I started seriously practising with my spongeballs today and it looks like I've got myself a new hobby But I keep wondering... are the things you can do with them really as limited as appearing/vanishing/multiplying? I should guess not, but where do I start searching for more? Which books/dvds/whatever?

(Yes, I know, I should learn to make them appear/vanish/multiply first, but I'm just curious )

You can cut them in half, make them grow, turn into sponge bunnies, turn a ball into a square... etc.

HOWEVER... as my old friend and mentor used to say... "Don't get greedy with a principle."

Find out what you can do with them that YOUR AUDIENCES LIKE...

Pat Page put out a DVD on spongeballs. Highly recommended.

Doug

I agree. It's the best I've seen.

No. There are a variety of sponges of different colors, sizes and shapes that can be used for transformations. Ball to square, to bunny and several others.

Just be careful when you are developing your routine to know when to stop. There are thousands of things possible with sponge balls. Don't do them all at once. It can be as boring as a 15 minute cups and balls routine.

I love sponge balls.

As it tuns out, sponge balls are mathematical geniuses. They can add, subtract, multiply and divide. They can also find the square root.

In response to various environmental changes they can expand, contract, and even change colors! If you leave them in the refrigerator they'll turn blue.

If you scare them, they'll turn yellow, tell them how much you love sponge balls and they'll blush pink. But if you start practicing your cups and balls, they might turn green with envy!

Cheers

Thanks everybody! I guess I was right in thinking my assumption was quite wrong

I really do like the idea about the colours. I was thinking about colour-changing spongeballs, but if they change with a reason it's so much more fun.

Just to add a funny thing that happened yesterday... I had some simple moves I thought I'd be able to do, so I tried a bit of a routine I'm developing on my boyfriend. He knows how it's done, so he's a great test-audience (well, on the other hand he sees absolutely everything because he knows where to look, but still).

So, I started like 'you know, it would be nice to do something with spongeballs, but I don't have any....' and after that I start finding them in strange places, multiplying them, have him multiply some, etcetera. But after having found four spongeballs, I haven't got anything to continue with yet. So actually I don't seem to *do* anything when I've found those sponges I was looking for.

Now what I thought was quite funny -my boyfriend didn't even notice I stopped before I actually started doing something with them. I guess I learned something out of that...

Get a copy of The Sponge Book by Frances Marshall. It's not expensive, and it has a wealth of good material in it.

If you can read German, you are in luck. The best sponge ball book is Frank Garcia's Encyclopedia of Sponge Ball Magic. The English edition is very expensive -- $200 to $400 or even more. The German edition is fairly inexpensive.

I use a routine that David Lindgreen from Denmark made, don't know if it's printed in english ! But the routine is this

Make a SP appear in hand
Make it disappear
Make it appear from neck
Cut it in 2
Let him choose one
Make the other ball travel from your hand to his
Put one in pocket, and suddenly have 2 in hand
Make them disappear
And for a final load, spectator blow on 2hand fist and a potato falls out.

People are stunned when they see this !

:D

They would be even more stunned, if a stone fell out and landed on their head!

LOL