Altogether I haven't really been juggling extensively for three months but now after a long time i have started up again and i work on some of Dan's p.k.a Barnaby's juggling feats . 7 years ago i got Dan's DVD and fortunately Dan has given me priceless Feedback and helped me with some of his signature tricks. I even got the measurements for his Transfer sticks a Japanese trick called 'Daiogoru'
Unfortunately I had to work in my day job from 2014 to 2019 and did not work enough on perfecting my comedy and some of his tricks, which he even volunteered to help me with. As a physical Education teacher i sometimes worked on spinning two balls at the same time before class. Dan said quite clearly he would like someone to keep his show and his tricks alive. Did he know in 2013 he was going to die so soon? We will never know, but i asked him how he would feel if I used some of his comedy lines for my act and he was like.."Well, if you call your first born Dan I'm fine with it." Then he added. No one else is using my lines so you go ahead if it helps you to be a female comedy juggler on cruise ships. And by the way i have never heard of a female comedy juggler on cruise ships. But you gotta learn my technique! But I ended up not practicing hard enough to perfect his technique to perfection like he did- So when i did my first cruise in the Bahamas I felt funny using some of his lines and dumbed down Barnaby tricks. I included some of my notes on what he said in regards tricks and practice. For a full rotation under the elbow he said it's important keep the elbow close to the body, bring the elbow down and get a smooth flow on the whole movement. These are the 5 Steps:
Turn your wrist
Drop your
wrist
Rotate arm
around the ball
Lift ball
directly up
Turn wrist
out
A hint from Dan: try to
drop it straight down with little movment side to side rotate arm around ball
Lift the
ball straight up
Try to keep
the ball in a direct vertical line
Then turn
wrist out
Instantly after a few tries it worked. For the ball on a stick trick, an audience participation trick with a child that holds a stick he said i should put a stick on a chair and practice placing a ball on it. I practice it like that now, but it's 7 years later. His ideas on practice were 3 hours a day plus one small practice for an hour at home. he was quite meticulous and well prepared, so I am trying to stick to that as much as it is possible. And it's weird when i watched his DVD i cried. I would like to add that he gave me a good tip in regards to the transfer trick. It's like a click when the second stick is in line with the first and it forms a triangle then you bring your head back to transfer the ball. I said to fellow Comedy Juggler Steve Rawlings that i found it sad that he died alone... The only thought that makes it less painful is that I believe he had some nieces and nephews and he was quite fond of them. Dan also really enjoyed force bouncing and said i should learn 5 ball force bounce, something i finally learnt when i worked with Christian Clock on the feat at Atlanta Groundhog in 2019 and some help from John Nations. I am not working on the cigarette tricks as of yet, and i do not know if i will but i feel quite confident that i will master all his other tricks, since his voice still rings in my ears-sometimes during practice although its 7 years ago.
