The Importance of Good Balls

Call_Me,Stan

I, despite my posting on the juggling board, can't do the cascade.
I've been trying to learn on and off for the last one or two years, but I've recently made a commitment to JUST learn it.

I was wondering how important it is to have good quality balls. I've been using those cheap balls that you get fro €2.50 each in Visual and I know that they're not the best. Do you think I should get better balls for learning or should I wait til I have it down and I'm juggling more.

I already have juggling scarves and am okay with them.
I know my problem is that I panic when I'm throwing.
Any help would be good.

Adam

Most people will panic and throw them all too quickly and end up nearly doing a flash(without actually catching them!). Its probably better to throw them too late rather than too early, that way you'll better see where you're going.

Have you managed any crosses?

Good balls help, but really aren't essential, at least not for a simple cascade.

Number the balls in your head, 1, 2, 3.
Balls 1 and 3 in your right hand, 2 in your left.
From here its simply three steps, practise them one at a time.
1) Throw ball 1 from your right hand to your left, making an upward inward motion with your arm, catch it in your left. Do not throw either of the other balls anywhere, you should finish this step with balls 1 and 2 in your left and 3 in your right.

2)Repeat step one, throwing ball 1 good and high(about eye level, maybe a bit more) and when it reaches its PEAK, throw ball 2 from your left upward and under ball 1, the same arm motion. Catch both the balls as they fall into the relevant hands. At the end of this step you have ball 1 in your left and balls 2 and 3 in your right, though for all anyone else knows you're simply back to starting position.

3)This is where you'll start to drop balls, maybe get a bit confused, but its really simple. Step one, throw ball 1 to left hand. Step two, throw ball 2 from left to right when ball one is at its PEAK. Step three then is simply to throw ball three(the one that hasn't left your hand yet) up and under ball two. Now it sounds like there's balls everywhere at this point but there's not, there is really only ever one ball in the air at any given time.

Once you've made these three passes just keep going with the flow, your in the cascade pattern at this point, you'll see it yourself and you'll see how to continue.

Important points are simply:
-Throw fairly high to start, this gives you more time.
-Dont move through the steps two fast, ok step one is simple, but stay on step two til you've got it and are comfortable with the movement. Try reversing it, start with two in the left and one in the right.
-PEAKS PEAKS PEAKS! Its all about the peaks, this is the key to fluid juggling, knowing when to throw the next ball and being ready for it!

Other than that i dont know what else there is. Persevere!

Oh and practice over a bed or something, helps prevent the dizziness caused by repeatedly bending over to pick up dropped balls from the floor!

Best of luck!

Hugh Hefner

When I learned I used reallt bad and small balls. But I did learn.

Can you do 2 balls in 1 hand? I could at the time and it made things so much easier. If you can, try doing that but when you release the upward ball throw it over to your left hand then do the same with your left. After a while your throws become more confident and you're able to release earlier which turns into a cascade.

Meh. Hope it helps.

Call_Me,Stan

No, I can't yet. That's a challenge for afterwards.

modular

Hugh Hefner wrote:

Can you do 2 balls in 1 hand? I could at the time and it made things so much easier. If you can, try doing that but when you release the upward ball throw it over to your left hand then do the same with your left. After a while your throws become more confident and you're able to release earlier which turns into a cascade.

Damnit, that was meant to be my revolutionary and original method!

Call_Me,Stan

Thanks, Fade to Grey, I'm gonna get started on that technique tomorrow.

Been too busy the last couple of days.

loafer's glory

There's one more thing that's very important for a beginner.

I taught myself to juggle, and started doing it this way, and it held me back by months when I started seriously. and anyone I've ever seen who juggles but was never taught also makes this same mistake. so be sure not to slip into bad habits, especially this one, which comes so naturally.

as you juggle, imagine yourself standing in an open doorway, right on the threshold. so there's an imaginary vertical plane in front of your body. THE BALLS NEVER LEAVE THIS PLANE. EVER!

A good juggler's hands move in circles, but these circles are oriented within that plane. like... hmm... like if he was standing in front of a very old car, and cranking the engine with one of those old crank rod thingies. it's a side-to-side circle.

A new juggler will often move their hands in a circle perpendicular to this, like his/her hands are pedalling a bicycle (backwards, as it happens...). it's a forward-backward kind of circle.

This is disastrous. It will hold you back something fierce, because one of two things will happen: Either you'll start to throw the balls away from you, and have to chase after them, or else you'll throw them too close to yourself, and wind up juggling over your head.

When you throw a ball out of your left hand, it should leave just to the right of the incoming ball. NOT just in front of it. when a ball leaves your right hand, it leaves to the left of the incoming ball (again, not in front of it).

There are some little tricks to help with this:

1. Make big exaggerated side-to-side circles with your hands as you juggle (you'll drop more, but it will encourage good technique). Your left hand goes anticlockwise and your right hand goes clockwise.
2. Keep your elbows pinned to your sides, and only move from the elbows. Your shoulders don't move at all. This will force the circles your hands make to be side-to-side.
3. Juggle right in front of a wall (so that the balls are about 3 inches away from the wall at all times). This will stop them from running away from you.

On the ball thing, the only thing to watch out for is balls that are too small or too big. Anything that weighs about 100-125g is fine to learn with. Cheap balls will fall apart quicker, but while they last they're fine.

cocoa

I was never ever able to do two in one hand before I got the cascade, about a year after I had got the cascade I tried to do two in one hand and voila! I was actually so surprised I dropped them. The bit about juggling in a plane parralel to your body is very important, I never did it the other way myself (lucky me:P) but I know two people who are learning and they do just that, either they are throwing in this funny forward backward sort of movement or the are throwing far two late, as in almost letting the dropping ball knock the throwing ball out of your hand. The only advice I ever give is to juggle in front of a wall, the only problem is that this one guy is actually able to pull it off fairly well with this bad technique, but it's obviously holding him back:( ohh well he doesn't juggle as seriously as me anyway. I learned to juggle very very very slowly, even though I got the right technique, but once I got it I kept it up and branched out a lot. First I tried learning out of a book which came with this set of three beanbags my mom had, then I was given a lesson in a german summer camp, because I didn't realise what "juggeln" meant, I didn't juggle for a couple months after that but a couple months after that I picked up a set and voila!!! I could do the cascade! As I'm sure most of you know, once you've the cascade, you're so darn amazed at the achievement, you don't stop for quite a while.

Call_Me,Stan

I've got the ultimate frustration at the moment.

I can find two balls of any set. :mad:

fade_to_grey wrote:

throw ball 2 from your left upward and under ball 1, the same arm motion

This might be a stupid question, but does under mean, that I throw it lower then ball 1 or inside the arc of ball 1?

Hugh Hefner

Inside the arc of ball one. If it meant lower then by your 4th throw you'd be kneeling.

Adam

Yeah sorry, bad wording there, i was just so darn chuffed with my comprehensive lesson in juggling, i think i outdid myself!

Yes i've seen the so called "peddelling" motion an awful lot in new jugglers, myself included for a while. Luckily i could tell from juggling in front of a mirror that i was doing something wrong and realised fairly quickly what it was!

I've got a few tricks with 3 balls, but i cant get mills mess, its annoying me! I mean i can see whats happening, where the balls are going, i just get lost trying to do it...

Call_Me,Stan

Crikey, that was a fast reply.

Thanks, again.

Adam

I live on boards, didnt you know?!

sci0x

I started off using oranges, nver knew there was proper balls you could buy. Anyway when learning the cascade (which i only realise after reading this post is called the cascade) I found I kept walking forward while juggling :S. So yes that imaginary wall in front of you is a good idea. Now however I can do a couple of 100 without stopping.

loafer's glory

Mill's Mess can be tough but there are a lot of drills that build up to it, and they're all worth practising.

First off: Continuous underarms. It sounds stupid, it looks worse. It's not a trick by itself. But it helps with Mill's Mess. By continuous, I mean every throw. Every single throw. So you reach your right arm under your left and throw, and then you have to quickly get your left arm around and under your right and throw again. And so on. It sort of gives the hand movements of Mill's Mess, only the balls are doing something completely arseways. Start by throwing the occasional underarm, and just build it up until they're all underarm.

Next: Two balls out of Mill's Mess. Start with one ball in each hand. Cross your right hand over your left (for right-handed jugglers. which I'm not, so I hope you appreciate the lenghts I'm going to. this is so confusing...). both palms up. let's call the ball in your left hand L, and the ball in your right hand R. And remember, initially your right arm is over your left arm. Start with both hands slightly to the left side of your body (they'll need room to uncross and recross as they drift right).

Throw R, off to your right.
As soon as it leaves your (right) hand, start to bring that hand across (to the right) (ie, uncross your arms).
When your hands are completely uncrossed, throw L (again, throw it off to the right).
As soon as that ball leaves your (left) hand, start to bring your left hand across to the right, so as to cross over your right.
Catch ball R (the first one you threw) in your left hand (which is not the first hand you used, but the most recent). As you do this, drop your left hand into place over your right (so they're now crossed the opposite way to when you began).
Finally, catch ball L in your right hand (this is an underarm catch).
Your hands should now be crossed, left over right, slightly off to the right side of your body. Ball L is now in your right hand, and ball R is now in your left hand.

A couple of things to note:
The balls are thrown and caught in the order:
Throw 1
Throw 2
Catch 1
Catch 2

But your hands work in the order:
Throw with right
Throw with left
Catch with left
Catch with right

Also, be sure to have all the throws go slightly to the right. If they go straight up, you'll be catching them and carrying them across. This is wrong. They should arrive on the correct side and THEN you catch them.

This is probably horribly confusing. But it's basically just two balls out of Mill's Mess. It's your basic Mill's Mess two-ball exchange, equivalent to that step before learning the cascade where you exchange two balls. When you can do this, do its mirror-image. Start where you finished the above, and finish where you started the above.

God, juggling just wasn't meant to be written down...