Yeah, that's the thing about working with balls. Sometimes the routine dictates the size of the balls. Not all moves are good to use. Even small hands can learn to manage larger balls if the routine is designed to keep everything deceptive. But when it creates problems, a smaller ball may be the answer.

Or you can eliminate moves that can't be done with large billiard balls.

Levent

I think it becomes a matter of learning the moves to form a foundation for which to build a manipulative routine. Once you know these moves and have them down, you can then go about sequencing them together to make for the best entertainment value for the audience you are creating it for. Sometimes this means taking out harder moves because it just does not make sense to the natural flow of the routine. You have to learn to be adpative.

You also must be willing to not place in 500 moves just because you have learned 500 moves. The hardest part for any manipulator is knowing when enough is enough to tell and convey what needs to be conveyed on stage. Over the years my own ball routine has become really much more minimalistic in nature. However, the entertainment value is still there.

Kyle

Good point Levent. Learning to kill your darlings is a valuable lesson and a huge step forward for the manipulator.

Kyle, you are correct, and I'd like to further point out that stage manipulative routines are not alone in the overkill department. Ambitious Card routines, and Cups and Balls are some that I can think of off the top of my head that are invariably longer than need be.

Absolutely. It falls in to the philosophy that I have that we as magicians end up falling in love with the moves of our craft. So much so that when it comes time to create a routine we forget that we are performing for the audience and end up creating an act or routine that is mainly performing for ourselves. It happens all the time and can be seen in many magic shows and acts.

It is hard to take what you love to do and say to yourself that I should not put this into the act because it just is not needed. But that is what we must learn to do. It is ok to love the technique and moves of our craft. We just have to remember that they are tools and as tools, we need to use the right ones to build the perfect act for the audiences we perform for.

Kyle

One can always save those excess moves for a separate routine, if desired.

After learning the basic moves, I found that creating my own routine wasn't so much as putting together the moves I knew, but figuring out how to make the plot I wanted to create actually work, as such 'new' moves were made and old bits get rejected and twisted. It's more about thinking what kind of visual you want to create, and what story you want to tell.
I use the Shimada 4-1-4-1-2-3-4 kind of plot in the middle of my routine. I like the way that once I've produced a handfull (which involves a lot of vanishes and transpositions along the way), the audience thinks it's amazing and clap, and then I show that actually my magic is even greater than they thought, the four go down to one, and back to four, and then they go up to eight really very quickly, but still producing one at a time, but with no more vanishes after that. It's hard to explain but it's the start of the huge cresendo to the finalle after a playful opening. I guess it's like taking 3 steps back for a run up. And incidently, for various reasons I don't have a shell, but can still do 4-1-4 with a bit of thinking, and my balls are 48mm wood, I reckon it could be done with even larger balls, but I've never had the oppertunity to try.
I don't think a serious student of balls can afford to not study what Shimada has done.
Paul

As many great things as we can say about his billiard balls, I must say (only being honest) that I really am not crazy about his thimble stuff. The 10 thimble finish is nice, but everything else on the video is neither smooth nor natural looking.

Forrest Chapman

Joe Mogar has some nice moves for thimbles if you are looking into that.

Kyle

I love Joe.

Oh, the 10 thimble finalle with the bag... he talks about an English magician he heard of doing it with a paper bag... I'm almost certain that that English magician would be Geoffrey Buckingham, and he teaches that in one of his books... not sure which...
Paul