Basically this is a workshop in using different techniques to teach beginners with a slightly altered aim than ‘learn to juggle 3 balls’ – cause 3 balls is hard!
Useful for four types of people:
- total beginners
- people who have just learned the cascade and want some new tricks
- people who want to concentrate on movement rather than technical juggling
- people who teach juggling
start off with wrist warm up and brain games
- wiggle fingers on one hand, roll other wrist, then swap
- thumb on one hand, finger on other, swap
- triangle with one hand, square with other
1b throws – lot of variety and working both sides, gets person used to catching, also to not needing to be perfect! Also gaining confidence and having fun because everything is pretty much achievable for everyone.
- Self (right hand to right hand, left to left) at juggling level – about head height
- high self (with claps)
- low self
- under arm (focus on getting throwing hand under)
- under leg (same, then other)
- btb
- above head
- above head lying down
- half pirouette
- full pirouette (remembering 3 steps: throw-spin-catch. Practise throw on its own, and spin on its own)
can also do a bunch of 1b catches but I tend not to in a total beginner workshops, but would for those seeking more movement based stuff.
2b multiplexes – flat split (throwing both from one hand with an even level split, catching one in each hands)
- standard in front
- under arm
- under leg
- btb (not always for beginners)
- half pirouette
- turning under arm
- full pirouette (not always for beginners)
2b self throws (one in each hand, each throw coming back to the same hand, in regular left/right/left/right continuous)
- in front
- under arm
- under leg
- btb (not usually for beginners)
back to in front, and at this point you could go towards standard throwthrow/catchcatch technique, but your students will have a better grasp of catching and more confidence in their abilities.
To develop these into 3b juggling there are several directions: one is to learn to use the multiplex to totally simplify your juggling down to one throw at a time – this is the one for movement based students.
Similarly you can teach the multiplex start: ‘2up, 1up, juggle’ which can then transfer to all the multiplex throws. This also gives a huge advantage to those wishing to move, as at many points in your juggle you now have points where nothing is in the air.
Finally you can use the 1b body throws as starts and finishes, and it wont take long before you/your student can do the body throws within a juggle without stopping.
It’s not the normal way to teach juggling, but I’ve had great success using this. It’s much more fun to teach than the standard method, and people really feel like they are making progress and learning to juggle, even when they cannot do a cascade. I should give some credit too, to some great juggling teachers who have helped me in my development of this: thanks to Jay Gilligan, Jon Udry, Kenn Musso and many others.
robzencat 