Warm up by tossing a ball from hand to hand, across your body, about eye high, until you've done ten good tosses in a row. Say "toss" and "catch" each time you do it. Now put two balls in your favored hand, and toss one of them from hand to hand until you've done ten good repetitions. Now pick up three balls, put two in your favored hand, and begin step one. When you can do a step five times, you are ready to go on.
- Toss a ball from the hand with two balls to the hand with one ball, and just before it reaches that hand, drop the ball in the receiving hand next to your foot, catch the first ball, and stop. (Toss, drop-catch, stop. Say it out loud.)
- Repeat step 1, but this time, instead of just dropping it, toss the second ball under the first ball, so that it lands in front of your other foot.
- Start the same way: Toss the first ball. Just before you catch it, toss the second ball back. Just before you catch it, drop the third ball, and stop. (Toss, toss-catch, drop-catch, stop.)
- Repeat the last step, but this time toss the third ball under the second ball, so that it lands in front of the opposite foot.
- Start the same way: Toss the first ball. Just before you catch it, toss the second ball back. Just before you catch it, toss the third ball back. Just before you catch it, drop the fourth ball, and stop. (Toss, toss-catch, toss-catch, drop-catch, stop.)
- Repeat the last step, but this time toss the fourth ball under the third ball, so that it lands in front of the opposite foot.
- Start the same way: Toss the first ball. Just before you catch it, toss the second ball back. Just before you catch it, toss the third ball back. Just before you catch it, toss the fourth ball back. Just before you catch it, drop the fifth ball and stop. (Toss, toss-catch, toss-catch, toss-catch, drop-catch, stop.)
- Now you can continue adding a new drop-catch and toss-catch with each additional step, or you can just forget to do the next drop, and don't stop: just toss, toss-catch, toss-catch, toss-catch, toss-catch, . . . and now you're doing the Cascade. And now you are a juggler.
Some Hints
- Toss across your body, eye high. Watch the top of the arc.
- Keep your hands at about waist level. Don't reach up -- wait for the ball.
- If you find yourself walking forward, try standing facing a wall.
- If you get stuck, go back a step or two, or try it again tomorrow.
- If you get tired of picking up all those drops, try juggling while kneeling, or while standing over a couch or bed.
- Better than balls are beanbags, or tennis balls half-filled with sand or rice. Three soft tangerines are good. (Beanbags are best.)
HOW TO TEACH SOMEONE ELSE TO JUGGLE
Make a copy of these directions and give it to them.
(Both sides, please.)
This copy was made for you by
The Portland Jugglers.
Call 503-653-2614, or see our website: wwww.portlandjugglers.com.
Join us any Wednesday, 7-9 p.m.
How to Juggle - page 2
Hints for wheelers (wheelchair users)
You'll have to toss a little higher than your head and hold your hands up to the bottom of your rib cage. Relax your shoulders. Later, like all jugglers, you'll want to make as tight and low a pattern as possible. Work over a table set against the wall, or have a large tray on your lap or across the armrests. Relax your shoulders. Use small areas on the tray or table, under each of your hands, as drop targets. Relax your shoulders. Use beanbags.If you have one hand
This is going to be harder and take longer. So what's new? (I think of my grandmother, after the trolley took her arm, making kreplach.) The Cascade is not your best way to start; you will do a Shower. Your first steps will consist of learning how to throw and catch one, then two balls separately in a circle (clockwise or counter-clockwise, not toward or away from you). Work on throwing accuracy more than on catching the wild ones. Got it? Good! Juggling is "more balls than hands," and two balls is not very hard, so you want to do three. Make your tosses much higher, and syncopate your throws (toss-toss, space, catch-toss, catch-toss, space, catch-toss, catch-toss, space, etc.). Then put a third ball into the "space." Figure on ten minutes every other day, anywhere from two weeks to a year, but think of the expression on their faces.If you cannot grasp
First you must learn to place and balance a soft beanbag (or mesh footbag) on your hand or forearm. Keep it there while doing other things, until balancing it and catching it when it slips is automatic. Then switch to your other hand or arm. Then begin the warm-up. If you can't hold on to one bag while tossing the other, start with two in your non-favored hand, toss the one in your favored hand, and immediately load your favored hand with one of the other two. That's the hardest part. Now begin the "How To" steps.Non-readers, children under nine, and slower learners
Adult non-readers may prefer instructions on tape; otherwise, just describe and demonstrate one step at a time as they do it; that is, teach them. You should learn how first, and the more you know, the better you can teach; try the Klutz method (below) for a different approach. Children under nine and slower learners usually need more individual attention, and should concentrate on only one or two steps per session. Keep sessions under ten minutes, but encourage them to practice whenever they want. From the beginning, refer to what they are doing as "juggling," and to each step as just "more juggling."Equipment
Beanbags, or something like them that will not bounce or roll, are a major help. A set of three are included with the book Juggling For The Complete Klutz, which can be found at most toy and bookstores. Inexpensive beanbags and other props are also available from www.Dube.com, or call 1-800 763-0909.And finally
This is not a test, a trial-by-obsession, or a guilt trip. Nobody needs to juggle; nobody will care if you can't. So, if it's not fun, stop, and do something that is. Please duplicate these directions and give them to friends or strangers, adults or children: anyone who can read but can't juggle. YOU MAY NOT sell it or include it in a package for sale (even for a nonprofit fund-raiser), put it in a curriculum, or make it a course requirement. You may change the club name and information and the equipment source to show your local club & vendor, but you may not change any other part of it, including this notice. Send e-mail to Eric Bagai, or write to Eric Bagai at Post Office Box 33493, Portland OR 97292. Printed copies are available for a SASE; or, if you aren't there now, you can find this on the Internet at www.foreworks.com.© 1994-2002 Eric Bagai.
What This Is And Why It's This Way
This began as a printed flyer to be handed out to people who would not subject themselves to the possibility of public embarrassment in order to learn a physical skill, even one they would really like to learn. So far as I know, it is the only course on basic juggling that is not modeled on direct interaction between a teacher and a student, and is not an after-the-fact analysis of the result of having learned to juggle (as exemplified by Cassidy (Juggling for the Complete Klutz), Finnigan (The Complete Juggler), and Woodburn (The Instant Juggling Book)). It was inspired by an even more brief set of xeroxed instructions (author unknown) passed around in the 1970's at the Los Angeles Actors Theater.
The instructional problem that it attempts to solve is how to teach juggling without offering a visual model of the expected outcome or of the intermediate steps. There isn't even a metaphorical example given of the concept of a cascade ("It's like making a braid," etc.). It is an impersonal and precise set of instructions. When someone follows them, what they eventually find themselves doing is a cascade pattern of three-ball juggling.
This method is not superior to other methods of learning to juggle. It works better for some than for others, and it often works where other methods have failed (just as other methods may work where this one fails). It is not well-suited for classroom instruction because it is inherently individualized, and requiring everyone else to wait for the last learner in a group is a disservice to all. As a written set of instructions, much like those found in model airplane kits, it is quite useful for those who want to learn by themselves, for their own pleasure, at their own pace.
The material on the second page brings this method to the physically and mentally handicapped. I've spent over thirty-five years working with and for this group. For the most part all they need is a little more clarity, a little less rigidity, and the personal attention of someone competent and willing to share the fun, and who has no other agenda.
© 2002 Eric Bagai.
Originally rendered into HTML by Phillip Sand Hansel II May '96
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page last revised 03/08/2005