Difficulty: Easy

Safety Warning: Always check with a parent before claiming a tomato or other food item for practicing contact juggling…

Els shows us how to practice one of the basics of contact juggling, contact ball isolations. This technically simple but visually effective trick is great because you can practice it with whatever round object you have at home. Ideally use some sort of ball, but otherwise anything works! If you have a ball that looks the same all over, this will help with the illusion of the ball floating as it’s harder to see that the ball is actually slowly spinning.

Contact ball isolations are achieved by moving your hands over a ball to make it look like the ball is staying suspended in mid air, and your hands are just moving around it. Els shows us how to use an ‘incy wincy spider’ motion to turn the ball over and over, using fingers and the thumb of the opposite hand. Keep the ball in roughly the same place at all times to get that ‘floating’ illusion!

It takes some practice to get the illusion right, but you’ll get there! Practice in front of a mirror, or show a family member (without telling them the trick!).

Once you’ve learned the basics of contact juggling, you’ll be able to create more optical illusions to wow your audience!

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