Mercury Worm reports a great story about his first experience joggling a couple miles outdoors. It’s amusing and reminds me of many of my own joggling efforts. In one part he
describes his drops. He was passing someone and right after they said how impressed they were, he dropped a bean bag.
This reminds me that we rarely talk about the drops here on the joggling blog. But drops are often most memorable. They lead to feelings of embarrassment and discomfort by you and the people watching you. Fret not! Follow these tips to relieve this negative tension and recover with style.
Stylish joggling recoveries
1. The Clever Excuse. When you experience an inevitable drop, have some stock one liners to amuse anyone who might be around you. Some that I’ve used include…
“Wow, that’s never happened before.”
“Blasted gravity!”
Here’s one I used in the Chicago Marathon a couple years ago at mile 25. I had my first drop of the race. A girl and her boyfriend saw the drop and had these empathetic looks on their faces. I winced in pain as I bent over to pick up the lone Gballz and said
“Guess I’ll have to start over from the beginning.”
Their sorrowful looks turned to grins and I finished joggling the race strong.
I polled the other jugglers at rec.juggling and here are some of their suggestions.
“Quick kid, pick it up, if you’re fast enough no-one will notice”
“You lazy ball, you’re fired”
“I thought we worked this out in rehearsals”
“Of course I did it on purpose, whaddya think???….”
You drop, make a big “tada” movement and await applause…hopefully awkward silence. Say, “Hmm, the last crowd didn’t like that trick either.”
2. Make it Tricky. If you can’t come up with a clever quip, consider turning the drop into a trick opportunity. When you pick up the rouge orb bend down on one leg (like your doing a lunge), throw the bean bag under your leg and start the pattern back up. Or push the bean bag onto your shoe and kick it in the air. Resume joggling as if you meant to do that. Recovering from a drop is all about attitude.
3. Restart with Style. If you drop more than one bean bag, it’s a great chance to try the triple bag restart. Put all three bean bags in one hand in the shape of a triangle. One tip of the triangle should be at the top of your fingers. With your palm facing down, flip the three bags into the air. The one in the middle should fly higher than the ones on the side. Grab the two side bags with each hand and resume the juggling pattern when the third one decends.
If I get time this weekend, I’ll put up a video that will show you how to do all these tricks.
Joggle on.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve read this post and several others about how to handle drops. My goal for my 1st 5K is March 31st. (Couch to 5K) I started training 5 weeks ago. I added juggling in 2 weeks ago. I’m joggling 2 miles 3 times a week. That gives 2 more weeks of training.
While I’ve been juggling for years, I have about 6-8 drops per mile and my pace has dropped from about 10:00 per mile to 11:24 per mile joggling. The indoor track I run at isn’t well lit and that doesn’t help, but I only have slightly less drops on a treadmill.
The 5K I’m entering had 418 entrants last year. Do you think I have too many drops to enter right now? Should I hold off? What do you think is a reasonable amount of drops?
Hello Robert,
I think you should go ahead and go for it. I know Barry has a number of drops during the race and it doesn’t stop him. The key will be to not interfere with other runners. I would stay off to one side and start in the back. A reasonable number of drops would be less than 20 for the whole race.
I read the Ralph Kidner interview after posting my comment, and I figured he could drop 30+ on his first 5k then I could do it. I also had an outdoor Joggle for the first time last Friday and ran 2 miles in 20:46 with only 8 drops. It’s amazing how good lighting helps.
I’ll let you know how things go.
Great news Robert. Be sure to see the articles we wrote on Joggler Etiquette.
http://justyouraveragejoggler.com/joggling-etiquette-series-part-1-how-to-line-up-for-a-race/