[HN Gopher] Most people can't juggle one ball
___________________________________________________________________
Most people can't juggle one ball
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 491 points
Date : 2026-04-09 12:35 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lesswrong.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lesswrong.com)
| comboy wrote:
| To be fair, I can do 3 balls effortlessly, but I can't do 1 ball
| like it is in this description, I just have a lot of error
| correction, enough to do it pretty much indefinitely. But I
| cannot reliably throw it accurately to the other hand.
|
| Our software stack is the opposite of that.
| vunderba wrote:
| 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)
| justonceokay wrote:
| Every 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 wrote:
| Yeah 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 wrote:
| A 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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| I, too, make unpreventable physical errors all the friggin
| time.
|
| For instance, I attempted to upvote your comment but
| initially downvoted it. Sigh.
| vunderba wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| If 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 wrote:
| Any recommendations for youtube lessons?
| irishcoffee wrote:
| Practice against a wall with tennis balls, it'll take a day.
| fph wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| This. 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.
| soopypoos wrote:
| hacky sack the planet!
| geekamongus wrote:
| If you do use tennis balls, stand in front of your couch
| so they land there and don't roll away.
| tocs3 wrote:
| Learning 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). Not only
| does she manage the juggling but her parents let her do
| it indoors with all sorts of stuff around.
| vunderba wrote:
| I actually learned contact juggling with a lacrosse ball,
| since its uniform color and texture make it hard to see
| the rotation of the ball. That way, you get the similar
| visual effect to a more expensive acrylic, but without
| the risk of chipping if you drop it while you're still
| learning.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Amazing. Thanks for sharing!
| irishcoffee wrote:
| Part of the motivation is to make sure you catch them and
| they don't bounce away. Negative externalities aren't
| always a bad thing.
| nickcw wrote:
| I love Taylor Tries
|
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGV8mtb7t-4PuziHauottOfqp.
| ..
|
| Great teaching style and a fantastic juggler
| pessimizer wrote:
| https://archive.org/details/Juggling-Step-By-Step-1987
| nickcw wrote:
| My 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 wrote:
| That'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 wrote:
| Well worth 6 minutes of anyone's time watching him do The
| Triangle
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjHoedoSUXY
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Seconded! Just watched it, that was great. :)
| QuantumGood wrote:
| Some 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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Lol. 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.
| analog31 wrote:
| When I learned to juggle (which I've forgotten), it was with
| beanbags, because they don't bounce away when you drop them.
| mark-r wrote:
| But 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 wrote:
| My 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 wrote:
| Apples was my choice of juggling fruit! Good weight/size
| ratio and also the reward at the end of my training
| session :).
| c22 wrote:
| I taught myself next to a bed so I didn't have to bend over
| to pick them up.
| pdpi wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| Yeah 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 wrote:
| Oh 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 wrote:
| I'm very amazed by this site linked in the Wikipedia:
| https://libraryofjuggling.com/Tricks/3balltricks/Cascade.htm...
|
| Supposedly from 2014, but looks a fair bit older.
| orangesilk wrote:
| could you please link the beginner handkerchiefs?
| vunderba wrote:
| The 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...
| scarecrw wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Yeah 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 wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| Definitely 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 wrote:
| I 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.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| I taught myself in junior high to juggle three balls with two
| hands and two balls with one hand. It's not a huge accomplishment
| but what amazes me is that I can go years without trying it and
| when an opportunity comes up I can just do it again, within just
| a couple of tries. Those neuronal connections just never go away.
| nickcw wrote:
| Learn to juggle two balls with the other hand and you are half
| way to 4 (which is two in each hand out of sync)
| comrade1234 wrote:
| I may try that. I can do two balls in either hand already. I
| just never tried doing it in both hands at once.
|
| Strangely even though I'm right-handed I feel more
| comfortable juggling two in my left hand. I also bat and golf
| left-handed so sometimes I wonder if my parents forced right-
| handedness was on me.
| NiloCK wrote:
| Out of curiosity - can you juggle four balls?
|
| I _can_ , but I wouldn't describe having two two-ball capable
| hands as being half-way there. If forced to put a number on
| it, something like 20% is the best I could do.
| nickcw wrote:
| Sure! Juggle two in dominant hand. Then two in weak hand.
| Then two plus one both ways round, then 4. That's how I
| used to teach people anyway. Balls go up on the inside and
| down on the outside. For most people two really well in non
| dominant hand is the hard part.
| NiloCK wrote:
| When you taught, what was a typical uptake like?
|
| I came in and out of 'actively juggling' through time,
| but I was at least 20 years with strong two in my off
| hand before four really started to do four for any real
| number of throws.
|
| The perpetual issue was that the loops move in and out of
| sync, so the rhythm of responsibilities ends up with beat
| patterns that confuse my focus.
| nickcw wrote:
| I always felt that 4 wasn't a huge step up from 3 for
| most people, especially given the right tips. If you
| learn 3 in a day or two then 4 is a week or two. That
| kind of thing.
|
| A good trick to practice 4 is to throw 4 throws in the
| middle of 3. So you juggle 3 balls then throw one to the
| same hand (the 4 throws) while holding a ball in the
| other for a beat (the 2 throws). You can put the 42
| throws anywhere in the 3 pattern and if you do it as
| quickly as possible you get 423 which is an interesting
| pattern. 441 is good too - harder but helps with that
| sync problem.
|
| The big step comes at 5. It took me nearly a year to
| master 5 balls with consistent practice. I eventually got
| reasonably good at 6 balls (juggled in sync, crossing
| over) but that's where I plateaued as far as numbers go.
|
| There are lots of other things than numbers though. Non
| jugglers will have no idea how many balls you are
| juggling so you can impress with 3 balls. My favourite
| party trick was blindfold juggling. I used to be able to
| juggle 3 balls for about a minute like that.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Juggling two with the non-dominant hand is so hard. Much
| harder than juggling three balls. There's something
| fundamentally different about using your non-dominant
| hand independently as opposed to in coordination with
| your dominant hand. I can use my left for many things:
| juggling, typing, playing guitar etc., but as soon as I
| try to do it with my right hand behind my back I feel
| incredibly weak.
|
| It would be so useful to have two right hands. I'm
| curious whether you think getting over the hump helps
| with ambidexterity in general.
| nickcw wrote:
| Something I learnt was when learning new juggling tricks,
| make sure to practice them both ways round. For example
| if you are learning to shower 3 (round in a circle
| juggling) make sure you practice the high throws with
| your right and left hands. It gets easier the more you do
| it so I guess that it does help with ambidexterity.
| Thlom wrote:
| I can juggle 4 balls for a little while, but two in my
| non-dominante hand? That's so unnatural I don't think
| I've even bothered trying.
| throwyawayyyy wrote:
| Same! Every so often I remember that I can juggle, and spend a
| minute or two juggling, and feel better for it. And then I
| forget for weeks or months.
|
| (I taught myself while procrastinating from exam revision, many
| years ago. I started with a large bag of oranges. Just enough
| of an incentive not to drop them, no real harm when they did
| hit the floor.)
| bpoyner wrote:
| I taught myself to juggle in a weird way. I had 3 lightweight
| plastic cubes, laid down on the bed, and began tossing them
| directly over my head (my hands on either side of my head). I
| think it gave me a good sense of where each cube was at all
| times.Once I got good at juggling supine, I just transitioned
| to sitting up straight.
| RaftPeople wrote:
| > _I taught myself in junior high_
|
| I had a class in junior high where we had time each day to mess
| around with juggling.
|
| I got good at the balls and then got pretty good at the bowling
| pins things (not as heavy but same shape).
|
| I could do 5 pins for a decent amount of time. It felt really
| good when I was in the groove of the flow, the arc, the spin
| and the sequence.
|
| I tried 7 pins and was pretty excited to get a cycle or two
| successfully.
| yathern wrote:
| > Another mistake is completely ignoring the ball and staring
| into the distance. I'm not entirely sure why, but I've seen it a
| bunch more with *rats* than anywhere else. In any case, I would
| recommend you just casually glance up at the ball as it reaches
| the top of its arc
|
| Is 'rats' a juggling jargon I'm unfamiliar with? Or do rats stare
| into the distance often?
| mlyle wrote:
| Rationalists. It's lesswrong slang.
| downboots wrote:
| So much for juggling rats
| zahlman wrote:
| TFA is posted in/for a community where "rats" is slang for the
| community members.
| FrameworkFred wrote:
| I derailed after this sentence. I searched for more uses of
| "rats" in the article, then looked in the HN comments to see if
| it was a bit of jargon that I was unaware of. I read "Lessons
| from the art of juggling" years ago, but despite the primer, I
| couldn't get past the unanswerable question of whether I was,
| in fact, a "rat".
| dvh wrote:
| Just today I improved my record to 18 minutes. Btw, I noticed my
| juggling is completely subconscious, I don't move my hands
| voluntarily where the ball is, the hands move on its own.
| bgun wrote:
| A little disappointed that the writer never attempts to address
| the title of the post, which is either a) _why_ most people can
| 't juggle a single ball, or b) how the author even knows this to
| be true, aside from some limited anecdata.
|
| My (admittedly limited) juggling experience would indicate
| something closer to "Anyone can juggle", or that your average
| person, particularly young people, can learn to juggle one, two,
| or even three balls with an afternoon of practice, but I suppose
| that makes for a worse title.
| krisoft wrote:
| > "Anyone can juggle"
|
| Technically this is not incompatible with the title. Just uses
| "can" in a different sense. The title would be using "can" in
| the "has the skill already", while you use "can" in the "able
| to acquire the skill" sense.
|
| It is not hard to imagine that most people when asked the
| question "can you juggle?" would answer in the negative. That's
| what the article's title describes. And then if those people,
| given sufficient motivation can learn to juggle that leads to
| your sentence. And they both can be true at the same time.
|
| I agree that it would be nice to provide source for the claim
| though.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I would say no to currently being able to juggle, but that's
| because I don't consider one ball to count as juggling.
|
| If you specifically asked if I could juggle one ball, I'd say
| sure. And I just checked, one ball goes fine. And I've never
| practiced juggling. I'm pretty skeptical about that ability
| being the minority.
|
| So I also want more explanation of the title.
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| I am not fully certain but juggling is moving objects in a
| predictable path so as to repeat without dropping.
|
| In my understanding of the OP, juggling 'one' is being able
| to throw an object consistently to another hand without
| handing it. This is an intentional throw of the ball from
| one hand to another without "moving" the other hand to
| compensate.
|
| Throwing from one hand to another, either directly or in an
| arc, requires the motorskills to move an object
| consistently while understanding the speed, trajectory, and
| then moving the other hand to receive (not catch) it as
| expected.
|
| There are multiple elements at play with 3 object juggling.
| One must throw an arc toss to the other hand, while holding
| an object, then throwing the object in said hand to free
| the hand to catch. In reality you are holding two objects
| with one in motion - until you get the double arc which is
| now technically juggling.
|
| Three bodies in motion, two hands that are each making
| circular or figure eight motions, while maintaining a
| consistent arc and speed (XY (no Z) + T = arc) where the
| mind either tracks or forgets allowing the predictable
| movements work themselves into only tracking one object at
| a time - by setting it's path and then shifting focus or
| attention to the next.
| jvert wrote:
| Long, long, (long) ago I used to teach people to juggle at the
| local Renaissance Fair. I would say I could get almost everyone
| to flash 3 in less than 30 minutes. Most people walked away
| having at least 5-6 successful throws. The only people who
| really couldn't learn are those who don't like to fail and
| won't even try. Learning to juggle is repeated failure and you
| have to be willing to persist. Learning 5 clubs (very briefly)
| took me many years of repeated failure.
| jamses wrote:
| I tried and failed to learn to juggle three balls many times,
| I've just got terrible coordination. But one day I stood over a
| bed and just threw them in the air and listened to the rhythm of
| the "thuds" as the missed balls hit the mattress. As soon as I'd
| got that down it was like a switch clicked and my hands knew
| "when" to be ready for the catch, rather than trying to follow
| the balls to catch them. I never managed four, so mileage may
| vary with this technique, but it was a very surprising lightbulb
| moment.
| kuboble wrote:
| I had a friend who had absolutely terrible coordination.
|
| I would bet against him being able to learn three balls.
|
| But he was very dedicated. Long story short. After many years
| he could comfortably juggle 6 (six!) balls.
|
| It looked wobbly, he still looked like a person without
| coordination, but the balls somehow stayed in the air.
| alemwjsl wrote:
| I wonder if his coordination in other areas has improved as a
| side effect?
| mark-r wrote:
| I know mine sure did! As a kid I was totally uncoordinated,
| always the last one to be picked for any sports teams. But
| I definitely noticed the difference when I picked up
| juggling as a young adult.
| varenc wrote:
| I do some light juggling adjacent activity, and I think
| it's absolutely improved coordination in other ways. When
| things randomly fall unexpectedly now I feel like my hands
| snap out and catch them so much more deftly than before.
| And with a crawling baby in my life now, I'm often catching
| them as well.
|
| Greatest pride was catching a tumbling beer at a party, and
| getting called spider-man.
| kuboble wrote:
| I had the same experience.
|
| Getting good at juggling makes things fall down
| noticeably slower. But despite getting really good at
| juggling, I haven't observed any other super powers.
| jfengel wrote:
| Four is just two in each hand. Learning to do that one hand at
| a time is a nice addition to a three ball cascade. You hold the
| third in your other hand, and it's a good source of jokes.
|
| You can do four-out-of-five, which is a five ball cascade with
| a missing beat (just as how you learned two-out-of-three while
| learning initially). Unfortunately it's very hard and still
| doesn't impress people.
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| Didn't expect this to actually be about juggling, but I'm not
| complaining
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Juggling is so much fun! I use 3 balls and felt like it was easy,
| when you know where to start and simply follow the process step
| by step.
|
| Memory Masters draw me to it, and I found some super normal niche
| Streamers showing what to do.
|
| Juggling is some sort of meditation.
|
| Enjoy!
| yenko wrote:
| Thanks for posting this. You reminded me I have three juggling
| balls collecting dust behind my monitor. I forgot how fun it is!
| As others have said I'm surprised the muscle memory is still
| there even after a few years without trying.
| mark-r wrote:
| I wonder if I got Alzheimer's so bad that I couldn't remember
| my kids names, would I still be able to juggle? And would it be
| therapeutic in any way?
| yenko wrote:
| In a couple of people I have known, some physical
| capabilities remained long after their memory was gone. There
| was also this woman who wrote about her husband Alzheimer's.
| He could still play tennis and golf while not being able to
| do much more basic tasks like picking an outfit for the day.
| I don't know if it was therapeutic but she said he gave him a
| lot of joy.
| instig007 wrote:
| Just juggling with balls in the air gets boring very quickly, and
| the added numbers don't make it much different. Learning statics
| and flows from contact juggling, but performing them with
| standard juggling balls is so much more fun. And then you
| discover statics with hoops:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF6UuPsw2i4
| febusravenga wrote:
| I can only juggle 3, but I prefer clubs. Balls are so boring they
| are so small and not spectacular. Clubs on the other hand, man
| they are rotating. Once, twice, treetimes, backwards. I believe
| that if someone stuck at this basic level of juggling 3 balls, he
| should try clubs - at least for me it's pure satisfaction
| watching these rotating in various variants before.
| philiplu wrote:
| Learning club juggling was fun. That led to partner club
| juggling as well as flaming clubs. Got a nice video of me
| juggling flames and overrotating a club so I catch the flaming
| end. Whoops.
| masfuerte wrote:
| Many years ago one Saturday morning I happened upon a juggling
| shop. I could already do three balls so I asked if I could try
| the clubs. After about an hour of failing the shop owner said
| something like "some people never get it". So of course I
| bought a set. After 12 hours that day and 12 hours the next I
| got the hang of it. They are harder to learn than balls but
| still doable for an unsporty person like me. And, as you say,
| very satisfying.
| jimbokun wrote:
| That shop owner was a good salesman.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Where is juggling shop a thing?
| wkjagt wrote:
| I am not the person you're asking, but they were a thing in
| The Netherlands at least. Not super common, but they did
| exist. Typically they sold other related things too, like
| diabolos, flower sticks, etc. This was a while ago, before
| Amazon, when there were just a lot more different types of
| shops. I am not sure they still still exist.
| masfuerte wrote:
| It was in the UK in 1993, about the time the web was
| starting to take off. As the other commenter says, there
| was a much wider variety of shops then.
| CalChris wrote:
| You can also pass clubs. In fact, at my local juggling meetup
| (Castro Valley BART), it really breaks into two groups: passers
| and numbers. Passers get together and pass. It's quite social.
| Someone explains a group pattern and they work through it.
| OTOH, numbers jugglers can juggle 5 or more clubs+balls. They
| segregate themselves off and really only talk to each other.
| We're in the same place but numbers only talk to other numbers.
| latkin wrote:
| I would agree that the proper next step after getting
| comfortable with 3 balls is to learn 3 clubs, not 4 balls. It's
| much easier to go 3 balls -> 3 clubs than 3 balls -> 4 balls.
| So many fun things to do with clubs, and of course once you
| learn clubs you have learned torches/knives which never fail to
| impress.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Clubs do indeed look great. I like juggling with random
| objects. It's quite hard, especially if different sizes/weights
| but it looks really cool IMO because it's so unexpected and
| doesn't need any special equipment. Plus you can do it
| anywhere.
| par wrote:
| I assumed most software eng from the early aughts can all juggle.
| odie5533 wrote:
| Is it time to get good at darts yet?
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3eotWyZv5c
| _dain_ wrote:
| The other's in Albert Hall
| pfdietz wrote:
| I thought the second line was about Goering.
| Drupon wrote:
| Is there anything HN related involved here other than autism?
| flexagoon wrote:
| HN guidelines say "anything that gratifies one's intellectual
| curiosity" is on-topic for HN
| Drupon wrote:
| Don't be fatuous with me boy. It's clear that that criterion
| could justify any number of things that are always
| immediately flagged. In fact, it could justify _literally
| anything_ being posted here.
| floxy wrote:
| Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or
| sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some
| interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news,
| it's probably off-topic.
| Drupon wrote:
| You think there's nothing about "politics, or crime, or
| sports, or celebrities" that "gratifies one's
| intellectual curiosity" that isn't "evidence of some
| interesting new phenomenon"?
|
| This post is about a sport (juggling) and doesn't cover
| "new phenomena". So what the hell are we doing here? Any
| more rule nerd ass hall monitors want to drop another
| irrelevant rule in here?
| BubbleRings wrote:
| Yeah, no juggling in class. Unless you brought enough for
| everyone?
| comrade1234 wrote:
| lol. Thank you for the laugh.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I'm there will you. I always laugh about how autism and SSRIs
| are not for discussion here. It's too on the nose.
| altacc wrote:
| Go to a juggling club and you'll find that a Venn diagram of
| juggler, nerd & technology has a lot of overlap.
| wkjagt wrote:
| For real? I am a juggling nerd, but didn't know that was a
| thing. I gotta go find my people now.
| wkjagt wrote:
| Why autism?
| alemwjsl wrote:
| The first HN submission ever that got me to put down my device
| and go outside, and probably going to get me hooked.
| jubuff wrote:
| Profoundly disagree with the author on skipping 6. It helped so
| much with my 7.
|
| I do agree on clubs though. They were as big of a revelation as
| siteswap when I learned them and I'd highly recommend trying.
| Most juggling clubs(accumulations of people, not object) have
| loaner clubs and nice people willing to share theirs as well as
| teach.
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| Worst thing about juggling is that you get a very good instinct
| to catch falling stuff, even if it's sharp and pointy.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| "A falling knife has no handle."
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| Knives are surprisingly fun to juggle. Due to my pain
| tolerance (or stupidity) I would throw knives up, catch them
| by the blade (pinching) or using a soft hands, where I match
| their falling speed, catch them on a finger tip while it
| remains vertical. Also, I would find myself spinning a
| folding blade end over end, and catching by the handle, based
| upon the rotations (minus one because you flip from the sharp
| end).
| matznerd wrote:
| I thought this post was going to be a metaphor about how most
| people can barely handle 1 project, while some people need to
| multiple projects for it to feel natural...
| efilife wrote:
| I really hoped it wouldn't. Too played out
| yboris wrote:
| I've wanted to code a VR game for juggling but never found time
| for it.
|
| Feels like it would be super-easy-to-code and probably would be
| lucrative. Implement "slow down time" so people can practice
| juggling in slow motion, add some other features like catch
| radius and bias towards consistent height of throws and you've
| got a great game!
| stevage wrote:
| I made a 2d game like this once for, of all things, Palm Pilot.
| You could tap for the apex of each ball throw.
| lamplightdev wrote:
| I learnt to juggle with the help of this book:
| https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/777103.The_Complete_J...,
| all sorts of tips and tricks in there
| ipince wrote:
| > When I'm bored, I just whip out my balls and start having a
| play. And people watch, and sometimes join in.
|
| Nice.
|
| (I'm sure the author did this intentionally)
| boogieknite wrote:
| definitely did. lots of schweddy balls style humor
| sriram_malhar wrote:
| Many of you might know of Noisebridge, a beloved hackerspace in
| San Francisco. They had (have?) a juggling workshop every
| saturday called "Juggling with Judy", taught by Judy Pinelli,
| founder of the famed Pickle Family Circus (and a huge influence
| on Cirque Du Soleil).
|
| I had no idea how famous or influential she was. She first taught
| us how to make our own juggling balls: snip the ends of a
| balloon, fill with enough rice to feel comfortable in the hand,
| then wrap that with another balloon to seal the rice in, then
| snip the ends of the second balloon.
|
| Then she went through the usual sequence: throw a ball, er,
| balloon, from one hand to the next, then practice with two and so
| on. By the end of that 2 hour session, we had got the essentials.
|
| The remarkable thing about this workshop was that Judy was at an
| advanced stage of multiple sclerosis at that point. She was
| pretty much completely immobile from the neck down, and couldn't
| even see our hands properly from her wheelchair. She could only
| see the arc of the ball, but that was sufficient information for
| her to tell us how we could improve. "Pull your elbow in". "Focus
| on the left hand, the right will follow".
|
| After the 2 hour workshop, she'd go to Golden Gate park to teach
| juggling. All for free. I feel extraordinarily privileged. She's
| been my polestar in life.
| flawn wrote:
| Noisebridge is awesome. This illustrates beautifully what
| humans can be capable of.
| rhblake wrote:
| Great story, thanks for sharing. Just a minor correction: it's
| Judy Finelli, not Pinelli.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| what means "snip the ends of a balloon"? when I think of
| balloons they are pretty large spheres for juggling
| classic959 wrote:
| If a balloon is made of a thin neck and a round body, you're
| chopping the neck off near the bottom of the neck. You're
| then left with a round rubber pouch for the contents (rice).
| Use two balloons in opposite directions so the closed end of
| the outer layer covers the opening of the inner layer.
|
| Great for juggling balls - nice weight and very grippy.
| lewispollard wrote:
| I think the use of the word "ends" rather than "end" makes
| it sound like you're making 2 snips on each balloon.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| yeah that confused me too
| throwaway290 wrote:
| But this means it's a tiny balloon? Almost hand sized
| already?
| rendall wrote:
| Indeed. Do not blow up the balloon. Just use it as a
| rubber pouch. If anything is still unclear, describe as
| detailed as you can the difficulty you're visualizing.
| classic959 wrote:
| The technique I've used to fill a balloon with rice:
|
| - Take a small plastic drinks bottle.
|
| - Cut the bottom half off to make it like a funnel.
|
| - Remove the lid, and stretch a balloon over the neck.
|
| - Invert the half bottle so the balloon over the bottle-
| neck is hanging underneath.
|
| - When you tip some rice into the funnel, only a few
| grains will fall into the uninflated balloon.
|
| - Now put your mouth/cheeks against the open end of the
| bottle/funnel and blow. This will partially inflate the
| balloon, and all the rice will fall in. Done!
| wkjagt wrote:
| Balloons are pretty small before you inflate them, and
| you're not inflating them, just stuffing them with rice.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| I feel stupid, thank you got explaining!
| altacc wrote:
| This is one of the nice things about the juggling community:
| it's one of the open, sharing communities where people are
| willing to freely share and teach. It's no cost/low cost entry.
| The juggling community has been a really important part of my
| life, so I see it as giving back to teach others.
| alexpotato wrote:
| > She was pretty much completely immobile from the neck down,
| and couldn't even see our hands properly from her wheelchair.
| She could only see the arc of the ball, but that was sufficient
| information for her to tell us how we could improve. "Pull your
| elbow in". "Focus on the left hand, the right will follow".
|
| I've both been a coach (paintball/martial arts) and been
| coached (golf) and it really is wild how good your brain can
| become at seeing the outcome or just a piece of the process and
| then working backwards to a root cause.
|
| I sometimes make the analogy "in particle physics, you don't
| actually see the collision. You see the after effects and then
| figure out what happened by going backwards to what must have
| occurred."
| phkahler wrote:
| >> I sometimes make the analogy "in particle physics, you
| don't actually see the collision. You see the after effects
| and then figure out what happened by going backwards to what
| must have occurred."
|
| I keep coming back to that. Nobody has ever directly seen
| direct the force carrying particles, only their effects
| (indirect evidence). The models make excellent predictions,
| but I still feel like they're "wrong" in some sense.
| bdamm wrote:
| This is the only fact we know for certain in physics; we
| know for sure that our existing models are incorrect. But
| they sure are great at lots of stuff and correctly predict
| lots of phenomenon so until someone can come up with a
| better model they're likely to continue to be used widely!
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| My favorite version of diagnosing a root cause from an
| outcome was "Car Talk" on NPR, where somebody would call into
| the Tappet Brothers's show and imitate the weird sound that
| the car was making, and then the brothers would diagnose a
| very specific car problem based on the secondhand
| impersonation of a weird noise. I have no idea how accurate
| their diagnoses actually were, but it always seemed like a
| tremendously impressive trick.
| frays wrote:
| Great story about juggling, thanks.
| mettamage wrote:
| Noisebridge! I went there as a tourist! I visited SF (I'm from
| Amsterdam), saw Noisebridge and felt right at home :)
| kobieps wrote:
| I'm currently learning the fountain pattern and it's cool to know
| that it should only take about a month. After that though...
| eagsalazar2 wrote:
| Several years ago we had a juggling "craze" at my otherwise very
| stodgy corporate office. We all juggled constantly on every
| little break and several of us got pretty good at it. By the end
| a few of us were doing harder 3-ball tricks like mills mess and
| passing balls back and forth to each other. It was super fun.
| Honestly while specific tips can help, I think it mainly comes
| down to persistence and getting ideas from others, youtube, etc.
| Some ideas will click, some won't. Doing it with friends everyday
| helps too. It just takes time to get a really consistent throw
| dialed in, especially under pressure, but once you do 3-ball gets
| quite easy and then you can focus more on goofing around and
| trying new things.
| __mharrison__ wrote:
| My high school AP calculus teacher required everyone in the class
| to learn to juggle (3 balls) by the end of year to pass the
| class.
|
| Seemed annoying then.
|
| Seems radical now.
| fouc wrote:
| Lol, he's probably not technically allowed to set that as a
| requirement in most places I would guess. Funny side quest to
| offer though.
| latkin wrote:
| This takes me back to my teenage juggling glory days. Truly the
| golden years in hindsight.
|
| I grew up in Silicon Valley in the late 80s/90s and learned to
| juggle, as many people did back then, from the book "Juggling for
| the Complete Klutz." As a kid I devoured almost every Klutz Press
| book.
|
| A product of Stanford people, Klutz had a small brick and mortar
| store in Palo Alto. It sold all of their books, of course, but
| also juggling equipment, magic props, and random fun stuff like
| rubber chickens and fake corpse legs you could hang out the trunk
| of your car. Absolute paradise for ~12 year old me.
|
| But the best part was that they ran a weekly juggling club out on
| the back deck area. Just show up and play. I learned a lot from
| all of the kind folks who turned out for that. My mom would drop
| me off every week, and I'd run out there excited to show the
| older guys what I learned that week. I wasn't a prodigy or
| anything but I was decent. Got to the point where I was juggling
| 4 clubs and I could hang with the club passers if they kept the
| pattern tame (and were skilled enough to catch my slop). Of
| course I also got proficient at other juggling-adjacent stuff
| like yo-yo, devil sticks, contact juggling... Just pure joy,
| really a cherished memory.
|
| I was at the shop enough that my friend and I ended up being
| recruited to model for the 1998 edition of the Klutz Yo Yo book.
| There are 2 photos of me in there, I think. I was pissed that my
| friend was more photogenic and they ended up using way more of
| his photos than mine.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I really enjoyed learning to juggle. My mum randomly brought a
| juggling book back from a second hand shop. It probably sat on a
| shelf for a year until one day my brother and I picked it up for
| some reason. It also goes to show how important it is to have
| access to lots of books. You never know when one might catch your
| interest.
| InfiniteLoup wrote:
| Reading this thread makes me wonder if I'm the only one who
| really tried to learn to juggle, only to fail even after a whole
| month of brute-forcing it, while my partner at the time, who
| started at my suggestion, managed it after 30 minutes! That was
| 15 years ago...
| neuroelectron wrote:
| Juggling rats?
| wkjagt wrote:
| Slang for rationalists, apparently, according to another
| comment.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| > DO NOT JUST PASS THE SECOND BALL BETWEEN YOUR HANDS. This is a
| common thing, as people are regularly taught it
|
| People are _really_ regularly taught it? Who 's doing that
| teaching?
|
| I suspect a different cause: cartoons. Especially in older
| animation, juggling was typically presented in the 'circle'
| style, which is probably where people tended to pick up the
| misconception. I guess that animation is a lot easier to produce.
|
| See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAPkX11Bfu8
| arcticfox wrote:
| In my experience they're not taught it, it's instinctive. The
| easiest way to get a free hand seems to be to hand a ball over
| to your other hand directly. It makes sense too, it's
| counterintuitive that it's much easier to throw the ball up and
| over back.
| robotguy wrote:
| I grew up in the boonies back in the 80's. The only real
| contact I had with juggling was probably cartoons like
| described above. I really wanted to learn though and would walk
| around the woods for hours trying to juggle oak galls in that
| "circle style" only able to keep it up for a few seconds at a
| time.
|
| My first day at college, before classes started, I was in the
| dorms. Everyone was getting to know each other, and I saw
| someone juggling the right way. It instantly clicked. All the
| hand-eye practice the 'wrong' way actually helped. That's why I
| always tell people that the first thing I learned in college
| was how to juggle.
| jigglyblob wrote:
| Tim Kelly's 3 ball juggling is still my favourite of all time.
| You won't regret watching him. I've literally never seen anyone
| juggle this well. Always been such an inspiration:
| https://youtu.be/q37vo62psGA?si=r_Kh4RWl7HTAu4Mq
| cft wrote:
| I went to school with a math genius who participated in
| international math Olympiads. Curiously he had no problem
| juggling multiple balls - and nobody taught him.
| wkjagt wrote:
| Juggling has a very special place in my heart. I met my wife
| through juggling. We were both staying at a youth hostel in
| Ireland, and the owner introduced us to each other because she'd
| seen us both juggling, and said we should juggle together. She
| was way better than me. She juggled with clubs, burning torches
| and knives, so yeah, life was never the same after that.
| 1dom wrote:
| Juggling is something I've done on and off all my life and every
| time I ever see any writing about it, it doesn't at all capture
| how juggling fits with me. Every time I read about it, I feel
| like I'm doing something wrong. I know I'm not, but I thought I'd
| share my views in case it helps someone want to pickup juggling
| in a different way.
|
| Most writing on juggling talks about moves and repetition. You'll
| see the same terminology and approaches everwhere, site swap
| notation, cascades, messes, 1 hand, 2 hand, claws etc.
|
| This can sometimes give the impression that when you're juggling,
| you're basically doing a move, or repeating a motion, or
| following a script, like being able to perform the specific move
| is the skill and achievement itself, but it's really, really not.
|
| I think it's better to think of the balls as instruments. When
| you're reading and learning about juggling moves like cascades
| and messes and clawing, you're reading about chords on that
| instrument. If all you know is how to play individual chords, and
| the names of the chords and theoretical and technical ways to
| represent the chords, you're missing the point of knowing how to
| play an instrument.
|
| Most of the time when I'm juggling, I'm in the same creative and
| expressive mindset and headspace as I am if I'm soloing on drums.
| Every move is a different move between a bunch of different moves
| based on wherever my mood takes me. It feels good and allegedly
| look impressive too.
|
| I've tried to learn keyboard/piano so, so, so many times and it
| just doesn't stick with me, I struggle to retain the theory, I
| can't get the intuition, I never find myself in the zone after
| years and years of attempts and lessons. Drumming was the
| opposite though, I felt comfortable on it within months of having
| my kit with very, very little theoretical background. I consider
| myself a theoretical person, but juggling - like drumming - seems
| to be one of those few things for me where the theory makes it
| worse/harder/less intuitive/less fun for me.
| tnel77 wrote:
| This made me chuckle:
|
| >>TLDR: A complete guide to juggling, from zero to siteswap
| notation, by someone who juggles in nightclubs.
|
| >>by someone who juggles in nightclubs.
|
| I'm not sure if I'd laugh or be amazed at someone juggling at a
| nightclub. I guess it really depends on how well received the act
| is by their target audience (aka can a man pick up women via
| juggling?).
| wavemode wrote:
| > can a man pick up women via juggling
|
| Uhh, no. Regular people don't care the slightest about
| juggling. It definitely shouldn't be learned for that purpose
| lol
| Mawr wrote:
| > aka can a man pick up women via juggling?
|
| Sure: "Hey babe, wanna juggle my balls?". Works every time.
| jblakey wrote:
| I picked up a copy of the Klutz book back in the 1980s. I think
| it was their first publication, and it got me started. Their YoYo
| book was also a fun time.
| marconey wrote:
| I had both of these, and learned to juggle from Klutz
|
| I recently bought a new copy for my son, but it hasn't clicked
| for him yet
| scotty79 wrote:
| I sure can't. After few throws I'll drop it. My body just gets
| bored of doing the same exact thing even just a handful of times.
| Same problem with exercise. Even zero balls sounds unbearable for
| more than 15 seconds.
| hybirdss wrote:
| six balls from zero coordination is just aimbot energy
| boogieknite wrote:
| casual 3 ball juggler who usually juggles fruit bc its fun to
| have a little pressure. might make a mess or ruin perfectly good
| food. my question:
|
| sometimes when im really grooving ill have a ton of backspin.
| like a finger roll in basketball. is that bad technique or do
| pros do that too?
| csours wrote:
| The fun thing about learning to juggle is that no one can teach
| you how to juggle, but they can teach you how to teach yourself
| how to juggle.
| gbacon wrote:
| Flight instructors say something similar, that we're just here
| to keep you from breaking the airplane while you teach yourself
| to fly.
| mmaurizi wrote:
| For those who want to find other jugglers to practice with, there
| are lots of juggling clubs all over:
| https://dev.juggle.org/events/clubs.php
|
| In my experience most folks go to clubs in order to do pass
| juggling with others (or because it's a nice indoor space with
| high ceilings), but typically folks are very happy to spare some
| time to help beginners learn
| rconti wrote:
| Huh. I thought there was going to be something insightful about
| one ball juggling specifically, but I didn't see it in reading or
| searching.
|
| I haven't tried just 1 ball, but I find 2 to be a lot harder than
| 3. (which, I suppose, is why I was expecting something insightful
| about why it would be difficult to juggle just one ball).
| GMoromisato wrote:
| Many years ago I saw Penn & Teller and Penn Jillette talked about
| how juggling flaming sticks or knives isn't that impressive
| because they are perfectly balanced for juggling.
|
| Instead, he took three large whiskey bottles of different shapes
| and sizes. On stage, he broke the bottom of each bottle. They
| came out all sharp, jagged, and uneven. He then proceeded to
| juggle three of them. I think he got only a few rounds before he
| was forced to drop them.
|
| I don't think he does that anymore.
| dack wrote:
| it's a cool article but would immensely help from gifs or videos
| to go along with the explanation
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