Catching up is hard to do.

This entry is sort of a catch-all just to bring things up to speed in the hopes of getting back into a more regular habit of blogging. 

I am not going to say much about juggling at UGA just because it was weeks and weeks ago, but I do want to mention it. Emily and I spent a good two or three hours juggling at UGA last time I was in Athens, and the experience was very nice. 

Everyone at the UGA club (the “Ugallers,” as no one calls them) was very good. Granted, we only met three people, and they were probably the three most dedicated members of the club, but still, all of them could do five quite nicely. 

It was really helpful to see a five pattern going on in person again, and I think it helped steer me in the right direction as far as the five-ball cascade is concerned. 

I was also very glad to finally get the chance to do a bit more club passing. I worked with Mo, a maths teacher at UGA and the head of the club. He is a pretty phenomenal juggler (he flashed eight while we were there) and it was great to work with someone who is so talented. 

We started working on a basic four-count passing pattern, and even moved up to two-count for a bit. Stepping up to two-count was really helpful, it served as a sort of “overload” and when we went back to four-count things went really well. 

I used this same idea, combined with a few tips I picked up at the AJA Festival, to give my first real juggling lesson. 

I was teaching my friend, Helena, after dinner and it was pretty amazing. Inside of an hour she’d gone from absolutely no understanding of juggling to a pretty well-formed 6-catch run of a cascade.

I realize that some people have a natural ability to juggle, and can pick it up for whatever reason with shocking ease. I don’t think this is the case here. Not to disparage Helena, but I don’t think she is exactly a juggling prodigy. She just payed very close attention, and made a good effort to do everything that I said. 

Here is a breakdown of what I did to teach her how to juggle.  So first of we started standing face to face with one ball. I tossed it over to her in a regular cascade throw, just putting it in her hand instead of mine. Next i got her to do the same thing to me. We worked on this for probably a dozen throws, switching out hands every so often before moving on to do the same thing with two balls. 

After a few tosses between us with two balls–which she picked up pretty easily–I went ahead and moved up to three, starting off by explaining what order they were going in, and how the most important thing was just getting the balls in the air in the right order with the right rhythm. Obviously this didn’t go quite as smoothly as things did with two, but we kept at it and by switching back and forth from catches to throws, sending the balls between us each time, she eventually got a good feel for the rhythm 

Once she got the rhythm down i started her working on her own. I dropped her down to two balls, and got her to start throwing to her self. As she got more comfortable with the first two throws I told her to shift her attention more toward throws and away from catches and this seemed to really improve things pretty quickly.

We were probably just under half an hour into the lesson at this point, and I took out a third bag and told her to just hold it in her right hand and keep working on two throws, then switch it over to the left and do the same thing. 

Once she got used to making throws and catches with another ball in her hand i took the balls back and showed her a nice clean pattern with three, explaining how the order and timing worked in a bit more detail. 

In about three tries she’d managed a flash. 

We worked on just getting 3 throws, 3 catches from the right hand for a bit until she was comfortable with it and then moved on to the left.  In the next 10-15 minutes she’d moved up to four, then five and eventually six catches. 

I was pretty pleased with the progress she made, and with the success of my teaching methodology. 

In Luke-related news I have been steadily improving my basic skill set in the past few weeks. 

I’ve managed to improve my clubs mills mess to the point where I can move seamlessly to and from mills mess and a cascade. This is a pretty big improvement, and it makes mills mess feel like much less of a “one trick pony” as it were. Not only that, but I have also started working a doubles toss into the pattern 

It’s all going along pretty nicely. Five is slow but steady, but to be honest I have not had much time to really devote to practicing. 

I did manage to get a nice stacked multiplex pattern going, but I want to put that in an entry of its own. 

All for now.