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!