Go Retire Psychiatrist

Yesterday, I finally got the hang of a couple of new juggling patterns: the orbit and the weave. They don’t look like exactly like what the experts do when I do them, but that’s just my ordinary juggling.

The orbit is just a column juggling pattern with two balls in one hand and just waving a ball underneath them. I don’t do that very well at all in my left hand, but I do fair with my right hand. I’m better at moving the ball under every other column ball. I can do only 3 in a row moving the ball under every column ball.

The weave is a 423 pattern in which one ball stays in the right hand (except when it’s tossed up) and one ball stays in the left hand and you toss both column style up and then pass them one under the other in a pattern. The third ball gets juggled from right to left and vice versa. I had a tough time getting the hang of it.

The experts say you should smooth out the weave (which is moving one ball under another) so it looks artsy. In my hands, it looks like more like martial arts. I’m pretty sure I’m doing it right, but it always looks like I’m trying to throw the balls away.

I struggled with the weave because I couldn’t get the count right. Yesterday, I tried saying 1 weave, 1 weave, 1 weave, with 1 tossing a ball up and weave corresponding to moving the ball in the opposite hand under the ball. That worked.This makes more sense when you watch the video—especially if you watch a pro do it like Logan on Juggle Gym or Taylor on Taylor Tries. They are graceful while I’m more like David Carradine (as Caine) in the TV show Kung Fu back in the 1970s.

Come to think of it, Caine was more graceful at Kung Fu than I am with juggling. I’m kind of like Caine after practicing hard at ordinary juggling—I seek water.