Archive for the 'Circus and Silk' Category

I just finished another project: the Aerial Cube.

Louise and I saw the cube at a circus show last week, and I thought “Hey, I could make one of those!”, and Louise asked “Can you make me one of those?”. So, here it is!

The cube is made out of 1″ tubing that is 1/8″ thick. I bought it at a local metal place – “Sims Metals”.

I cut 45’s with my little Grizzly horizontal bandsaw:

And drilled+tapped some holes into a piece of steel to create a jig to hold the tubes at 90 degrees:

And then welded two separate squares together:

I then notched the four connecting pieces with a 1″ end mill so they would fit “fairly well”. I then MIG welded all the corners together, holding it together with a ratcheting wrap to keep it square. I then sanded it a bit…which got my hands a little dirty.

Louise Aerial Silk at Berkeley Juggling and Unicycle Festival

YouTube version

Louise is performing artistic silk (aerial tissue) at the Berkeley Juggling and Unicycle Festival.

What: Berkeley Juggling and Unicycle Festival Public Show
When: Saturday 09/18, 7:30 PM
Where: King Middle School theater
How Much: $10
Hosted by: Frank Olivier

Show details: http://berkeleyjuggling.org/festival/show.php

(Photo by Ken Adelman)

Come earlier in the day to learn how to unicycle!

Louise and I saw the new Cirque du Soleil show, Kooza, in San Jose last night. It was great!

http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/CirqueDuSoleil/en/showstickets/kooza/intro/intro.htm

The show features a unicycle act; the most impressive part about that act was the fact that it is very difficult to unicycle with someone else holding on to you, and they were doing that while making it look very artistic and flowing.

My favorite part was probably the clowns. They were pretty darn funny, and even made Louise laugh!

We want to go see some of the other shows in Vegas. I’m hoping to make it a double-up trip and visit Red Rocks for some climbing.

I’m getting Louise to give me some Silk lessons in our house. I figured it would be easiest for me to learn by pictures. So, here they are. Click on any picture for a larger image on picasa. This is a simple inverted drop.

• Climb the silk
  
• Place your body in the middle of the silk
  

• Invert, keeping your legs on the outside of the silk (important!)
  
• After inversion, twist both legs around the silk – rotate them towards the outside so the silk comes out the middle of your legs
  
• Keep the silk above your hips, and wrap it (once) around your back and bring it back to the front.
  
• The silk should be held at your belly with one hand firmly holding both silks, and the other slightly atop it
  
• Flip your legs out forward. Be sure the silk is riding on your hips
  
• Hold yourself in place with one hand, and grab a portion of the silk with the other. Don’t grab too much — otherwise you will hit the floor, and grab a smaller portion when you are first learning (a foot or so).
  
• Pull that portion of the silk towards your other hand that is holding the silk. Don’t let the loop of silk go around your arm or anything
  
• The last step set you up for the drop. Simply let go with your hand that is holding you to the silk and you will drop to your other hand (hold on tight!)
  
• To get back up, grab each silk half with each hand at your waste
  
• Move your arms out horizontally, holding tight
  
• Rotate your legs down towards the ground and your body upwards (I have to swing to get this done, as my lower half isn’t as heave as louise):
  
• Super..that’s it.