Who here can do this? While looking at the Uniques Unicycling Club website, I saw some pictures of a guy juggling cigar boxes. Does it require the same skills as regular juggling? I’ve seen a guy perform at a renaissance festival, and it looks to be different than standard juggling. He told me it requires a lot of leg strength from dipping to grab the boxes. Looks real cool, and fun to do.
Re: Cigar Box Juggling
I have dabbled with cigar boxes. They are quite a bit of fun. I don’t find leg strength to be as much of a problem as arm strength and soreness in the hands. Cigar boxes require a lot of shoulder movement and a constantly adjusting firm grip. Really a different set of skills from juggling.
There are a few resources on the Internet Juggling DB. There was also a fellow at the Univ of Victoria who had what he called An Encyclopedia of Cigar Boxes which consisted of excellent videos of a wide variety of moves. Unfortunately this link is dead, but I’ve emailed him to find out when and if it will return.
This page has a video of a fellow named Charlie Brown doing some good cigar box moves.
Some more videos of someone I’m not familiar with.
There used to be a video at Belfast Juggling of an amazing routine by a brilliant performer named Kris Kremo. It included ball juggling, and hat and cigar box manipulation. It too seems to be gone, but if I can locate where it’s been moved to I’ll let you know.
Cheers,
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
Cool, thanks. I checked out those links when you posted them before, some cool videos in there.
Do you find that cigar box juggling differs or is basically the same as regular juggling? It appears to require a different set of skills, but I’ve been told being good it’s all essentially the same.
I think that the ability to juggling in general stands one in good stead when attempting related skills, but that overall they are in no way essentially the same. See my (brief) comments above.
Hope you enjoy.
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
Thanks for the info. I’m lousy at throwing, but I’m considering ordering some cigar boxes for something to do in my free time during the day. It’s way to hot to practice unicycling in the day, I wait until late at night.
I’ve juggled for years, but just took up the cigar boxes about a year ago after watching Charlie Brown’s amazing work at the Portland juggling festival. It really does use a different set of muscles from standard juggling, but the skills compliment.
Not sure if you have any access to real cigar boxes, but it’s not that hard to make a set if you can find three similar sized wooden boxes. I got three from a local cigar store, bought a couple bucks worth of micro-thin foam from a craft store, then trimmed the foam to cover the ends of the boxes, using duct tape to both seal the box and tape the foam on. They work fine.
If you want some good durable cheap ones, the Beard plastic ones shown here aren’t bad: Cigar Boxes for Cigar Box Juggling & Manipulation: Serious Juggling
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