Chins
In principle this trick is the same as the previous one, except that now the clubs are placed vertically on the chin and then allowed to topple over to the other hand:
The additional challenge of keeping the club on your chin as it falls makes this one a little more difficult, but this is more than made up for by the visual appeal of the trick, especially when done continuously from one hand.
When placing the club on the chin hold it right at the base of the handle, but leave the knob exposed - it is easy to judge where the end of the club is if it is right next to your hand. As with any balancing trick, watch the top of the club.
If you want to do the trick continuously with one hand then it can help to raise the hand which will be placing the clubs up, near to the chin. In this way less time is taken up with carrying the clubs over to the chin, giving you more time to position them correctly. In order to make the trick more fluid don't actually place the clubs vertically on your chin but at an angle as shown, and give them a little push so that they go up into the vertical and then down on the other side - the less time your hand is on the club, the better the trick will look.
Of course you can put the clubs on other parts of your head - nose, forehead, upper lip, teeth of your lower jaw, even on top of your head as you look forward, so that you can't see the club. It is also possible to put the clubs on your chest (with a deep breath) and on your knee if you bring it up in front of you to waist level. There is also a fake for this trick - use just the same movements for positioning the club, but let go a few inches in front of your chin so that it never actually touches your face, as long as you give it enough sideways momentum the club will follow roughly the same path and so still appear to be toppling off your chin.
A 'chin' looks nice when immediately followed or preceded by a single backcross. Try continuous chins with one hand and continuous backcrosses with the other, if you can do both tricks on their own. Remember to make the backcrosses nice and high, and be sure that they come far enough forward. Also try moving up and down your face with the clubs: Chin → Teeth → Upper Lip → Tip of your Nose → Bridge of your Nose → Forehead → Top of your Head, and then back down again.
A few more ideas include:
- Maintaining the chin balance to provide a pause in a routine, or a chance to do some flourishes or swinging
- Doing a fake balance by putting the club in your mouth as suggested earlier and biting down on it to hold it in place
- Putting one or more of the clubs upside down on your chin
- Hitting the club falling off your chin, using one of the other clubs. If you strike it in the right way it won't spin too much enabling you to catch it and continue juggling. Aim for the point just above where the handle joins the body.
Doing chins continuously from both sides presents a problem, because the average chin is not really big enough to allow all the necessary manoeuvres to take place, so there are 2 options:
The first is to put each club in a different place to the last one. Put the first club on your chin, the second one on your nose, the third one on your forehead and then just keep repeating the sequence. Because you only use 3 locations each club will always be balanced in the same place, they don't swap around, and only one club is balancing at any given time. As far as I know it's impossible to balance 2 objects on your head at once, although I would be very happy to be proved wrong. The secret with this trick is to watch the club that is being balanced, and as soon as a new club comes into view switch to watching that one and let the first one fall. This can take a bit of practice because your instinct will be to try and stop the falling club, but if you persevere it will come. When you can do the trick one club at a time as described, try to increase the speed until all 3 clubs stay in their positions, and instead of catching and replacing them, you just make little adjustments to keep them vertical. This is a wonderful trick to learn, and since it involves no actual juggling it makes a nice change to a routine.
The second option is to do the whole thing on your forehead where there is a bit more room. Put clubs from the right hand slightly to the left and vice versa. Try to keep everything roughly central, and make sure that you tilt your head far enough back for your forehead to be horizontal.
If you want an even more complicated trick to learn, then try incorporating some swinging in between placements, each time you put a club in place keep hold of the other 2, and do your favourite club swinging move - a 'cross and follow' is a nice one. If you don't know any club swinging then just make something up - you can often get the nicest effects with the most simple of combinations.
When practising any combination move involving a balance and some other trick, such as juggling or swinging, the most important thing to concentrate on is maintaining the balance - never take your eyes off the top of the object. Try not to even think about whatever else it is that you are doing. It is good practice to try and keep the balance going for a little even if you drop one of the other objects, because this will be the time when the urge to look away is strongest.
A spectacular effect can be achieved by doing a chin roll, and then hitting the club into the air as it starts to topple. Use one of the clubs in your hands to do the hitting with. If you strike the club in the right spot it won't spin very much, making for an easy catch. Where exactly you should be hitting the club will vary according to what type of clubs you use, but just above the point where the handle meets the body is usually about right.