Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind...????
After my research, I immediately picked up three tennis balls in attempt to juggle. I
also immediately failed. I've seen juggling before, and I thought I might as
well try to juggle to asses my skill before-hand. Without knowing the correct
hand motions and coordination skills, I basically just threw the 3 balls in the
air with failed attempts to catch them and throw them up again.
In order to
improve my juggling skills (could they even be considered skills though??), I
searched YouTube for "How to Juggle". Surprisingly, the first result
was by Rachel Ballinger, a YouTuber I am familiar with and watch regularly.
After watching her easy-to-understand and entertaining video (click here to see her video), I
gathered some very important tips for learning how to juggle.
- Start with one ball
- In the video, Rachel explains how most people want to just start with 3 balls right away (can she just @ me already??). The key to an easy juggling experience, however, is to start with one ball and throw it back and forth in an arc motion. After you feel comfortable with this motion, you can incorporate another ball by throwing one ball from right to left and another from left to right simultaneously. This creates a smooth learning process
- Look at the arc
- Always focus on the arc of the juggle cycle. Rachel explains how it is physically impossible to focus on all three ball at once, even though that's what most of us will probably want to do. You'll get too caught up focusing on one ball and then miss another. If you tilt your head and focus on the top of the arc, you'll be able to catch the balls without directly looking at them.
Talking
about the arc of the ball's path makes me think of my Algebra 2 class and the
vertex of a parabola with a negative a value. I think it would be so cool to
figure out the parabola of my own juggling cycles. Would that be something you
would all be interesting in reading about too?
- Go against the wall
- It is a natural human tendency to throw the balls that you juggle in away from you. It's hard to keep the balls in front of when you're constantly throwing them and resisting the urge to throw forward. When most people start out juggling, they end up running around the room to catch the balls that are being thrown forward. To get out of this habit, Rachel suggests that you juggle against a wall. This way, you can't move forward when you juggle… unless you want to run into a wall; then by all means, go ahead!!
I decided to
get started with my juggling. I tried to throw the balls in the way I just
learned, but the balls moved too fast for me to process and control!! I needed
something that would move slower through the air… something with more air
friction… something less dense…
Do you ever
feel like a plastic bag?
I got three
plastic bags to replace my balls. I started going through the motions of the
juggling I had just learned with time to see all bags, where they were, and
where they were going. Using plastic bags before I went onto real balls was a
necessary step to have a smooth learning process.
After I
mastered plastic bag juggling, I went to the balls. With two balls in my right
hand and one in my left, I was able to throw one from my right hand and one
from my left and catch it with the opposite hand. Still, only two of the three
balls were being juggled. I was reluctant to throw the third ball in the air
because I was so focused on catching the two balls. Finally, I just went for it
and continued the cascade with a third throw.
I mastered
the general motion of the cycle and from then on it was just practice. Practice
against the wall, practice looking at the arc, practice throwing all three
balls. The most surprising thing for me, however, was how tiring juggling is! I
mean it really is a cardio workout (no it's not but just let me roll)! Every
time you drop a ball you have to run across to the room to get it, just to
throw it up and drop it again and run across the room again. You'd be surprised
how out of breathe you'll get from an exciting stationary activity.
When I kept
dropping the balls, I got very frustrated but still kept juggling. When I
wasn’t showing any improvement, I wanted to see exactly how my hands were
moving and why I kept dropping the balls. I propped my phone up in front of
myself and videoed myself juggling on the "Slow Mo" feature on the
camera. Despite the horrifying faces I made in the midst of juggling (LOL), I
was able to see exact when and which hand placements limited my juggling. This
was a very helpful tool that I plan to use when learning the rest of the types
of juggling!
I already know someone is going to make a meme of my face at the end smh
At the end
of the week, I had definitely completed my goal to master the basic mechanics
of 3 ball juggling. However, I ran into some problems with my other goal, which
was to be able to juggle 3 balls for 30 seconds straight. Before I knew how to
juggle, I didn’t know much about how it worked and what was realistic. I've
gotten pretty good at 3 ball juggling, and the longest I can juggle for is 15
seconds. I don't think I set my goals using the right measurement. I shouldn't
have set my goals in units of time and instead in units of juggling cycles. I
even reached out to my coach Greg, who has been juggling for months now, and he
said that he was unable to juggle for 30 seconds straight. I'm obviously still
going to work towards the goal of 30 seconds, but I am going to set a more
apparent goal as well:
NEW
ADDITONAL GOAL!!!!!
- Be able to complete 10 juggling cycles of three ball juggling continuously
In the
meantime, I will be learning how to juggle the "Chops" method. Click here to see exactly what it is.
Thanks for
keeping up with my blog and I'll catch (get it, like in juggling you catch
balls) ya later!!
Anna :)
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