Long-lost juggling
Anna has taken a renewed interest in juggling recently, and I recently did a small performance at an international festival in Uji, so I decided to spend a few hours today polishing some of my more difficult tricks and staking out some new territory.
One highlight was that using my small gray faux leather balls, I was able to complete 26 catches with a three-in-one-hand pattern. I have attempted three balls in one hand many times before but never had a result anything close to that. The problem for me has always been that there doesn't seem to be enough time to get my hand sufficiently to one side enough to provide enough horizontal motion to keep the balls from colliding mid-air. I had tried cascade and shower patterns with no success, but today I suddenly hit 26 after just a few warm-up attempts. It was something of a cross between columns and a reverse cascade...not a very pretty pattern, but it was exhilarating to have it continue for such a long time!
I also tried flashing seven for the first time in five years or so. After getting a hundred throws with five balls, I had thought that flashing seven might be possible, but it was way out of my reach at the time, so I gave up on that until today. My five-ball cascade is now to the point where I still drop a lot, but once I get a good run, I can keep it going for a few minutes, and I can maintain a very low, tight pattern for dozens of throws with a high success rate. I nearly flashed seven...I was able to release seven huge (for numbers juggling) balls with good timing and in two clearly-defined arcs, and managed to catch five of them. So maybe after a bit more practice I will be able to report on my first 7-ball flash!
For you non-jugglers, which will probably be everybody who reads this (if anybody reads this), a "flash" is throwing and catching the same number of tosses as the number of balls that you are using. So if you are attempting to juggling five balls, a five-ball flash entails throwing all five up and catching them all. A flash is not the same as "qualifying," which requires a double flash (i.e. ten throws and ten catches with five balls). So even if I get the flash down, I won't be able to say that I can actually juggle seven.
Anna has more or less learned to juggle four balls in a synchronous and asynchronous fountain pattern. Will try to post videos whenever I get the motivation to bust out the video compositing software.
One highlight was that using my small gray faux leather balls, I was able to complete 26 catches with a three-in-one-hand pattern. I have attempted three balls in one hand many times before but never had a result anything close to that. The problem for me has always been that there doesn't seem to be enough time to get my hand sufficiently to one side enough to provide enough horizontal motion to keep the balls from colliding mid-air. I had tried cascade and shower patterns with no success, but today I suddenly hit 26 after just a few warm-up attempts. It was something of a cross between columns and a reverse cascade...not a very pretty pattern, but it was exhilarating to have it continue for such a long time!
I also tried flashing seven for the first time in five years or so. After getting a hundred throws with five balls, I had thought that flashing seven might be possible, but it was way out of my reach at the time, so I gave up on that until today. My five-ball cascade is now to the point where I still drop a lot, but once I get a good run, I can keep it going for a few minutes, and I can maintain a very low, tight pattern for dozens of throws with a high success rate. I nearly flashed seven...I was able to release seven huge (for numbers juggling) balls with good timing and in two clearly-defined arcs, and managed to catch five of them. So maybe after a bit more practice I will be able to report on my first 7-ball flash!
For you non-jugglers, which will probably be everybody who reads this (if anybody reads this), a "flash" is throwing and catching the same number of tosses as the number of balls that you are using. So if you are attempting to juggling five balls, a five-ball flash entails throwing all five up and catching them all. A flash is not the same as "qualifying," which requires a double flash (i.e. ten throws and ten catches with five balls). So even if I get the flash down, I won't be able to say that I can actually juggle seven.
Anna has more or less learned to juggle four balls in a synchronous and asynchronous fountain pattern. Will try to post videos whenever I get the motivation to bust out the video compositing software.
posted by jeremy at 1:24 PM
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