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Flourishes:
I
think the simplest flourishes are when you just wave the club about
in a solid grip whilst doing 2-in-one-hand for one (or maybe more)
beats with the other hand... It's certainly worth practicing this to
start with, to get the feel of the timeslot into which a flourish
can fit---start by just holding the club still while doing 2-in-one
with the other hand for 1 or 2 beats, before back into a regular
(preferably slow) cascade. It is probably best to give the first
two-in-one-hand throw a double spin (otherwise it has to be high and
slow).
The
most common flourish I've seen starts to involve through-the-fingers
work, so I would recommend first learning some elementary baton
twirling moves with a devilstick (or even a baton!), to get the
feel.
Anyway, whether or not you are prepared in these respects, the (for
want of a better name) common flourish goes like this:
- a)
Catch the club in a pencil grip (hand bent back, thumb to inside
of body), so that the handle is closer to the thumb/fingers than
the wrist
- b)
Using the forefinger (which should be over the top of the club
body), push the body forward and down, starting the club's
rotation in this direction (practice slowly first to see what's
happening, then speed up to feel the momentum (which eventually
will be doing all the work for you)
- c)
As the body end of the club starts to loom towards you, your hand
should be drawn round with it till nearly palm-upwards (thumb on
outside now) The club is between thumb and forefinger, still
rotating the same way (forwards rotation).
- d)
rather than let it spring out of your grip, let the body-end fall
between forefinger and second finger (ie index and middle!), and
it will loose contact with the thumb.
- e)
At this point the two fingers need to retain enough grip to hold
the club, but be flexible enough to follow it round for another
360 degrees rotation (in fact the hand naturally rotates back to
same orientation as the catch during this). The wrist has to move
a fair bit. (I found this last step is best practiced with a
straight stick, as the tapered club is more awkward to deal with)
- f)
After the second rotation (should be 720 degrees in all), the club
is trapped by the 2nd/3rd/4th fingers, which stop it spinning, and
you can then get back into a club-throwing grip (ie the club falls
out from between the fingers and into palm) ready to go back to
cascade or whatever.
And
that's all there is to it!!
This
move is basically the beginnings of through-the-fingers twirling,
and you can add another half-spin per finger used, and maybe even go
back though the fingers the other way (I wimp out of describing all
this in detail!)
There
are lots of other flourishes, but I don't know many of them! What I
do do is flourish-like throws in which the club is spun in various
ways (usually double spin) and caught in the same hand, in the style
of a flourish. One I discovered recently is closely related to the
above description, except that the initial pencil grip is used to
flick the club into a _reverse_ double spin, and then caught in a
club-passing style catch---the club does all its flourishing in mid
air (and looks good if you can send it up parallel to one of the
other clubs, which is doing a regular double spin)
Anyway, given a flourish, next is the question of where to fit it
into patterns (passing patterns as well of course...). Site-swappers
will probably just need to try changing even-numbered throws into
flourishes (a 2 might be hectic, try a 4 first??)
I
think I've just worked out that my usual flourish (3-club) pattern
is a ...4440... siteswap, the second 4 being the flourished club
(maybe it should be written ...4F4F..., where the F indicates the
hand is doing part of a flourish?)
As
for which tricks look good with flourishes, I would say that the
average audience would consider it a trick in itself!
Tips
courtesy of Mark Tillotson.
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