Sena is a flashy juggler now, OK! She is now able to do the 3-ball throw and catch (for the cascade eventually), and in my Learn to Juggle manual, that means she is now juggling.
She counts the throws, pays attention to the juggler’s pane of glass (the juggle space) and just generally has a good time.
She has been diligently practicing and is now wondering the same thing I wondered (as I am wondering now about the shower pattern).
How the heck to let go of the balls?
Once in a while when I’m filming wildlife, I get an odd feeling that the animal somehow knows it’s being watched. It looks up and seemingly right at the camera.
I got that feeling while making a short video of a Tufted Titmouse the other day. It seemed to stare at me while I filmed it through the window. A tree branch was in front of it and it was really tough to get a clear shot of its face. It looked like it was playing a peekaboo.
Some people say the bird has a friendly face. It also appears to be coy. The name titmouse just means “a small bird.” They’ll pull hairs from sleeping dogs, cats, and squirrels to line their nests.
Sena’s juggling balls have been silent lately, meaning I’ve not been hearing them hit the floor. She is pretty busy doing other things, like gardening.
But I’m pretty sure another reason is dropping the balls. She and I are probably at about the same learning stage in juggling. She’s trying to get past the hurdles of learning to juggle the cascade pattern. I’m still trying to get past the hurdles of learning the shower juggling pattern.
I practice every day. When I drop the balls (which is very often), I pick them up and try again. Some of my bloopers are funny, so I included them in an ugly juggling video. I don’t include all the bloopers because that would be monotonous in the extreme.
But you can tell I get pretty frustrated—and a little out of breath. I do the usual lunging, grabbing, and faking.
It’s still pretty fun. Keep trying, Sena!
Update: Sena practiced today! The evidence is on the floor:
I’m still practicing the shower juggling pattern. I’ve got an ugly presentation with claw-grabbing, flattening the half shower fake jobs, and uneven throw spacing. But I’m not quitting yet.
I’m trying to follow the JuggleMan’s example.
I didn’t get a breakthrough until yesterday when I tried my black and gold Hawkeye juggling balls. I guess they’re lucky!
Sena is still practicing the basics of trying to introduce the third ball into a cascade pattern, just like I’m trying to get the third ball into the shower pattern. She thinks one to two minutes is long enough to practice, though.
Slow progress is still progress.
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.
Hey, it’s my birthday and it turns out the juggling glow balls are my early gift. Sena decorated my cake, using cookie icing that sort of spread out.
You got to love the birthday card she got for me. “Selective Listening Ensures the Survival of Man.” Or at least this man.
Just for the occasion I juggled my glow balls. I can program the color changes, but it’s sort of a numbers game. You have to click the right number of times to make your selection. Sena likes the 1UP2UP trick.
And according to someone who wrote the book, “Age is just a number and mine’s unlisted.”—Manya Nogg. OK, so you probably first heard it like I did, from the lady on the Boost High Protein Nutritional Drink commercial.
I don’t really feel my age, and nor do I act it. I do not drink Boost—yet.
I’m still working on the 3-ball juggling shower practice. I’m up to the toss and catch. It has taken me a couple of weeks to get beyond just dropping balls all over the place.
There are a couple of methods I’m trying. One of them is to start the toss and catch by tossing up the 2 balls in my dominant hand right away, one after the other (which I’ll call Method A). The other is to toss just one ball up (Method B).
Method A is illustrated using an animated stick figure and circles on a website called the Library of Juggling. It’s also recommended by some jugglers. Method B is demonstrated on the website Taylor Tries.
I thought Method A would be the only one I could hope to master, but I can’t seem to work my way up to tossing the second ball up high enough to work my way into the actual shower pattern—which is very fast, in my opinion.
But I couldn’t manage to do Method B at all until today. I would consistently drop all the balls. I’m not sure what made the difference today, but that’s been the usual way I progress. I get stuck and somehow, I get unstuck if I just keep practicing.
Where I’m at today is usually where I have trouble working into the juggle pattern. I had the same problem working into the 3-ball cascade (which Sena is working her way up to now). I have trouble letting go of the ball I need to toss in order to start the actual pattern.
I’ll be working on trying to sneak extra throws into the toss and catch for now. I need to let go.
I get stuck at certain stages in juggling. It’s uglier than usual with learning the Shower. I’m struggling with the two-ball practice. I’ve looked at the YouTube videos of several experts and their demos vary.
I found out from a Wikipedia article that the two ball Shower is a thing. But it’s not juggling. I’ve been stuck in ugly juggling learning stages before. I’m thinking I’ll get through it.
Sena is still learning to juggle. She’s eager to try the three ball Cascade. We’re both dropping balls all over the place.
Sena got me a spectacular gift—glowing juggling balls! They’re not like any of the juggling balls we have. You plug them into a wall socket and they light up.
They are not much bigger than the other juggling balls we have, so not much of a learning curve. In a way, they’re kind of like stage balls, only not as big as most of those are. And the light show is fantastic, especially in the dark. There are several colors, they can be bright or dim and programmable to change colors as you juggle.
And they’re solid, not filled with millet. When you charge them up, they sort of “breathe” red color (meaning they wax and wane with brightness). And when charged (takes about and hour and a half), they “breathe” green.
OK, I’ve found out that there’s more than one way to hit the shower pertaining to the juggling trick called “The Shower.”
As usual, my form is ugly because I’m in the early practice phase of trying to learn the shower. But then, even when I think I’ve got a trick down—it’s always ugly.
Anyway, different experts have different instructions for the shower trick. A couple of them tell you to throw the two balls in your dominant hand one right after the other. “Go for it” the guy says, who wrote the Learn to Juggle manual I still use. A YouTuber also tells you to just throw the two balls up there. Another expert doesn’t suggest that—but I can’t do it at all unless I toss two balls up sequentially.
I keep my two hands two close together and too high for the “slap” part of the pattern, which is tossing a ball straight across from my nondominant hand to my dominant hand. I also throw a ball too far out from the pane of glass (which is a pain in the ass!).
As usual, you can see all my mistakes in my ugly juggling on my own YouTube video, which you should not use as an example of anything but the wrong way to learn the shower.
By the way, Sena is making progress learning to juggle!
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