The Juggling Equipment Blog

I think it’s the best diabolo video I’ve seen for years.

For sure one of the best ever.

The shootings, editing, sound, and above all – TRICKS!!!!

Truly amazing…. I could easily watch 9 more minutes of this guy…

A great collaboration video of some of the world’s current diabolo stars taken from the Rennes convention, France.

Enjoy!

A very nice editing try by Matias.
Hmm.. what else can I say…? watch it?

This review was first posted on the diabolo.ca forum

I sometimes help out Butterfingers at festivals and conventions, I sometimes get the chance to play with some equipment before it makes it onto the market. I haven’t been over to Butterfingers since last year but today I received a package of handsticks in the post and a request to test them and report back. I thought I might as well tell the forum about them as well.

Steph (from Butterfingers) kindly sent me 2 sets of sticks, 1 set of aluminiums (Alu ST 50) and a set of carbons. Here are my initial thoughts.

I’m an ally man at heart so I’ll start with these. They are very similar to the Henrys Aluminiums (that I have used for 5+ years) with a few tweaks.

Mr. Babache Aluminium Sticks

They come in the usual Babache packaging of a plastic sleeve with an instruction sheet and 1 length of Babache coloured string.
They seem to be improving the instructions these days, they have some handy little hints on what knots to use, how to deal with the excess string and a hint about what to do about knicks. All fairly obvious stuff really but still not a bad idea if you realise that it’s not allways hardcore diaboloists buying these products. I might slightly disagree with the lengths of string advised for different numbers of diabolos but it’s nice to point out that diaboloists do use different lengths of strings (no more 4′ high kids with 6′ long strings )

When I first saw a picture of these sticks I was a bit worried by the look of the handles, they looked pretty chunky but now I’ve tried them they’re not that huge. The handles feel a touch chunkier than the Henrys allys but feel better and smoother than the Babache ‘classic’ foam grips. (IMHO)
The grips sat in my hands well, I hold sticks pretty lightly and these contoured grips lock into my palm and the skinny bit feels like it will stop slippages and prove useful when catching an inverted stick (suicides etc). The ends of the grips extend further than the internal metal bit so no more ‘donk’ when the end hits the ground.
The Mr B line on the grips is ‘Ergonomic handle for little and big hands’ – I’m looking at them more as a grown up and someone who looks at props in detail but the 10/11 year old beginners who used these sticks at todays workshops seemed to find them comfortable enough.

The method of string adjustment is similar to the Henrys method. Where as Henrys have an angled hole to insert the string the Babache ones have the hole drilled in at 90 deg with a secondary slot at an angle. It’s a small change in the design but a useful one. I like to have my string rotating if possible. It usually takes some messing about with a lighter or a worry about a slim knot pulling through but I got spinning string first go with these (with chubby Mr B string). The slot also makes getting the string out again nice and handy.

For those that care about these kind of things, the balance and grip size etc. feel pretty nice for flipping and twiddling

I didn’t have any Henrys allys with me to compare in general use today at work but to me they felt pretty similar. I haven’t done a side by side check for size/weight etc but here are the stats from the packaging.

Length 32cm
dia 7mm
weight 30 grms/pce

(online non Henrys stats for Henrys Allys = 33cm long 86g/set)

Colours, silver with white or black handles
anodised to be released later(?)

Pretty cool sticks, Think I’ll be using these a lot.

Mr. Babache Carbon Sticks

I first tried these at the EJC. They seemed nice enough to me then although I’m only an occasional user on plastic sticks.
I think Mr B has done a long run of testing with these so hopefully they come to market with the kinks worked out.
I don’t own any Henrys Carbons so I’m comparing these with Henrys Fibres and Sundia Carbons.

The grips are the same as you find on their Alu ST so no real problems there,
they are a touch shorter than Henrys shorts and the tubing is to my eyes a touch thinner.

The 2 main ways in which these sticks differ from other carbons is the use of a screw end cap to attach the string and the the use of a solid carbon rod thru the length of the stick within a protective sleeve. I’m hoping the use of a solid carbon rod reduces the chance of snapping. The sleeve appears to be a touch harder than the sleeve on my fibres.

Attaching the string was a doddle, I got nice rotating string and the end caps appear to be an improvement on the energy/xtreme versions.
I thought I might get some string hangups but so far I haven’t really.

On a flex front, they are less flexy than the fibres but not as stiff as the Sundias. I’m guessing they might be between Henrys Carbon and fibres for stiffness.

They play nice enough. Sit well in my hand and behave like other plastic sticks of a similar size. The cheap part of me likes the fact that I won’t be wasting the extra string other sticks have running thru the middle. Also I won’t be worrying about having the knot pulling thru into the tubing.
Time will tell about how they last lonterm but I haven’t felt like I should be nursing them. I’l see about finding somebody at the juggling club who might have some thoughts about how they measure up to the old school sticks and report back.

They grind really nice and smoothly for those who like that kind of thing.

They come with a length of Mr. Babache string and decent instructions with tips for which knots to use, use of teflon tape if you get loose ends with protacted use, advice on string length etc.

From the packaging
Length 34cm
Dia (shaft) 7mm, tip 9.5mm
Weight 30 grms/pce

(online non Henrys stats for Henrys carbon short = 35cm long 62g/set)

Colours
Classic: all black, all white.
Contrast: white and black, black and white.
Color Classic: orange or yellow shaft, black or white handles
(white, yellow and orange shafts UV reactant)

Progress report – written a couple of months after the initial review

No real news on the durability. I haven’t broke them yet but tbh I tend to use ally sticks most of the time so I haven’t given them an intense workout.

I brought them to the BJC and let people have a go of both sets.
People all seem a bit weary of the carbons but seemed happy enough about the feel. Carbon users sometimes commented on the light feel. One or two didn’t like the idea of the tip compared to the more in line Henrys version but to be fair they are different sticks and some people might prefer to have the lip for certain moves.

The Alu’s seemed to go down better. people seemed to like the idea of the string slot and liked the lighter feel. No one has bent them yet but that’s because we are so good in England
I can’t see an obvious reason for them being any more or less liable to bend than Henrys.

I got a slight knick in the end but nothing that wouldn’t have happened with other aluminium sticks, easy fix plus the packaging explains what to do in this case anyway (which is a good thing).

A gaming, natural and spiritual diabolo journey by Chris Garcia (aka Draco Dragon).

Great locations and great new tricks with no diabolo sticks!

I wonder what these kids find out next….. maybe invisible diaboloing…….?

Enjoy!

Two Spanish guys meets in Vlladolid to do some diaboloing… Enjoy

After quite a lot of work we finally have our new T-shirt design ready. All you diabolo players out there will probably like it. It will be the first T-shirt in a new line designed by eLena from TheBlackAndWhiteCat. The theme behind the whole line will be “this juggling equipment could also be”, as is evident in the first diabolo/butterfly T-shirt.
We have still not decided on the final color schemes. And we were hoping you could all help us out. Details will be revealed soon. Very Soon!

Read the rest of this entry →

Great great great new diabolo video.

A group of the French Jongle diabolo forum members collaborated in order to create some innovation.

Super (in a French accent)!

We have decided to add another weekly category to our blog! as you can see it holds the name of sites and sights and it will feature on a weekly basis sites and sights (duh) from the world wide web that might interest the average juggling Joe.

And to kick off the category we are featuring a site that every diabolo lover already knows – diabolo.ca

diabolo.ca is a site that is dedicated solely to diabolo – yes, diabolo and nothing else.

Upon entering you will reach the blog page that is updated on a non-regular basis. The real power of the site lies in the small link in the upper area – forum. The diabolo.ca forum is probably the biggest and most active diabolo forum on the web with hundreds of active users discussing and sharing diabolo love and knowledge.

I have always had a problem with juggling forums, because their largest drawback is that juggling is something that has to be done and not written about (says me while writing about juggling…) Many juggling forums i know don’t draw the crowds because of that reason.

But diabolo.ca is different, mainly because the active participants are sharing their knowledge in the form of diabolo videos, featuring the latest innovations from all over the world. They have, just like us on this blog, a video of the week featuring every week the best video that users have uploaded to the forum. The really good one make it to the front page.

here is how they describe their site:

“Diabolo.ca began in 2003 as a site to host Sean’s personal videos. In November 2004, a group of diaboloists, unsatisfied with the current lack of international communication, started the diabolo.ca forum.

4 years later, at over 2,400 members, 3,400 topics, and 60,000 posts, the forum has become the world’s most active diabolo forum and a wealth of knowledge for any topic related to the diabolo.

We envision the forum as an all inclusive place for diaboloists from around the world to share their videos, inspire each other, and announce meetings.”

So, if diabolo is what you love doing most or even if you never picked one up in your life, we recommend you check out diabolo.ca

First diabolo video for the video of the week!

The french diabolist, Nicolas Pires, has made a beautiful video where he’s diaboloing around the world.
At the beginning it reminded me the Where the Hell is Matt videos.

The technical level is not among the highest in the world, but combining it with the wonderful sights and locations of Portugal, Brazil, Hungary, England makes it very interesting.
Other than the previous countries, most of the footage was done in his home country France, and more specifically – Paris.

So once again – great effort, and I hope to see more places and tricks in his next videos!

like it? please let us know what you think – comment…