One of the routines I’m working on for my school assembly tour next month is a ball manipulation sequence. It’s going to use sponge tennis balls. I’m choosing these because them fit the theme I’m going for AND they play very big. For the routine I need to steal two balls, one at a time. I don’t want to do pocket steals, and they look bad on stage, the work better close up.
Years ago when I used to do a multiplying balls, my routine had a body steal and I used this holder:
This one is great and it lays flat after you steal the ball. However stealing a sponge ball is a little different that stealing a ball that is solid. So to experiment, I bought several different styles of ball droppers to play with:
After trying them, I think the winner is the Sponge Ball Dropper!
This has a couple advantages over the other ball droppers, mainly that it’s designed to hold sponge, and not a solid ball. I like the release action being a squeeze and not a pulling motion. Also it completely hides the sponge ball when it’s in my coat, so if my coat opens, you don’t see a bunch of colorful balls pinned to the inside.
My worry about things that have moving parts is that if it breaks and needs repair while I’m on the road, it might not be easy to fix or get another one. I’ll probably travel with a couple of normal billiard ball droppers as back ups and hope I won’t need them.
-Louie