You can find more information about the Ball State Flow Club on Facebook.
The University Green was filled with juggling, poi, hula hooping and balancing boards on April 23 for the first ever Flow Festival.
The festival’s goal was to get everyone together to help spread the word about the club and teach others how to do different acts. Members of the club described the festival as a combination of circus acts and object manipulation.
Mikaelyn Irving, a freshman general studies major who joined the club last September, said she likes the club because of the benefits it gives to her daily life.
“It’s really fun, it’s great exercise and great stress reliever,” Irving said. “Last semester, I was known as the bell tower girl because I was always out here four or five days a week, two or three hours at a time doing everything — even during Finals Week.”
Jalen Mangis, a senior telecommunications major and former president of the club, has been spinning for three and a half years and felt addicted when he first started.
“I would spin almost half the time I was awake because I was so addicted to it,” Mangis said.
He discovered poi, a type of performance art that originates from New Zealand where weights on the ends of tethers are swung, at a concert. Shortly after, he formed the club.
"I saw some people doing it at a concert and I was like, ‘Hey I want to do that, it looks like a lot of fun,'" Mangis said. "It's kind of like a mix between dance [or] performance and stuff like that, so it really intrigued me and eventually I met other people on campus who were interested in it. We would call it a flow jam or a spin jam — we would get together and share ideas and just hang out.”
Alex Parnin, a freshman Spanish and international business major and current president of the club, is a juggler but plays around with other forms of item manipulation as well.
“I kind of brought my stuff [into the club] and [collaborated] and jammed around," Parnin said.
He started juggling his sophomore year in high school around Christmas.
“I started because I had finals going on and I didn't want to study for it, and my dad, he used to juggle around my age, and I was like, 'That’s pretty cool,'" Parnin said. "So I taught myself how to juggle rather than studying."
Parnin said people tend to see the item manipulation acts as fun and interesting, but also seem to be intimidated.
“Honestly you don’t need any skill level, we can teach you anything you want to know," Parnin said. "It’s not really as hard as you might think it is. It just takes a couple days of practice and actually try to learn. People think it’s too hard for them, but that’s not true.”
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