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Longtime juggler here. Outside of more complicated tricks like the claw and other specialized patterns, the most common juggling patterns (such as the cascade
by vunderba 7mo ago
Longtime juggler here.
Outside of more complicated tricks like the claw and other specialized patterns, the most common juggling patterns (such as the cascade [1]) don’t rely as much on pure handeye coordination as they do on maintaining a consistent, even toss. The key is throwing each ball so it rises and falls in a predictable arc, so it lands approximately in the same spot where your other hand is waiting to catch it.
When I teach complete beginners, I actually start with a set of special handkerchiefs. They fall more slowly than balls, which gives learners more time to react and makes it much easier to see and follow the path of each object through the air.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_(juggling) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_(juggling)
- justonceokay 7mo agoEvery time I got better at dancing I got better at juggling too. In my folk psychology, juggling is a partially-attached extension of your hands, so it’s just weird dancing. If you think of it like 3 jobs you have to do simultaneously everything falls apart. Internalizing the three balls as a single process that you are participating in makes it a lot more manageable. Of course the only way to get there is some 10s of hours of practice
- vunderba 7mo agoYeah I could see that. I think that because dance is so heavily reliant on proprioceptive abilities, it makes sense that there would be some overlap with juggling.
- empiricus 7mo agoA long time ago (pre-internet) I heard a normal person can learn to juggle in 1 day. It took me 2 days, but I learned to juggle 3 balls. But soon I realized what you said, the need for a consistent toss. Not sure of the reason, but I always make some errors with physical movements, they are never perfect. Even with typing, no matter how much I exercise, I cannot get bellow ~3% errors. Wondering if this is some kind of genetic effect, and how many ppl have similar issues.
- P-Nuts 7mo agoI haven’t tried juggling for decades but I did manage to teach myself basic three-ball juggling when I was at university (any excuse to avoid revising!) I think it took me a couple of weeks though. I’m a bit malcoordinated for that sort of thing in general. I think you’re right that there’s some sort of natural aptitude that not everybody has. Fortunately basic juggling is just about easy enough that almost any idiot can do it.
- PyWoody 7mo agoI, too, make unpreventable physical errors all the friggin time. For instance, I attempted to upvote your comment but initially downvoted it. Sigh.
- vunderba 7mo agoThis made me laugh. The number of times I’ve Admiral Ackbar fat-fingered the flag button when I just wanted to hide a post on HN is almost too many to count at this point.
- lores 7mo agoIf you are on the spectrum at all, you have a high-to-very-high chance of being more clumsy than average due to differences in sensory processing.
- pstuart 7mo agoAny recommendations for youtube lessons?
- irishcoffee 7mo agoPractice against a wall with tennis balls, it’ll take a day.
- fph 7mo agoI don't recommend tennis balls for a beginner: they bounce everywhere, and you'll spend most of your time chasing the balls rather than juggling. Cheap juggling balls are around 10$.
- vunderba 7mo agoThis. Something like a hacky sack also works very well. They don’t roll away from you, and they won’t drive your neighbors nuts especially if someone lives below you when they hit the ground.
- geekamongus 7mo agoIf you do use tennis balls, stand in front of your couch so they land there and don't roll away.
- tocs3 7mo agoLearning to juggle way back lasts century, I learned to juggle using lacrosse balls. Very bouncy and and a little on the heavy side. Standing over a bed helps if you are using bouncy things (they still can cause havoc in a bedroom when they bounce off each other though). One of the IJA (International Jugglers' Association) videos that most impressed me is : IJA Tricks of the Month by Zaila Avant-garde | Juggling Basketballs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH2E1m8Fseg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH2E1m8Fseg). Not only does she manage the juggling but her parents let her do it indoors with all sorts of stuff around.
- nickcw 7mo agoMy favourite technique is after the initial two ball crosses was for me to stand in for their left (or non dominant) hand. You stand slightly behind your pupil and get them to put their left hand behind their back and you put your left hand about where theirs should be. You give them one ball in their right hand and then you start the pattern with two balls. Most people are amazed to find themselves juggling at this point. Yes, you are correcting their mistakes but it gives a real feeling of juggling for them. Most people manage 10 catches quite easily at this point. Once they have the hang of that swap sides. This one is harder, don't do it too long before setting them off on 3 and they can practice themselves from here on. I have taught 100s of people to juggle like that :-)
- vunderba 7mo agoThat's a neat approach! It's not really the same, but it kind of reminds me of an interview they did with Michael Moschen (the guy who performed the contact juggling scene in Jim Henson’s movie Labyrinth). He talked about how difficult it was because he had to thread his arms underneath David Bowie’s, so he couldn’t actually see the acrylic ball while he was doing the contact juggling.
- zimpenfish 7mo agoWell worth 6 minutes of anyone's time watching him do The Triangle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjHoedoSUXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjHoedoSUXY
- chrisweekly 7mo agoSeconded! Just watched it, that was great. :)
- QuantumGood 7mo agoSome of us had a juggling party at a lake. All amateurs, i.e. few could manage much with clubs. An international juggling award winner (don't remember more than that) found out, joined us, and had a number of us partner juggling flaming torches pretty quickly, and kept pushing us into more and more techniques. The quality of the coach matters!
- delichon 7mo agoI wonder if juggling positive buoyancy balloons upside down would develop skills transferable to right side up. You can make those as slow as you want. When jugglers juggle balls against the floor I guess they don't start from scratch.
- vunderba 7mo agoLol. I’ve juggled non-buoyant, air filled balloons but because of their elasticity they don’t exactly settle into your hand when they land. In my juggling routine, one of the things I do is transition to lying on my back face up while continuing to juggle. I’m throwing the balls straight up above my head while lying perfectly flat, which feels pretty weird. So I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to be physically upside down while juggling.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- analog31 7mo agoWhen I learned to juggle (which I've forgotten), it was with beanbags, because they don't bounce away when you drop them.
- mark-r 7mo agoBut where's the fun in that? Chasing the balls is half the challenge! Seriously, knowing the balls are going to roll away if you drop them gives you some incentive to do it right. I think I used tennis balls early on.
- sejje 7mo agoMy dad bought me a kit of beanbags that looked like globes when I was 9 or 10. My incentive to do it right was "I want to juggle." I'm glad I didn't have to chase them around, what a waste of time.
- ccozan 7mo agoApples was my choice of juggling fruit! Good weight/size ratio and also the reward at the end of my training session :).
- c22 7mo agoI taught myself next to a bed so I didn't have to bend over to pick them up.
- pdpi 7mo agoThe way I taught myself to juggle was something I don't see very often in guides, but I think works quite well — I taught myself to juggle two balls in one hand, until I could do it with both hands, and then three ball juggling with two hands was just doing the exact same thing, but crossing.
- stevage 7mo agoYeah I have wondered about that as a method. You can even just go two balls in one hand, then switch to the other side and back, and that's almost the 3 ball pattern.
- sjrd 7mo agoOh waw, I had totally forgotten about the handkerchiefs. But this is indeed how I was first thaught juggling when I was a kid. Thanks for the trip down the memory lane!
- AirMax98 7mo agoI’m very amazed by this site linked in the Wikipedia: https://libraryofjuggling.com/Tricks/3balltricks/Cascade.html https://libraryofjuggling.com/Tricks/3balltricks/Cascade.htm... Supposedly from 2014, but looks a fair bit older.
- orangesilk 7mo agocould you please link the beginner handkerchiefs?
- vunderba 7mo agoThe ones I have are pretty old, and I got them from a local store that doesn’t exist anymore. They’re kind of slightly weighted, for lack of a better term almost like a foxtail toy. You could probably just use standard juggling scarves and get much of the same effect. Renegade Juggling is probably one of the better places to buy juggling equipment. https://renegadejuggling.com/products/juggling-scarf-23-inch-square https://renegadejuggling.com/products/juggling-scarf-23-inch...
- scarecrw 7mo agoI learned using plastic bags. Probably not as uniform in their motion as handkerchiefs, but worked to get the pattern down before moving to balls.
- stevage 7mo agoYeah I never really mastered a consistent throw - it's just not how my brain works. I got as a pretty shakey 4 ball shower and that was it.
- nickm12 7mo agoIt's been a while since I taught anyone to juggle, but I generally disrecommended scarf juggling. It's fine if you want some quick validation, but the hand movements are so different from balls/bags that I don't think the skills are transferable. I prefer the method described in the original post. Just start with one ball and get that right, then two, then three. It's a bit like the Karate Kid, though. Students don't find it as satisfying because they want to jump ahead before they've got the movement down.
- vunderba 7mo agoThe scarves I use, as I mentioned in another thread, are actually weighted. They fall more like a traditional ball, just significantly slower. I’ve found that this works pretty well for teaching, but of course everyone learns differently.
- wkjagt 7mo agoIt's crazy how much you don't actually need to look at your hands. I learned juggling a long time ago, and I remember discovering this. It feels like you become good at predicting from the top of the arc where you need to place your hand so that it intersects with the arc. I was surprised to see that as I got better, I also started catching the balls where the throw was a little off and I had to extend my arm to catch it, but still without actually looking at my hands. And at some point it becomes automatic and fast. There was this one time when I was grocery shopping (I had been practicing a lot at that point), and someone accidentally pushed a jar off a shelf, and I caught it without looking or even thinking. I felt a little bit like a super hero with super reflexes :-)
- vunderba 7mo agoDefinitely true! A good way to practice and make sure you’re working on throw consistency rather than pure reflexes is to juggle while watching a TV show. It’s even better if it’s something like subbed anime, so you have to read the subtitles while you juggle.
- kakacik 7mo agoI learned myself juggling out of boredom when I was kid. Just tennis balls or similar stuff I found. In early 90s, no info anywhere, just started. 2 balls with 2 hands, 2 balls with 1 hand and finally 3 with 2 hands. Didnt push it further, we had too low ceiling for bigger throws that 4 balls would require, and juggling 2 balls in each hand was... tricky to keep up for longer. Consistency of the toss is exactly how I could keep up, if 1 went off I lost it usually within few throws. Unless I did it on purpose. Recently showed it to my kids, obviously rusty but still had the moves. Damn, I had so much free time as a kid its surreal now.