ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 8, 1996 TAG: 9601100086
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH COX SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
No batteries, no wires, no joy stick, no step-by-step assembly instructions. As a matter of fact, the newest playground/bus stop/after-school activity fad is as simple - with origins as old - as the old-fashioned standbys of jump rope, dodge ball and hopscotch.
Kids call the game juggling sticks, rhythm sticks, devil sticks and even flower sticks - but it's all the same thing: one long stick with padded, graduated ends, and two smaller, dowel-like sticks, often wrapped in tape, that juggle the longer one from hand to hand.
The trick is to learn the basic juggling step by holding a smaller stick in each hand, and tossing the longer stick, then giving it some flips, turns and twists. And pretty soon, with lots of practice, you can master the helicopter, behind-your-back or under-your-legs move.
This game is so popular in Roanoke that it's hard to find the sticks. They regularly sell out, and are restocked, at Imagination Station, and have been spotted at Toys R Us and even The Magic Connection at Towers Shopping Center.
Conner Johnson and Sarah Creech, fifth-grade pupils at Fishburn Park Elementary School in Roanoke, caught onto the fun of devil sticks (the name they choose to call it) during the summer. According to Sarah and her mother, Conner is the champion devil stick juggler at Fishburn Park.
"He's the best at our school,'' said Sarah. Conner's mother, Cappy, said her son spent hours practicing this summer outside their business, Brothers Bakery on the City Market.
"It's helped Conner's self-esteem to be able to do something better than two older brothers,'' she added.
Janice Creech, Sarah's mother, pointed out that it's nice to have a game that's not gender-related, and "there's not necessarily a right and wrong way to do it. You can take those sticks out and people will come up and ask you what they are,'' she said, pointing out the socialization benefits of the game.
Both Sarah and Conner get to school early once a week to fine-tune their juggling skills in a class offered by Steve Stinson, whose real job is news art director at The Roanoke Times. Even though Stinson won't allow the sticks in his indoor class, for safety reasons, Conner and Sarah said the juggling skills they learn easily translate and help them with the devil sticks. Stinson said devil sticks are easier to handle than juggling, which is a more complex skill.
Conner said mastering devil sticks was really hard at first. "I was mad,'' he said. But his persistence paid off, his mother said.
Conner and Sarah agree that getting into a rhythm, and not necessarily moving the sticks faster and faster, is more important.
Sarah, too, has been persistent.
"I saw all the kids doing it at school,' she said, admitting that at first, she was juggling the sticks all wrong, trying to catch the long one in the center. But if you juggle it closer to the ends, it works better, she demonstrated, smoothly going into the horizontal "helicopter" move.
Conner said he's seen children as young as third-graders using the juggling sticks, and they've become very popular in the middle schools. Maybe it's because kids can keep building their skills, adding tricks of their own, or as Conner does, combine two tricks.
It also looks cool. Some sticks have tasseled ends, and a set Conner picked up at a magic shop in Washington, D.C., is made of a reflective material. Although these sticks are heavier, and harder to use, Stinson said you can do more tricks with them.
Mark Fuller, owner of The Magic Connection, carries Dube's Devil Sticks out of New York. He said all of Dube's sticks, including the white, Trigon and silver varieties, are basically the same stick, which run $27.50 for each set.
"I find the other sticks that sell in toy stores are selling better, because kids are buying them as a toy and they're easier to learn with. The ones I sell, you see professionals work with,'' he said.
Stick sets range in price from about $10 to $40, and their origins have been traced to China. Stinson said during the Middle Ages juggling was occasionally associated with black magic and at times banned from Europe.
One current manufacturer, Ronnen Harary of Spin Master Toy Company, recalls making and selling sticks at Grateful Dead concerts when he was a teen-ager. His partner, Anton Rabie, said the sticks are fun because "you don't have to be very coordinated. A lot of kids of all different skills can learn.''
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff. Conner Johnson (left) and Sarahby CNBCreech demonstrate their skills with juggling sticks, a popular game
where a baton-like stick is balanced and twirled using two smaller
sticks. Conner and Sarah are fifth-graders at Fishburn Park
Elementary School in Roanoke. color.