We recently acquired a digital camera (Canon S410) and today my daughter took a short video of me doing one of my favorite tricks with a hat & cane.
Be forewarned, it is poor quality, poorly lit, lacking in videographic technique, and I didn’t really warm up. It’s 17 seconds, 3.4 MB, and in .avi format. But it’s a first and I love it. 
Enjoy,
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
that looks very neat.
is something like that alot harder than chin balancing at all? Or is the chin balancing the deciding factor on that trick?
its hard enough chucking something onto something thats balanced on ur chin, i one did it with a longer pole and chucked the ball on top, took me three goes to get it and ive never done it since lol. Balancing a club on the chin and juggleing is still a mystery to me.
Trev
I started working on this trick after I had the balance down reasonably solidly. But to start out, I held the cane in place on my chin and got the feel of tossing the hat up. Within a few days I was hitting one out of twenty or so. After two and half years of working on this trick I still have days where I’m one out of five. But for the most part I can reliably hit it. On the rare occasion that I perform I get it two out of three times on the first toss and take two tosses for the the third attempt.
I think, yes, the ability to hold a balance indefinitely is key, but the handling of the hat matters as well.
What frustrates me most is that I’ve been working on it for such a long time and still can not consistently place the hat in position for a clean drop onto my head.
After two years I’m now able to juggle while balancing a cane for quite a while (I managed 247 catches today). I can do it with a club for 50+ catches. But this trick, like 5 balls, is simply a matter of perseverance. You’ve got to keep looking up at the balance. Once you try to use vision other than your peripheral to see the juggle, the whole thing collapses. The will to trust yourself to manage the juggle without looking is what makes this trick take so long to master.
I read recently of a juggler, unfortunately named Semen Kratchinov, who can juggle 7 balls and toss them up to cups at the end of a pole balanced on his chin all while idling on a unicycle.
That’s balance!
Cheers,
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
Hey JJuggle!
Your new footer made me have a look at your website, so today I discoverd trickswithhats.org.
Usefull: since I last week ordered a new hat from Nils from Danmark. He now produces a new model. It has a flat top, and with a funny side, a bit cartoonlike like. And still that great strong quality for jugglers. I’m planning to practice on rainy days.
WOO HOO! AWESOME! Now let’s see it on a unicycle!
trickswithhats.org is a great site. I’m in fairly regular contact with the two fellows who produce it. Both excellent jugglers and manipulators. The videos on their site are short and to the point. Great for learning all sorts of hat moves.
The hat I use in the video is a Nils Poll Manipollator. Let me know how you like your hat when you get it.
Thanks. That is actually something I’m working on. I think it should take at least a year or so. 
Cheers,
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ