other clubs to hit the patters of the the other juggler. If they both lost their clubs after an attack, noone won a point and they had to restart. The audience was very engaged in the fights and it was fun to watch because it was quick, dramatic and dynamic. I am up for recognizing this as a sport!

 After visiting BJC as my first juggling convention I really liked it and could recommend a visit.

Busy and BJC

It has been a very busy week since this is the last week of spezialisation before the full time work on the show starts.

Last weekend I had some time to be touristic and went to Kelham Island Industrial Museum, and it was the best museum in Sheffield so far. I will make a post where I show some pictures and tell you more about it.

I am almost done with my tightwire piece and have been working on the same idea for weeks. In aerial, we restarted this week since we due to time restriction in the show needed to do aerial in groups. Our group has changed theme some times but now I think this will be fine.

I have spent the evening packing and preparing for the British Juggling Convention! It is gonna be so much fun!

Four person juggling routine creation and thoughts about cooperative acts

The day before yesterday our schedule said supervised acrobatics practice, but none of the jugglers nor me are taking specializing in acrobatics. Instead, we managed to create a four person juggling act! I am very proud of it and I liked how we could cooperate in such a good way. It definitely needs some more practice to make it smooth but as we practiced yesterday and today we have already become a lot better. I hope it will fit into the show, but our juggling teacher seemed like he liked it, so as long as the director likes it. I hope he will be positive because he has asked the teachers to make some bigger group performances this year.

When I spoke to a friend who did the same course last year, he said "I wanted to do doubles trapeze, but there was no flyer who wanted to work with me. They all wanted to be by themselves". I think cooperative acts are underestimated, because in group acts there is more than "just" a skill: It is the cooperative work and connection in the group. I think that in a cooperative act there is more about the relation between the performers, while in a solo acts it is more about the relation to the object. And human relations almost always win over objects.

Another reason that I like cooperative acts are that I can easily see and understand that there is a lot of determination, work and cooperation between the performers, and that is a skill I value highly. To me it is more impressive to see a group of people doing something of medium difficulty together, than to see one person doing something more difficult alone. Of course I understand that it takes a lot of time to master object manipulation or aerial, especially since I am interested in circus, but everyone has some personal experience how hard but wonderful it can be to work together with someone else.

Creating things and acts together can sometimes be hard, and sometimes it is a lot easier than doing it alone. I think we created our juggling routine very time efficiently and surprisingly smooth. We are all very different in skill level and how we usually perform juggling, but in this case our differences helped us. To me, I was happy to see how my juggling friends were especially good at finding transitions between the tricks that I hadn't though about. It is a lot harder to come up with new ideas alone simply because noone force you to do it and there is only your own limits, but as a group we had to find solutions that worked for everyone. Sometimes it means compromising and sometimes it means exploring new areas.

From my own experience, it can be scary to put so much time and effort in creating something together with someone because it also means trusting the other person a lot and spending a lot of time with them. But during shows it feels so nice to share the excitement, preparation, performance and joy with someone else.

The act I am most proud of is a cooperative act with poi together with my friend and poi partner.
And I feel so alone doing poi without the other poi spinners in Luleå.

I am so proud of a partner poi routine Evelina and I did together. It also happens to be Evelina's birthday today, so Happy Birthday Eve!

Cave story

The weekend before last one I went to the Peak Districts to walk, but due to rain we went down to Speedwell cavern instead. I realized that I probably don't have any better pictures than these two as it was very difficult to take ant good pictures inside the cave.

Speedwell cavern is a cave in Castleton and was originally a lead mine, but as they dug into the natural cave system the cave was flooded and they had to close the mine. Nowadays, it is possible to take a guided tour where we first had to walk down over 100 steps down, and then continue the tour on boat in the old mining tunnel. It was a little bit claustrophobic with the small tunnel that we half filled with water, and I think the water made it both more scary but also exciting.

Sitting in the boat going through the cave

Inside the cave, we could go off to a platform and watch from where all the water came from. We could also see "The Bottomless Pit" which the miners though was bottomless since the water level never rose no matter how much stone they threw there. They thought the devil was sitting on the bottom eating the stone, but now divers in the cave have found out that the water could go away though some holes on the side of the cave, almost like this thing in sinks to prevent the water from flooding over in bathroom sinks.

Tried  to take a photo of stalagmites

It was definitely a good decision to go inside the cave instead of walking in the rain. I recommend Speedwell cavern as it is unique with the water and the combination of mine and cave.

Aerial work

I have been doing a lot of aerial the last days. Yesterday, I did a ropes and silks workshop and today afternoon we had supervised aerial practice. My biceps really hurt and I am worried that I might soon catch a cold, so I didn't go to tonights beginners aerial class.

During the workshop we mostly focused on the basics, which I as a former figure skater now never can be trained enough. We did some experimenting with the Russian climb: big, small, straight or bent leg and with a twist. The teacher encouraged us to explore and invent our own versions, and I like how the course and everything is going towards inventing, create and explore your own things.

In the morning we had performance and we are now creating work for the show. Our group had been a little stuck, but at least we had less problems today than last time. We found that when we where doing different kind of games or exercises is was so easy for us to come up with ideas, but now when we can create freely we tend to make things a little bit to complicated when the key seems to be to keep everything as simple as possible.

In the evening there were the parcour class, where I tried hand spring for the very first time. I also did some more assisted back flips. I am still very bad at this but I wasn't even half as scared as I was last week which is a huge step forward for me.

Supervised acro practice - back flips on a tumble run!

On Fridays we only have half a day of class, and today we were scheduled for supervised acrobatic practice. Even though I didn't chose to specialize in acrobatics, we are required to attend all the classes anyway, but we can practice whatever we want in our chosen areas and the teachers will help us the best as they can since they often know many circus skills beside their specialization.

For today, I chose to join the acrobatics practice since I still like acrobatics and it is fun to try different things. At the moment I see acrobatics more as a compliment to my other skills, and I don't think that I can become an acrobat. But acrobatics can easily be mixed together with almost any other circus skill and be a nice spice to juggling, equibrilistics and aerial.

During class. To the left he is attaching himself to the security lines, standing on the tumble run. In the middle there are aerial straps and a trapeze.

I was very excited today when the teacher said that we would try the inflated tumble run. It was bouncy and felt like when you were a child jumping around in one of those jumping castles. I did some handstands forward rolls, rond offs and tried some head springs.

Later, I also tried to do some back flips attached to the security lines. It was scary and I was not close to do it by myself, but were securily catched by the lines. I don't think I did any better, but at least I fought my inner fear of jumping backwards in the air. In many of acrobatics, aerial and other circus skills there is the fear that stops me, and to defeat it I just have to push my limits slowly, which I really felt that I did today!

A cut out from one of the filmed clips of the backflips. 

I did as usual (if there is anything usual with back flips?): tried to overcome my fear by jumping and hope for the best!

Peak district

Last weekend I was very happy to get the chance to visit the Peak district together with my landlady and her boyfriend. We drove there through a beautiful wavy green landscape with nice view to do walking in Castleton.

We started walking along one of the green hillls. It was like I imagined the English countryside with green hills, stone houses and sheep. The road was wet and slippy, but it didn't rain as we started to walk.

These are all picture from when there was nice weather, but as we had walked a little bit more it started to rain. We rested in a cave to eat some sandwiches and hope that the rain would fade out, but instead it started to rain even more. Then we decided to turn around and not continue walking since the road would be quite dangerous to walk on.

To escape the rain we decided to go on the guided tour in Speedway cave, which was very exiting since it was like a combined mine and cave, and since it got flooded as the mine went into the cave system the tour was on a steel boat in the old mine tunnels. I will write more about the cave.

After the visit to the cave we went to eat tea and scones. It was very nice with tea, scones, strawberry jam and whipped cream that was almost like butter, and it was all very English.

On the way back we drove past Chatsworth House which is a big house of the same type as the one in the TV-series Downton Abbey.

It was a nice day trip even though there was a lot of rain that made us change some plans. I highly recommend a visit to the Peak Disctrict and if I got a chance I would like to go there again.