978-about, 975-about (holy grail about), tips and dreams
5 years ago Nicki wrote an excellent article summarising the progress which had been made on take-outs in 4-handed siteswaps: https://www.passing.zone/take-outs-in-4-handed-siteswaps/
There was some exciting progress made at the 2024 EJC, so I thought it was time for an update!
At Passout 2018/2019 in Krelingen Christian from Pittsburgh brought the idea of doing take-outs in a 4-handed siteswap and workshopped 726-about, “What’s that about?” and “Manège à trois” (786-about), which I really enjoyed. Christian also has a page summarising all the different takeouts in 4-handed siteswaps: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ckaestne/takeouts.html
Holy grail about (975-about)
Adrian, Lukas and Cameron spent a lot of time trying to film a round of Holy Grail About at the 2024 EJC, and were able to get a round after many hours, at about 3 in the morning:
978-about
After getting a round of 975-about we decided that 978-about couldn’t be as hard, and indeed we found it easier:
aa7-about
A juggler’s work is never done – there’s always another pattern out there waiting to be done! This feels/looks about as hard as 975-about did in 2019. So I’m hoping to see a full round of this by 2029:
Tips
We’ve learnt a lot from doing these patterns. One key thing is to take a step in after the intercept or the pattern grows uncontrollably, like this:
However, if you step in then the pattern will stay the same size and will be easier to juggle, like this:
Conclusion
Overall I’ve had a lot of fun doing these patterns over the years, many thanks to Christian for inventing this family of patterns! Thank you to everyone who’s passed them with me and I look forward to spending plenty more time doing them in the future.