About two weeks ago I decided to learn to juggle three balls.
I found a few websites and watched a few videos. I started with one ball, then two, and then three, progressing to the next level when I could toss and catch 10-15 times. Now I can sometimes toss and catch about 20 times using three balls. Other times, I get stuck after two tosses.
Everything that I’ve read and watched about learning to juggle stops where I am now. According to various websites, my level of competence means that I can juggle. But, for me, juggling means that I can do it indefinitely, which I can’t, and I haven’t found anything that will take me to the next level. “Keep practicing” doesn’t mean much to me unless I know how to get better.
I need to be more consistent with my tosses. I’ve noticed that my tosses get lower and lower, which, of course, means that I have less and less time to react, and if I try to toss higher, I often send the ball too far forward.
My tosses are much better when I use two balls, but I just can’t seem to do it consistently with three. There seems to be something about the rhythm but I’m not sure what it is.
I taught myself how to juggle watching comedians on TV juggle. I got the basic motion down by watching (and rewinding) jugglers on TV and I used hankies to get the motion down. Then I started with bean bags, so when I had to keep picking up the dropped bags, I didn’t have to walk all the way across the room.
Now, I can do it almost on auto-pilot. After lots of practice, you will be able to change the way you throw by small adjustments, depending upon which sort of trick you want to accomplish.
Good luck. Juggling is lots of fun, and it’s an easy trick to keep the little kids quiet.
Stand in front of a wall to give you a frame of reference. Use one ball and toss it from hand to hand trying to maintain the same arc each time. Do at least a hundred tosses a day. This is just your warm up. After that start juggling and practice maintaining a particular arc, low, high, wide, narrow. It’s all nothing but practice. Lots and lots of practice.
I learned to juggle 26 years ago, and used to work at kids parties, Ren fairs and stuff, so I was a very low-level professional. The guy who taught me. Actually got a degree in street performance (individual major), worked at places like Busch Gardens, and made a living busking, before he got hired by Cirque de Soleil, and worked with them for several years before deciding he wanted to be more settled, because he wanted to get married and have children.
So, that’s my bona fides.
When you toss, you don’t just toss up, you toss a little bit forward, that is, toward yourself. Also, to keep the arc at the same height, stare straight forward. Don’t follow the movement of the balls, or bean bags, or whatever; standing in front of a wall is a good idea. Stare straight ahead and watch the arc, don’t watch the balls in your hands. The arc should stay right at your eye level.
There are lots of easy tricks that look good, once you get to the “keep going point.” Under the leg, behind the back, eating an apple while you juggle it, and juggling flipped objects, like clubs, knives, and such. You’ll be doing all that by the end of the summer.
I’m NOT a good juggler at all, and I can’t remember where I heard this advice, so take it with a big grain of salt.
I recall either reading or being told that a good practice technique when you’re at the level you are now (which I’m gonna call “can juggle but don’t feel steady or consistent”) is to practice while standing with your hands over a table. This will force you not to let your hands drop too low and keep your motions more constrained. It will also keep you fixed in place and prevent you from stepping forward or backwards, which is sloppy technique.
Adding a relatively low ceiling helps as well. You want to learn to keep the balls withing a fairly small area and use small, efficient movements.
If you force yourself to juggle within a “box” like that, you’ll feel even more comfortable when the box is removed.
When you drop, tell the audience “That’s my amazing ‘ball-on-the-floor’ trick. I practice that one a lot.”
I used to use sandbags instead of balls, though, when I performed solo, so it wouldn’t roll away, and so I could kick one back up if I did happen to drop (I didn’t very often), and then it would look like I meant to do it.
I did know one guy who used hacky sacks. They didn’t roll, and sometimes if he dropped, he could kick it back up before it hit the ground. It was a pretty impressive way to save a mistake.
It’s been a long time for me, but I seem to remember spending time practicing with one ball, near a wall - throwing it so it bounced off the wall slightly. The rebound was supposed to simulate the timing difference of multiple balls, or something like that.
I can’t say if that’s actually good advice, though.
I was in the same position as you years and years ago. I started with Juggling for the Complete Klutz (this was in the early 80s so I think it was the first in their series). Great reference that came with square beanbags.
Anyway, I was just the same–could juggle just enough to keep them going for a short while, just enough to make people who couldn’t juggle say I could, but that was about it. This went on for a while because I never really applied myself. Once I ‘learned’ I never really practiced until I got good. That all changed the day I met professional juggler. He may or may not have had good advice (it was a while ago too), but all I know is that after I killed him and ate his heart, I’ve been an expert juggler!
PS
I want to learn the guitar. Can any Dopers PM me their contact details and maybe set up a private lesson?
I figure a guy who goes by Rythmdvl oughta pick up that, you know, rhythm, of throwing and catching and throwing and catching pretty easily. “Borrowed” heart or no.
Other then killing the clown, that’s the track I was on. I had that same book with those same square bean bags. I got very okay. I could keep them in the air for about 30 seconds. I also worked (and still do) at a produce store so I got some practice in there too. Walking to the garbage with three bad oranges and I would try and get some tosses in there as well. A few times I even managed to keep 3 cantaloups in the air as long as someone could toss the third one to me to get started.
In college, I stayed at about that same level and a friend of mine was about at that level as well. Being the only two people that we knew that could juggle, we would ‘practice’ together. It was particular impressive when we’d go "1…2…3…’ and basically throw a ball at each other and hope for the best. Usually worked, I think the drugs helped.
Nowadays, I’ve slipped from okay, to not quite okay. With some practice I could probably get back to okay, but I’d love to get ‘good’. I’d love to pick up three objects and be able to keep them in the air and make it look effortless. Maybe I’ll start practicing again, probably not.
Guitar too. I have one, it’s in my basement. Haven’t touched it in probably 15 years. I taught myself some of the basics but I don’t remember a single thing. But even after piano lessons and clarinet lessons and bass and regular guitar lessons and teaching myself guitar, musical instruments never really ‘clicked’ for me. I blame my first piano teacher who never taught me any theory. It wasn’t until I was in college and started teaching myself guitar that I started learning music theory. Would have gone a long way if I started learning it 10+ years earlier and with a proper teacher instead of in a dorm room in the middle of the night trying not to wake anyone up.
The very basics are super easy. It’s basically comes down to
1)start with one ball, toss it back and forth until you can do it consistently.
2)Get a second ball. Hold one ball in each hand. Toss one ball to the other hand and just before it lands, toss the second ball back to the now empty hand. Do that over and over. Make sure to practice it both ways. It’s really easy, right.
3)Add the third ball so there’s always one in the air. Tada, you’re juggling.
If you pick up this book, you can be ‘juggling’ within a few hours. Not good, but probably as well as me or the OP.
Also, when I say ‘toss’, I mean toss with a nice arc, kind of about eye/head height. For some reason when I say that a lot of people will just throw it from one hand to the other like it’s a baseball.
I support all the advice given, with the possible exception of the cannibalism. One thing that helped me was convincing myself to concentrate on the tosses, and just trust that my hands would make the catches. Your attention can only be in one place, really, so attend to the tosses. The catches will eventually be made automatically with your peripheral vision, unconscious mind, and extra-cerebral patterning.*
*Learning changes the brain, but it also changes reaction patterns in the spinal column and other nerves.
