How To Recover From a Juggling Drop

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.