This week, MoM, has launched its multi-squadrillion pound, international advertising campaign to promote the high fibre goodness of our book Multiball Contact.

By Playpoi Nick, with assistance from Ronan and G. Thanks guys. Laughs.

Multiball Contact can help slimming only as part of a calorie controlled diet, may contain traces of nuts.

News Flash:
Play Juggling just phoned us to announce that the new Sil-X 100mm is now in production.

The Ministry are super excited about these as we were involved in their development, and had the first 2 pre-production prototypes in November.
Drew developed his dream ball, then handed it over to J9 and Ed for testing and refinement.*

Review coming soon, but the pre-review says: Buy one. If you are into 1 ball contact juggling especially body rolling, this thing can double your consistency!

*Nope, we don’t get any money for it, but, like you we do get to play contact with a lovely ball.

Starring: Maksim Komaro, Ville Walo and special guest appearance by Jay Gilligan. (OMG, Legends!)

Ok, let’s have a look at the box. Hmmm… recorded in 2000… my mind immediately thinks Old School. maybe this won’t be so interesting…

Now that I finally worked out how to use that ancient piece of machinery, the “VCR” I can sit and watch this. (To be fair, it is an OLD copy that i borrowed from Drew)

ok, Let’s go.

This video is Brilliant, with a capital ‘B’. I’d probably use smily faces to dot the ‘I’s as well.

very much a toss juggling video. with a few contact tricks thrown in for good measure, but thrown in CLEVERLY. not just filling space, but they fit in there, you know? The video is made up of lots of sketches. this works. I don’t get bored watching the same background again and again, the same situation, there’s variation in more than just the way the balls are moving or being thrown. IT STILL HAS MY ATTENTION AFTER TEN MINUTES!! which I must say, every other DVD I have watched has failed to keep my full, constant attention.

the backgrounds are fun and vibrant, with a very cartoony feel to them. There’s a nice mixture of outside filming, home video and studio shots, but, get this, a studio with a decent set! the Sketches give us the feeling we’re following Maksim and Ville during a normal day. Hurrah. a story, and it’s educational! Win! the sketches change between tutorial format, and busting out some crazy sh*t in a web video style, to more lighthearted juggling comedy sketch: Things like bounce juggling in a toilet cubicle, and accidentally dropping one down the pan…

the teaching style… Most of the teaching is in an ‘inspiration’ format. there is a lot of Maksim and Ville hanging out in various places and showing off some amazing stuff. during the tutorial structured sections, we first see the trick with one ball for a little while, then the second ball added in… then the third. uses different coloured balls so you can see what each ball is doing easily. complete with slow-mo shots, very useful. feels crammed into a small place, but useful. I guess this is gonna stop us from trying to copy exactly the examples given, instead of playing around and discovering for ourselves. either that, or they plan to wear out the forward and backward mechanism on my already frail VCR. Titles are always popping up, ready to tell us the name of a move.

one thing that does distract from the tutorial, is whenever Maksim is teaching something, Ville is always somewhere, doing some crazy or silly stuff that grabs you by the eyes and won’t let go. There is a lot of stuff in this video that is a case of watch again and again and try to copy, without any explanations or details being given. examples here are things like head rolls, rolling around the floor with headrolls (Ville, Insane!!) some complicated body throws. But hey, this video is gonna last, and be watched again and again. The short routines done by the artists gradually progress in difficulty, climaxing with some really tight and mind blowing juggling from these members of the juggling hall of fame. Maksim’s last routine is exceptionally good.

The Material. Oh. My. God. this will keep any juggler busy for YEARS. And I really do mean YEARS. from the basic three ball cascade all the way up to insane stuff i can’t even begin to comprehend. we have toss tricks, siteswaps, headrolls, bounce juggling, body throws, arm rolls, catches, starts… All it’s missing are things like body and footcatches. The section of combining 3ball toss and arm rolling is particularly interesting for contact jugglers. The appearances of Jay Gilligan are done very well and fit the style beautifully, and add an extra bit of fun to the video. the high level of skill from these jugglers means that the tricks are done in a style that shows control, and comfort doing these difficult manipulations. No fumbled tricks here!

It’s easy to see some thought and care went into the production of this video. Well made, well put together, well presented. There’s a written breakdown (a contents list) of the tricks available from HERE to make life just that little bit easier. yay!

video gets a 8.5/10 from me. Would be a ten out of ten, but I feel it could give a few more handy hints along the way. Way higher rating than I thought it would get, when I first looked at the box. An oldy, but a goody too. Goes to show, don’t judge a juggling video by it’s cover!

This is now available in DVD format, from www.peapot.net and all good juggling stores. I say, a good investment.

Previously posted: About Chinlone on Mystic ball site.
Chinlone on the ministry. Pre-review & DVD announcement.

“It’s your typical boy meets ball love story.” -Mystic Ball the Movie

8 years in the making, Mystic ball was directed by Greg Hamilton from Toronto and tells his personal story of 24 year passion for Chinlone and the first westerner to play Chinlone at the highest level. More than that, Mystic ball tells the story of Chinlone itself, its 1500 year history, its relationship with Buddhism and of the culture of Myanmar where it is the national sport, played so it seems, by almost everyone, of every age, everywhere. Mystic ball also shows the incredible skill and elegance of some of Chinlones greatest players and coaches, including the Dreamlovers team and Su Su Hlaing.

Chinlone has 2 forms, The team style “wein kat” (meaning: circle kick), and the solo/performance style “tapandaing”. Wein kat performances are accompanied by live music, the players improvise to the music, and the musicians improvise with the players. The live atmosphere in those performances made me promise myself that one day I would go to Myanmar watch them.

As with contact and juggling, Chinlone is fantastically difficult, one beautiful moment comes when Greg, after training on his own for 14 years, plays in a circle for the first time; “I sucked.” he says “Even the little kids were better than me!”

The veterans team, left me absolutely speechless. 6 players all 65, 75 and even 85 years old, playing and performing Chinlone.

….Mystic ball will engage you in a beautiful story about the happiness and fulfilment that comes from following ones passion.

Jugglers, manipulators, Poi swingers and contact jugglers who love the combination of object manipulation and dance, will love this film, it gets the Ministry top rating - “Highly recommended”.
Mystic Ball - the Movie official website and order page.
Drew
Nope, we don’t have any commercial ties with Mystic ball DVD - we just like it.

MoM received our copy of Mystic Ball the Movie about Chinlone yesterday. Sorry, no time to write a full review now. Briefly, it’s as good as the web-promo makes it seem that it might be! If you are into Juggling or contact or dance with manipulation - OMG Buy yourself a copy.
Players like Su Su Hlaing, Ko Maung Maung, Aung Soe Moe and Motta, left my jaw on the floor with the elegance of their play and the octogenarian players with 70 years of playing experience ensured that it stayed there.

Bonus: Shipped to UK/Europe it cost only about £18.
Full review next year ;). Also a teaser: we just received some particularly good news for 1 ball contact jugglers. We’re just awaiting some final details, and hope to be able to make an announcement in the next few weeks.

Greg Hamilton has just mailed the Ministry and tells us that his award winning film about Chinlone, Mystic ball the movie, is now available to buy on DVD

Last minute Christmas shopping, this could be the number 1 Contact Jugglers stocking filler of the year (Ok, forth place after a new ball and a copy of Multiball Contact, and the InIsolation DVD…but obviously, you’ve already got those, haven’t you).

The Ministry is now recommending DVDs that it hasn’t even seen! whatever next. We’ll get a review up in a couple of weeks - when our copy has arrived.

Drew - Who is very happy because he’s been waiting 2 years to see this film, which has never yet screened in the UK.

Ooh, a new Staff [Manipulation] the DVD film, produced by Meghan MCP Pike and Steve NX Wilson - who edited the MoM video Foundation 720.

They tell us:

… featuring tonnes of instruction, in which Meg teaches staff in the correct manner as well as an inspiration section with some of the hottest names in European spinning talent.

It’ll come with some desperately hip, self-referential blurb on the back of the DVD, much better than this. But any blurb wouldn’t be complete without some unwarranted hype, so we’ll just say that this DVD is going to more awesome, more action packed, and more informative than everything in life, ever. Meg says: “I’d buy it, if I weren’t making it.”

More info e-mail to: no.tea.no.coffee at googlemail.com.
Or see mcp - firestaff tutorials

Craftparts.com
Wooden balls 3″ = $3.75 4″=$12.90 and 5″=$18.90. Discounts for purchasing more than 10.

Ikea!
“Joddla” Wooden balls.
70mm painted white balls with floral pattern 99p (instore price, reduced from £1.99). and they’re great for learning palmspinning -slightly lighter than acrylic with slightly higher friction, Combine these with a copy of Multiball Contact, and you’ve got a beginners Multiball kit and change from a £20 note. Unbelievable.

Ikea Again
10cm Joddla wooden balls £1.59. Instore price. left.
13cm Joddla £1.99. Lovely for bodyrolling. I have the painted black ball, with a floral pattern carved into it.

Ikea also supply, ball bags, boxes and ball stands - if you look carefully! For the manipulator who needs to accessories with style.
Know any other special offers for CJ? Add links below, to spread them to the masses.

Original Bronze 1920`S Art Deco ‘Athlete’ Figure - eBay

Who’s this chap? from a ~1920-30 bronze sculpture. No artist given, I think its clear to anyone who reads this blog, what he is doing. This auction already ended, but Ministry research continues…
Art Deco and Art Nouveau rock.

The Addicted DVD (previously blogged here, with video clip) is now available online as a free download

Dan Yperman of rec.juggling writes:
At www.circuspla.net/addicted you can find the full DVD and some extras.
Addicted is a Belgian/French juggling project by the people of Shake That, Pol & Freddy, Los Gandanos, Morgan Cosquer and many others.It contains clubs, balls, rings, coin manipulation, shaking and a bunch of silly stuff!

Well worth the download (385mb)

New review posted for Contact balls/practice contact balls/Rigid contact balls.
Summary: Highly Recommended: You need one, better than a 4″ stage ball for 1 Ball Contact.
Ed and Drew are at the awesome Bristol juggling convention this week.

A good friend of the Ministry, Alex from the brilliant Ockham’s Razor Aerial Theater wrote to us linking to these glossy yellow vinyl electrical stickers warning against the dangers of isolation.

£4.50 for a pack of 100 via The Label People. I think I need a couple hundred, myself