Mangoes

So first, a couple things from the IJA fest in Reno. I didn't shoot any video there, but I wanted to mention here a couple of the things I would have posted clips of if I'd been taping.

I beat my previous 5-club record of 40 catches, with 48 catches. The week after I got back from Reno, I got 49, and then later in that session 47. Since then I've had several runs in the 30s, and maybe two or three runs in the 40s. Qarin says I'm not breathing, so that's probably part of my problem. I need to figure out how to breathe, and then maybe one of these days I'll make a major breakthrough and get 80 catches or something. :)

Meanwhile, I continue to be baffled by how popular the LCM-4,3 is. Several different people in Reno asked me to teach it to them. I guess it must have to do with advanced club passers wanting interesting patterns that they can do with less advanced passers. But it's just such a weird and inelegant pattern, I really didn't figure it would catch on like it has. Which granted isn't that much, but still...

One guy (Jason, maybe? from New Hampshire, maybe?) and I figured out and did the Compressed LCM-4,3. This is one of the -- if not the -- silliest, most pointless patterns ever. Basically, we were each doing the LCM-4,3 but with the two feedees compressed into one person. So in some sense, we're simultaneously doing a 4-count and a 3-count, but it certainly doesn't feel like that. It just feels like a random sequence of 12 counts. I think our best run was over two cycles.

Okay, so now, video clips from Stanford on July 30th. (I'm not doing a very good job of catching up here, am I?)

We worked a bit on "Me in the Middle", which is one of our better performance patterns. It's simple enough that we can usually nail it on the first try, and it looks cool. We'd never taped it before, so we hadn't in fact ever seen it, and in fact it does look pretty cool. Here it is.

Large - 17 MB Medium - 6.4 MB Small - 3.9 MB

Then we invented two new patterns, the Inside and Outside Mangoes. Basically, we stand in a feed formation, but we actually juggle a 1-count triangle. So in the Outside Mango, which we did first, Rick and I are juggling a little cascade between our inside hands, while Martin is just feeding us a regular outside 1-count feed. This worked pretty well... Here's a run of 13 cycles.

Large - 31 MB Medium - 12 MB Small - 6.4 MB

Then we started talking about whether it would be possible to do an inside version. Initially, this seemed insane -- way too many possible collisions. But we tried it, and managed to get it working pretty well. Rick and Martin are doing a cascade between their outside hands, and I'm feeding their middle hands. All the clubs' paths are crossing two other clubs' paths. Due to all these crossings, we think it looks more interesting than the other one. But unfortunately, it still looks best from right in the pattern. Here's a run of 7 cycles.

Large - 14 MB Medium - 5.2 MB Small - 3.1 MB

Three more weeks of footage to post...

Posted by neilfred at August 24, 2003 06:36 PM