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:

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.

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.