Learn to juggle in a snap

While I’ve posted lots of things about running, I haven’t posted much about learning to juggle. That’s because it’s a thing that is much easier to teach someone in person. However, I found this great website run by some pHD student that endeavors to teach non-jugglers how to juggle. Just click on ‘how to juggle‘ and begin. Below is a description of what happened as I went through the site. It will help you know what to expect.

They are trying to find the best way to teach juggling using the latest in sports psychology. Your participation in the website will help develop this new teaching model. It took me about 10 minutes to run through the site. To learn to juggle, it will take you some amount of practice time. But I think if you go through it, pay attention, and practice the skills, you’ll be juggling and joggling within a week.

To start:

1. Click on the box that says “I’m a newcomer, I’m over 18 and I want to get started”

2. They provide an introduction to juggling. Hit the ‘Next’ button at the top right.

3. They then provide answers to a few basic questions. Hit ‘next’ a few more time.

4. You have to provide them a user name, password, nickname, and some demographic info.

After that, you can begin.

In the first step they tell you to get some bean bags. When I was first learning to juggle, I used ping pong balls. These are quite difficult as they are light weight and bounce all over. But I was obsessed so I made progress quickly.

On the next couple of screens they introduce the Cascade pattern. This is the pattern you will use for joggling. Then they show you visually how you will learn. First with one bean bag, then 2, then finally 3.

Your hands and body position are described next. This reminds me of the old days in 5th grade when I learned to juggle. Perhaps a story for another time.

After this it goes through some mental visualization that you are supposed to do. Perhaps this could work. I once read that doing something in your mind is 80% as good as doing it in real life. That is if you really see it. Like I like to say, see and be it.

The next step is that you go through a bunch of questions and visualizations. There are eight of them so be prepared. They are easy but 8 questions is a bit of a pain, at least for me.

In the next section you will learn 8 skills for juggling. These are really good. Take your time and do the exercises and in less than a week, you will be juggling. The classic book Juggling for the Complete Klutz is pretty good and nice for any new juggler’s bookshelf and it comes with its own set of juggling bean bags. That was a stroke of genius. But the book that I started with was Dave Finnigan’s The Complete Juggler. This has all kinds of tricks and related juggling skills. I’ll review it sometime. It’s great!

Learning the skills
Alright, next is some gobbly gook about visualization, but then there is a video of someone doing the first move. This is pretty handy for a beginner. Learning that is skill 1

Note: there is something screwy with the website as the title page after you learn skill 1 is a little messed up. To find the ‘next’ button to move to the next screen you have to scroll over the bottom because it is off the screen to your right.

Skill 2 is to do the same thing as skill 1 but snap in between. It’s fun. You should try it.

Skill 3 and 4 is more snapping just using your dominant and non-donminant hands.

Each of these skills is done with one bean bag or tennis ball or whatever you feel like juggling or joggling with.

Well with skill 5 you move on to two bean bags. Then I imagine you go on to three. You can check out the website for more.

By skill 7 you are finally using three bean bags and doing some real juggling. Skill 8 is the last one you will learn.

And if you made it through and did all the exercises, you are a juggler and are ready to take on the world of joggling!

Let me know how you do.