Juggle 3 Clubs!

I found this video over youtube it’s great.

Cool but maybe post this in the juggling thread. (search it)

Fail. I hope there is a better video than this. While this is certainly one way to juggle clubs (choked grip and narrow pattern) a beginner should start with a wider pattern and a more neutral grip. This will give a slower/higher turn and more room in the pattern. This will result in more time to react and less collisons.

The club should be held diagonally across the palm so that tip of the club points out at about a 45 degree angle. Then the club is ‘scooped’ to point ~45 degree across the body and the club will spin and land diagonally across the opposite hand. This is a much more natural way to juggle and will result in many less jammed thumbs in the learning process.

ezas (30 year club juggler)

I’ll have to try and make a video if I can find some time.

Poor advices in the vid IMHO

There is no advantage gained by gripping so far from the knob. Find a neutral grip that feels good to you. Also, look where ever you want, where you look is unimportant. Good club passers look mostly at the other guy, and the incoming clubs, doing their own pattern by feel rather than by sight.

If you want to do the cool behind the back throws, you must learn the exact feel of the knob hooked on your thumb, so each throw will feel the same, and go the same place.

The knob is there for a reason. Watch the videos of the great jugglers, rather than the weak. They all throw from the knob for most of the tricky body throws. When you feel the knob, you can feel exactly what you have. Getting as near identical hand feel between throws is where the consistency comes from. The club is caught midish on the handle, but then slide down to the knob before it is thrown. This gives you longer reach, and slows the rotation, giving more time and better control.

This video looks like a beginner club juggler teaching us how to juggle clubs. Fine for beginners, but even then it seems to include basic stuff about the cascade pattern that a ball juggler would already know.

Beginners tend to hold clubs by the knob, which definitely makes controlling them harder. Though holding them in the middle is an improvement on that, why not teach people from the beginning to hold clubs in the middle of the handle. That’s what the handle is for. Later you learn different grips for different moves.

Control the flip with your thumb? I haven’t picked up clubs in a while, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how I do it.

For back throws, the knob is slide down to the space between my little finger and the next. To go through the legs from the back and front, the knob fits in the crook of the thumb.

Anyway, practice and have fun. John’s middle of the handle sounds fine to me for learning the basic pattern. I just wanted to mention that most of club mastery has to do with throwing the club the same way each time. So if you want to learn body throws, dialing in the feel of the knob in your hand as you throw it is perhaps the most important detail. It is not important that you do it the same way as me (I have noted a wide variance among expert jugglers in hand techniques). Rather, you should grip the knob end of the handle consistently, the way you like to throw it, for many types of club tricks. I don’t care how you grip it, but you should !, and do it consistently !

If it feels in the same position, the chance it will go to the same place after it is thrown goes up greatly. I think I spend as much attention to the feel of exact handle placement in my hands, as I do to where the clubs are flying.

It was a good video. Good for a sporadic juggler like me. Choking up on the grip and juggling in a tight pattern is good practice and makes one’s tosses consistent. Learning how to juggle in a wide open pattern will reinforce gross motor memory to keep doing just that, and then you have to unlearn and refine technique.

I’m not trying to step on anyone’s daisy here, and I understand some of you have quite a bit of knowledge and experience with this juggling trick.

I’m currently attempting to figure out poi and its confusing the hell out of me. Uni riding will have to wait until the driveway and all surrounding roads are no longer ice fields, but one skill I have mastered is riding burnout wheelies on a 600+ pound motorcycle.

Its no more difficult than juggling bean bags or learning to balance on a uni. Its just scary, noisy, and carries the penalties of disfigurement to self and bike if you screw up. :slight_smile:

For juggling on a unicycle I would think that a more open pattern
would work better (juggling by gripping closer to the knob rather
than the middle of the club).

I can juggle either way, but I can’t ride a unicycle at all yet.

Juggling with hands closer to the middle of the clubs tends
to increase the speed of the pattern (a lot, for me… if I
want to go really fast I do it near the middle)

Double spins I tend to do with a grip nearer the end knob

He is not teaching a trick, he is teaching 'how to juggle and if there is 10 way to learn this would be number 11.

A good juggler will take time to practice all variations of grip, pattern width and height. But what is in that video is not good for a beginner.

The natural/neutral grip on a club is going to depend on the balance of the club. But in no case is it going to be that choked. I can do solid triple spins under a low ceiling and my grip is not that choked.

The problem with that grip is that it is not diagonal across the hand which is the neutral/natural way to grip a club. Good grip lends itself to good throws. Neither of which are in that video. If you watch the video closely his grips and throws keep changing.

With a diagonal grip, when thrown the club will spin on the diagonal and land naturally across the catching hand and the hand will close naturally around the handle. No ‘grasping’ needed. The club is just there and in position for the next throw.

Just like anything else a beginner should be learning somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of technique using a method that will give the best chance for success and enjoyment AND does not teach bad habits. A medium width pattern and neutral grips gives that result.

When I teach someone club or ball juggling I go for a balance between good fundamentals and quick pay back in enjoyment. In my opinion that is not what is being taught in that video. That guy figured out a way that works for him but what he is doing would be considered poor technique by any accomplished juggler.

What that guy is showing makes a good drill, but to a beginner it is a bad habit that would have to be unlearned at some point. It isn’t the last way I would teach someone (that would be juggling from the knobs) but the narrow pattern with clubs pointed straight in front is a mistake for a beginner. A mistake that would have to unlearned at some point.

The basics of ball and club juggling should be from each side of the body center line to the other. Learning to juggle on the center line is going to lead to more collisions during the learning process. Its the equivalent of teaching someone to ride a uni with their weight on the pedals. Can it be done? Sure (people ride SIF) but its not the path of least resistance to solid riding skills.

Put as simply as I can say it, this guy is teaching a bad habit.

Anyone have a camcorder near Placerville? I’ll make a video showing all of this clearly.

I forgot to mention something that may not be obvious to everyone…

You can start juggling clubs by doing two balls and one club,
then one ball and two clubs, and then three clubs.

Small bathroom plungers work as cheap clubs, and you can also
make some very nice cheap clubs from PVC pipe using 3/4 for
the handles and adapter up to 2" for the heads.

I’ll hafta draw up a sketch someday. They look a bit like
juggling torches in shape.

Thanks for the post ezas. I’ll apply that toss theory to club juggling practice from now on.

I would love to see an instructional video from a veteran juggler, but I cant’ help you with the camcorder request. I’m over in Wisconsin, mate. Cheers!

3 club stand up wheel walk juggling is fun.

Some digital still cameras do decent video.
You must have a nephew or niece or some kid with a camera :sunglasses:

So : ) now that we all agree that this tutorial isn’t the best, I have good news!!

IJA is hosting a juggling tutorial contest!! check out their website for more info ; ) but heck, it’s free t-shirts, free ija registration, and other such prizes, can’t say I’m much for the magazines, but the other stuff can’t be beat : )

basically, make video, give credit to contest, and submit . . . . . profit! :smiley:

Now in Ball juggling I have a unique way of teaching people to juggling. I teach people how to drop balls. This breaks the habit of desperation grabbing, makes the thrower relax and they do not get in the habit of lunging all over the place to make a catch. Its lets the learner focus on a good throw that ends up close to his other hand. That I might enter…

My club juggling technique is nothing special, I learned it from a book on juggling and used the two balls and one club, and then two clubs and one ball and then three clubs method to learn.

Maybe a club video on some of the drills I do to make my juggling more ‘solid’. One is reading something held in front of me while I juggle, another is high slow spins and low fast spins. Juggling with one eye closed is good drill and is juggling though dusk to darkness. Thats a very cool one.

Anyone here ever tried to freemount in pitch darkness? That is a very strange feeling not having any visual reference cues (I do a roll-back mount). It took me a couple of tries to get used to it. I had to keep telling myself “you know how to do this” and learn to trust my muscle memory.

One of the hrdest things about juggling torches is doing it
in low light because I can’t easily see the orientation of
the clubs (torches). And of course, that’s when it looks the
best to an audience.

What was the unique part? :slight_smile: We used to do that too, and I’ve read it in juggling tutorials (or even books?) here and there.

Yes and yes! Even harder was the pitch-dark riding that came after the mount. It was on a path I’d never been on (paved), with a drop-off on both sides. Yeah, I know, great planning. It was coming down Victoria Peak, not in Wellington but in Hong Kong, in 1993.