Tony Duncan is the father of contact juggling in Japan. He was teaching and performing these techniques in the country before most people had even heard of Michael Moschen. He won an IJA Gold medal with a one ball contact juggling act in 1994, which included an over-the-head roll and other bodyrolling/butterfly techniques which he had been working on since the late 70’s. Dawn recently returned from TurboFest in Quebec, and she brought back this great clip of his uniquely excellent palmspinning style.
When I joined the forums @ contactjuggling.org in 2001, there was a collection of user submitted videos from the ‘early days of contact juggling…’ back when people were still trying to figure out minor variations on Moschen’s crystal ball routine. But amongst the collection of clips was a collection of 5 files from a Japanese user named Aotaku. I compiled the clips and released them HERE. The Aotaku videos showed some highly advanced multiball techniques using 2.5mm silicon balls, including separated 3ball palmspinning and other variations that were far more technically advanced than anything else available on the site at the time. Aotaku dissapeared completely, and there was no way to get more info on this rare and beautiful palmspinning style. All we had was 5 clips, and each file was named “palmspinning4tonyduncan1.mpg, palmspinning4tonyduncan2.mpg, etc…
Now it makes sense.
Tear-jerkingly good and incredibly daunting. Holy crap, Tony.
Tony’s my hero.
hero!
TONY DUNCAN IS THEEE BEST!!!!!
A video like this has been long overdue. Thank you sooo much!!! 😀
LIKE!!!1! how do i tick the like button? Thank you.
It’s really not fair that he can do this AND blind toss juggle so well (blind one up pirouettes and back crosses with those same silis).
Tony Ducan, you showed me most of these tricks in Carmins-school (New-York) during the spring of 2001. I remember very well how it was impressive for me because it was with silicon balls (the mix of the 3 balls in one hand !!! ). Second memory : Tony, you were not so proud about what you were doing… Perhaps that it was an impression or perhaps that you were already thinking about stage and you did’nt know how to present it in show ? I have this problematic for some tricks that I parctice now.
Anyway, your work gave me great motivation for practice at this time ; so thank you.
a Very sweet style! quite pleasing to the eye.
I saw much of this in 1990 from Masahiro Mizuno, who won an honorary award in 1993. Sadly, there isn’t any video in digital format that I can reference. He is the true father of silicone contact in Japan.
Remember first seeing Tonys beautiful routine on an IJA video and was tremedously inspired then….delighted to see this clip and was a real master in action. Thank you.