This workshop is designed for everyone who wants to improve their passing skills. Before we dive into the details, here’s a short disclaimer: For some of the suggested techniques, there are alternative methods available. The techniques in this workshop are simple and beginner-friendly. If you are not familiar with the alternatives, we recommend sticking with the given ones. If you fix the described issues and understand why they work, keep using them!
Do a Slow and Wide Cascade
Complex patterns require a lot of coordination and precise movements. The more time you take, the more accurate your movements will be. This is key to mastering many patterns. Beginners often move too quickly, regardless of what they are doing. Additionally, a wide cascade helps to fit passes into the cascade.
| Exercise: Start with a wide cascade. Catch the club to the side of your body, not in front. Once the wide cascade is stable, begin to slow it down. The goal is to do about 2 throws per second (both hands count). |
Do Consistent and Repeatable Throws
Clubs should be thrown in a way that makes them easy to catch. This means that the rotation is correct and the place where the club is caught is stable.
Throw from Your Side, Not from Your Front
Throwing a club from your side allows you to throw it with a “stiff” wrist. Also it allows you to move your elbow and shoulder more freely. Thus rotation, coming from a nice combination of shoulder, elbow and wrist, will be (more or less) automatically correct for the height of the throw. This becomes more evident when throwing doubles and triples where throwing from in front forces power to come from the wrist, making spinny passes. In contrast, the close space makes it more difficult to do doubles or triples.
| Exercise: While passing, do the wide and slow cascade from the last exercise. For every throw, bring the club next to your body before the pass. |
Let the Club Slide to the End
Throwing a club in the same way every time makes it easy to have repeatable throws. A key to this is to hold the club in the same position every throw. A simple technique is to catch the club more or less in the middle and, while you swing the club, let it slide to a fixed position. For most people, this can be achieved by sliding until the knob is at the beginning of the hand, but still holding the club with the full hand.
| Exercise: Pass like in the last exercise. Relax your grip on the downswing and let the handle slide through you hand till it is stopped by the knob.. Begin with some clubs and increase the amount until you slide every club. |
Watch Your Partner and the Whole Pattern
Using peripheral vision allows you to see the incoming clubs as well as give you feedback about your throws. Peripheral vision means that you are not focusing on a single object but see them in general. For beginners, it is helpful in patterns with only single passes to see your partner. If you do more complex patterns, your point of focus will change, but it will never be a single club.
| Exercise: While passing with a partner, ask your partner to make faces (like blinking an eye, sticking out their tongue, or wrinkling their forehead). Try to focus on your partner and call out what they are doing (“blink with left eye,” “tongue,” “wrinkle forehead”). If you have trouble doing this in a solo cascade, you can practice by attaching a text to a wall and reading it aloud while juggling in front of it. Or watching TV through your cascade, or focusing on a point on the wall on the far side of the juggling hall. |
Stand in a Neutral Position
When juggling, especially when passing, it’s important to maintain a good stance for balance and control. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart to provide a stable base and allow for quick movements. Keep your knees slightly bent to stay agile and absorb any sudden movements. Distribute your weight evenly on both feet to help you stay balanced and ready to move in any direction. Make sure your body is facing your partner, which makes it easier to pass and catch the objects. Hold your hands at a comfortable height, usually around waist level, and be ready to catch and throw smoothly.
Give Helpful Feedback
Giving feedback is a complicated topic on its own and deserves an own workshop (insert link here). Thus, here only two important and easy pieces of advice are given.
Give feedback on recurrent issues
There are several types of issues that can happen. The most impactful feedback is on topics that are consistently happening. So if you find an issue, you can confirm that it is reoccurring by simply watching out for the issue in the next try. When you have confirmed that the issue is recurring, explain the problem to the other passer(s). A nice side effect in watching the issue is that you sometimes find out that the issue is caused by other things, like a bad throw to the hand having the issue.
Explain what is happening to you
Sometimes the thing you experience does not identify the cause of what is going wrong. If you have a high pass and you catch the pass with the wrong end (at the body instead of the handle), it can have various sources. The club can be over or under spun. Giving a direction (“more spin”) assumes that you know the cause. This might not be true and can lead to wrong corrections. Therefore, giving the information about what the issue is (“I get the club on the wrong end”) gives all participants the information of the issue. Thus, the issue can be analyzed and solved by anyone.
Faster is Almost Never the Solution
Speeding up passing patterns in juggling isn’t always the best solution because it can lead to a loss of control and consistency. Faster throws can become less accurate, making it harder for your partner to catch and maintain the rhythm. Speeding up can disrupt the timing, leading to mistimed catches and throws. Maintaining a consistent height and speed is crucial for smooth passing, and increasing speed often sacrifices this consistency. For beginners or those still mastering the basics, increasing speed too soon can hinder learning and improvement. It’s often better to focus on smooth, controlled, and consistent passes before gradually increasing speed.
Additional Remark – Do Not Forget: You Learn Every Passing Pattern Twice
The first time you learn it as the weaker partner. You learn the pattern itself, but the other person is stabilizing it. The second time is when you are the stronger partner. You know the pattern itself from the first time, but you need to get the throws so clean that you are the person stabilizing it.