Uploaded February 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A collection of old footage from when I was developing this idea. Here's my recollection of the history of 3 tennis balls and a tennis can: On easter of 1989 I was bored and picked up a can of tennis balls thinking, "I can probably throw all of the balls out of the can and then go into a 4 pattern that includes the can." I quickly discovered some of the centrifugal properties of the can and began developing a routine at the Celebration Barn with feedback from some folks like Fred Garbo, Fritz Grobe, Jeff Mason, Tuey Wilson and Steven Ragatz. At the same time in another part of the world, Scott Slesnick had discovered the same prop, but was doing different things with it. Neither of us knew of the other for years, but when we met at an IJA convention in Vegas one year, we pieced together the rumors we had heard of each other and decided that we had both come up with it independently and had been spreading it around the world over the years. My theory is that with the appearance of the first plastic tennis ball cans in 1984 (see vintagetennisballs.com) it was an idea that was bound to happen eventually. I also suspect that there still may have been other independent discoveries of this idea around the world.
A collection of old footage from when I was developing this idea. Here's my recollection of the history of 3 tennis balls and a tennis can: On easter of 1989 I was bored and picked up a can of tennis balls thinking, "I can probably throw all of the balls out of the can and then go into a 4 pattern that includes the can." I quickly discovered some of the centrifugal properties of the can and began developing a routine at the Celebration Barn with feedback from some folks like Fred Garbo, Fritz Grobe, Jeff Mason, Tuey Wilson and Steven Ragatz. At the same time in another part of the world, Scott Slesnick had discovered the same prop, but was doing different things with it. Neither of us knew of the other for years, but when we met at an IJA convention in Vegas one year, we pieced together the rumors we had heard of each other and decided that we had both come up with it independently and had been spreading it around the world over the years. My theory is that with the appearance of the first plastic tennis ball cans in 1984 (see vintagetennisballs.com) it was an idea that was bound to happen eventually. I also suspect that there still may have been other independent discoveries of this idea around the world.
