Juggling is a great way to develop coordination, dexterity, and hand strength. Juggling can surprise friends and entertain any company: no one will take their eyes off objects flying beautifully from one hand to another!
So, let's assume that you are already full of desire to master this – quite easy, I tell you! – art. The first question: what to juggle? Usually they start with balls or any spherical objects. These can be oranges, soft balls filled with sand or cereal, and generally anything that comes to hand. There are two main conditions for choosing objects for juggling. They should be about the size of a tennis ball and weigh about 150 grams. Soft balls are convenient because they do not roll anywhere, elastic balls look nicer (although tastes differ…), but they can roll far. Tennis balls are ideal in size, but they are too light: they are not suitable for a beginner juggler.
How did I do it? I had one wonderful, pleasant to the touch rubber ball, exactly the same size as a tennis ball. Quite heavy, weighing 160 grams. Such balls are used as a throwing apparatus, for example, in physical education classes. I also had two tennis balls, which I made heavier by… pumping them with water! It's very simple. Buy a syringe, preferably at least 20 ml. Fill it with water, insert the needle into the tennis ball and inject water. And do this 2-3 times, until the ball becomes heavy enough. I would recommend that, in order not to have to puncture the ball several times, after giving it an “injection”, leave the needle in the ball, and fill the syringe with water separately and connect it to the needle, which is already inserted into the ball.
Well, we have acquired the equipment, let's proceed directly to training . To begin with, we will need only one ball. Place your hands as in Figure 1 and throw the ball from one to the other. Elbows should not be pressed to the sides, ideally only the arms should move from the elbow to the fingers, do not move the shoulders! You should stand like this: knees slightly bent, right (for right-handers) leg slightly forward. If your ball constantly tries to hit you on the nose, then, on the contrary, fly somewhere forward, juggle near the wall, it will help your balls not to stray from the correct trajectory. It is good to juggle over the bed, since you will not have to crawl on the floor for a long time looking for balls, accordingly, you will spend more energy on juggling than on looking for props.
When you achieve good performance of the exercise with one ball (although, most likely, you will simply get bored), you can move on to two . Nothing complicated, just work both hands at the same time (Fig. 2). If it does not work, you can return to the first exercise. Make sure that both balls fly at the same height (approximately at eye level), and you do not throw one from hand to hand at stomach level, this is already an element of the so-called Shower.
It's time to move on to the most interesting part – juggling three balls ! We will learn to juggle cascade (in Russian it will be cascade, but sometimes a cascade is called another figure, in English it is called shower). Siteswap cascade – 333. Siteswap is a certain code of the figure. The number of digits in it is the number of balls, each digit carries certain information. For example, 3 means that the ball is thrown from hand to hand at about eye level. 1 means simply throwing from hand to hand (in a straight line), 5 – the ball is thrown above the head and caught with the other hand. Even numbers mean that the ball remains in the same hand. The higher the number, the greater the height.
In Figure 3 you can see what is required of you at this stage of the training! There is no need to juggle fully yet: just exchange the balls as shown in the animation. If everything went correctly, stop, mentally rejoice at your success and continue.
Once you feel ready to start juggling for real, do the same exchange, but without slowing down for a second (compare Fig. 3 and 4). You are juggling! Congratulations!
But that's not the limit, there are many figures to juggle, and you can also juggle clubs, knives, and anything else you want. There is no limit to perfection!
Fig. 1. Exchange of 1 ball
Fig. 2. Exchange of 2 balls
Fig. 3. Exchange of 3 balls
Fig. 4. Cascade 333
