How Are Water Heaters and Jugglers Alike?

Let’s start off with a riddle I think I made up. I can’t find it anywhere on the web:

How are water heaters and jugglers alike? The answer is at the end of this post.

I’m still practicing the shower juggling pattern. Progress is slow. I found a YouTube channel called YouJuggle. It’s this guy called JuggleMan, a professional juggler who is older than I am. His site has way over 10 million views. He describes and demonstrates how to do the shower a little differently than other jugglers do. The title of the video is “How to Juggle Three Balls in a Circle.” It’s for beginners.

He teaches the two-ball practice by showing that you start with two balls in the dominant hand, then toss them both up. Then before the second ball drops you pass the first ball over to the non-dominant hand. You almost have to slap it because it comes down so quick. Now I understand why my Learning to Juggle book says almost exactly that:

“Take two balls, one in each hand, and do the schoolyard throw. Toss a ball into the air as an over-the-top throw with your strong hand, then pass the other ball by the short route to the strong hand. Actually, it’s more of a slap of the ball from one hand to the other.”

Then the author tells you to take 3 balls and “just go for it.” Right. The instruction is the same as others have; you have to throw two of them from the strong hand, one right after the other, …” following the same path as the first, and then slap the third into your empty strong hand…”

Anyway, guided by JuggleMan, so far, I feel like I’m making a tiny bit more progress moving from the 3-ball toss and catch to even trying one extra throw.

The key is to time the tosses so that there is even space between each of the three balls. That’s to avoid getting that rushed feeling, because it’s a very fast pattern.

For me, trying to juggle the shower pattern is a lot like trying to take a cold shower. I had experience with this when our water heater failed. We learned to take really fast showers.

But I don’t want to do the shower fast—I just want to do it. Speaking of water heaters, here’s the answer to that riddle for you:

How are water heaters like jugglers?

Answer: They both get rusty. And that’s why jugglers practice.