Most people can't juggle one ball

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

> 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)

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...

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.

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.

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.

> 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

> 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?

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.

The first HN submission ever that got me to put down my device and go outside, and probably going to get me hooked.

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!

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.

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.

Worst thing about juggling is that you get a very good instinct to catch falling stuff, even if it's sharp and pointy.

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).

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

Didn't expect this to actually be about juggling, but I'm not complaining

Is it time to get good at darts yet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3eotWyZv5c

I'm currently learning the fountain pattern and it's cool to know that it should only take about a month. After that though...

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.

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.

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

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.

it's a cool article but would immensely help from gifs or videos to go along with the explanation

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?

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

I assumed most software eng from the early aughts can all juggle.

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?).

six balls from zero coordination is just aimbot energy

The other's in Albert Hall

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.

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.

Juggling rats?

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...

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

Is there anything HN related involved here other than autism?