Clumsy Clumsy Hippos

It’s great to feel good at something. And for most people, myself included, it feels horrible to well and truly suck at a task. I’ve always had trouble going down new avenues in life, because I get discouraged if I’m not immediately masterful, and I convince myself pretty quickly that I’ll never be any good at something. And that’s how I got into balloons.

See, I’m really not very good with my hands. I’m left-handed, and the French word for left-handers is “gauche,” which is also their word for clumsy. (Still better than the ancient Romans, who thought left-handers were “sinister.”) I had to do physical therapy when I was younger to be able to even tie my shoes, and I still prefer to double knot them like a kid, or even use velcro. Back in my teenage days, I once tried to impress my friends by bringing in The Anarchists Cookbook, and of course ended up starting a bomb scare. When my parents were brought into the office, they were asked if they thought I would really make a bomb, and my mom replied, “Ari can’t even make toast.”

So taking on balloon animals was, if you look at it a certain way, a brave and (bear with me on this one) remarkably adult thing for me to try my clumsy hand at. And, at first, I was indeed pretty poor at it. Oh, sure, I got the dog down pretty quickly, and variations like giraffe and bunny, but it took me a long long time to get pinch twists down, and you need that for basically anything else. Heck, I had to watch YouTube videos on how to tie a balloon in the first place!

I still take a few seconds longer to tie off a balloon than other twisters. But the important thing is that I have put a lot of energy and time into improving. I practiced and practiced and practiced, even when, for a while, I had no real indication I’d get any better. And now I can crank out something as precise as a stegosaurus in very little time. So although for selling-myself purposes I should probably pretend that I’m some kind of balloon prodigy and that this stuff takes an amazing amount of skill, when someone asks how I do it, I’m honest and say I’ve only been doing it for a few months, that I’m really quite clumsy, and that if I can do this anyone can, given a bit of time and practice.

Someday soon I’ll do an instructional video on how to get started twisting balloons, and I hope some of my readers will give it a try. Because not only is it fun, but it’s much, much easier to pick up than it looks. But even if you don’t, I’d strongly encourage you to try something else that you think you’d be bad at. And when you are indeed bad at it, try to remember that failure is always the first step.

Until next time, balloon goons. Stay twisted.

The Outfit

Over there to the right you can see my basic wardrobe. I've been thinking a lot about my "stage look" lately. I've started adding goofy accents to my outfit bit by bit, but I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with it.

I've got a dress shirt and bow tie. I've got a ladybug bracelet. (It gets me a lot of requests for what's really a very fast design.) I've got a tip button. I've got a dolphin hat. (Not pictured.) I've got a holster for my pump. And I've got light-up kids shoes.

But what does all that add up to? Shouldn't I have some sort of set aesthetic? I mean, I'm a mish-mash, here. Instead, I could do something like:

1. I could build off the holster and be a balloon cowboy! Attach a trigger to my pump so that I can spin it on my finger, learn how to make a balloon cowboy hat, get a neckerchief or whatever, figure out what a "duster" is exactly, affect a ridiculous accent, sing about when the wind comes sweeping down the plain, etc.

2. I could do the magician look. Dress shirt, bow tie, top hat with maybe even a balloon bunny underneath. Balloon magic wand. Then I could be all flourishy. Maybe even learn some tricks.

3. I could go somewhere else entirely. Balloon pirate? I can make parrots and pirate swords, and I could always study this!: http://www.talklikeapirate.com/howto.html

If I keep just adding random stuff, the next steps are probably rainbow suspenders and multi-colored glasses (possibly in pastel). It won't be long before I'm past "goofy" and into "questioning my own sexuality" land.

But on the other hand... light up shoes, man. LIGHT UP SHOES. I'm just not sure I can help myself.

Giving The Octopus Another Shot

Been too long; I need to set aside time right after a shift to put some thoughts down.

Since writing, I have added a monkey, a rhino, a pterodactyl, a bat, and an octopus to my design list.

The octopus is my favorite design ever. Everyone’s surprised you can make an octopus (I had a waitress ask for an octopus as, she thought, a joke), since it sounds complicated and outlandish, and this particular design (courtesy of Michael Floyd of balloon-animals.com fame) is huge and impressively tentacular. It’s a real attention grabber, especially if -- now hold the sides of your head together firmly, because I’m about to blow your mind -- one wears it as a hat, with two tentacles wrapped around your head, as if the octopus is grabbing you from behind.

I actually learned the octopus months ago, when I was first learning to twist balloons. However, it would take me a few minutes to make, which is too long for restaurant work, and a tentacle or two would often pop, leaving you with a septopus or (heh) sextopus. I hadn’t even tried to make one for a couple months, and then gave it a shot late last week and found it easy and fast.

So what made the octopus possible now, where it wasn’t before? A few things: (1) I’m just a faster and more confident twister. (2) I’m taking better care of my balloons, no longer using weeks-old oxidized easily popped ones. And (3) I’m “burping” the balloons when needed, not rarely or (perhaps worse) all the time. Burping a balloons is when, after inflation, you let some air out before tying the balloon off. In the octopus’ case, the tension of eight fully-inflated tentatcles pushing against each other was killing me every time, and burping them, along with better balloons and a better twister, made all the difference.

So I suppose the next step is to take my newfound abilities and confidence and make another go at the apple twist, a technique that has vexed me sorely in the past.

Stay tuned, balloon loons.

Obligatory Introductory Post

Hi! I'm Ari Collins (not my real name, but it'll do). I'm a writer, a balloon artist, and a guy with nothing better tonight on a beautiful Friday night. I'm sorry I didn't start this blog when I first began twisting balloons a few months ago, but I'm still new enough that this should be filled with lots of wacky "learning experience" stories. Names have been changed to protect the poor tippers.

So to bring you up to speed a bit: my roommate (Hi, Morgan!) works in a restaurant that, she felt, needed some entertainment. I was unemployed at the time, and she vaguely knew a guy who twisted balloons for a living, so she suggested I try my hand at it. A fair amount of popped balloons later, I had made a dog. Not too many popped balloons later, I had the dog variations (giraffe, elephant, mouse, rabbit) down. A ton more popped balloons later, I could do a cat. (Pinch twists are hard when you're starting out!)

In the four months since, I've expanded to: doing balloons at three different restaurants, twisting at some small events, handing out business cards, and wearing a bow tie.

My animal repertoire is currently:

Alligator
Brontosaurus
Bumblebee
Bunny Rabbit
Cat
Dog
Dolphin
Elephant
Fish
Frog
Giraffe
Horse
Hummingbird
Killer Whale
Ladybug
Mouse
Parrot
Poodle
Pterodactyl
Rubber Ducky
Sea Horse
Shark
Snake
Stegosaurus
Swan
Teddy Bear
Tiger
Turtle
Tyrannosaurus
Zebra

Plus a couple of hats, flowers, hearts, swords, etc. But mostly animals.

I've finally gotten to the point where I'm picking up designs fairly easily, making modifications and improvements to previous designs, and even inventing a couple of my own. I'm even strongly considering doing a couple instructional videos on the ones I've made or improved, like the sea horse, fish, and stegosaur.

Okay, I think that brings you up to speed. Should be a fun blog, I think, so keep reading!

Later,
Ari