Why can I not juggle 5 reliably? I can get 20 catches easily, but 30 and
40 are stretches. For some reason my pattern falls apart and I can't keep
them up. I've been trying this for 3 months now and I can barely hit 35
catches given a hearty amount of tries. Please, any out there, can you
help me?
Much Obliged,
Hubris
----== posted via www.jugglingdb.com ==----
DAVE: 3 months isn't really that long, keep trying, 35 to 200 isn't as
long as 0 to 35. Are you
breathing? Sounds silly, but sometimes that is the problem.
Dave, a juggler
Three months? Dang, even people that aren't good make me feel bad. (no
offense)
I've been working on 5 for about 4.5 months and I'm just getting around 20
- 30 catches. And I practice a lot.
Some advice, remember to make sure you're throwing in a 2d plane. Keep
you're plane high and narrow. Honestly, just keep working on it.
And you aren't bad (I bet) Five balls takes a while. or mabey that just
what people say to make me not dicouraged.
Michael Webster.
Thanks
Much Obliged,
Hubris
Five balls does take a while. It took me almost a year to get to 100
catches. Just keep on plugging away with it. And don't forget to do lots
of work on three and four balls while you're going. There's a lot of cool
stuff there, as well.
Dave
Well 5 objects and up actually takes a considerable amount of effort to
get. I learned it kind of quickly, maybe had it solid after 6 months?
Well, just keep practiced in whatever way you can. Don't count your
catches and don't be disappointed when you don't make your record, just
get as many attempts as possible in one day, just don't rush it. Also, if
you don't know any four ball tricks, etc, then work on those. 5551 may
help, the the 3 ball flash will help.
Good luck!
Alex
You know what they say though, "Practise doesn't make perfect, it
reinforces error". Which is true, you keep doing the wrong thing over and
over again, it'll still be wrong.
I first flashed 5 in May, now it's nearly November and I have a grand
total of 22 catches. Do not count! Especially not yourself, this will
throw off your timing and you'll never keep up. If you're getting to the
5 ball level, you should be at a good research level as well. There are
many articles on IJDB and elsewhere on 5 ball practice. Read all of them
carefully and think about what you're doing. Other patterns are helpful
too 55550 is one I often do mainly because I've dropped a ball and just
carry on, but I find I can run that quite well.
What's the great big rush? If you want to, you'll get there. It's
supposed to be your hobby or past-time, not some chore. You don't expect
to finish school in 1 year something which should take you 3. Just calm
down,
Chiok
http://www.jugglingdb.com/news/article.php?id=%3CVBYN1.4$ZA5....@typhoon.mbnet.mb.ca%3E
http://www.jugglingdb.com/news/article.php?id=%3C87508g$7kg$1...@nnrp1.deja.com%3E
http://www.jugglingdb.com/news/article.php?id=%3C35FC3...@worldnet.att.net%3E
http://www.jugglingdb.com/news/article.php?id=%3C3vd2dg$n...@is.bbsrc.ac.uk%3E
http://www.jugglingdb.com/news/article.php?id=%3C35B51...@pop.a001.sprintmail.com%3E
http://www.jugglingdb.com/news/article.php?
id=%3C406f4013$0$63620$bed6...@news.gradwell.net%3E
http://www.jugglingdb.com/news/article.php?
id=%3C409d9733$0$58815$bed6...@news.gradwell.net%3E
http://www.jugglingdb.com/news/article.php?id=%3C9gr9oq$a6f$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk%3E
I think I'll stop now.
Next time you post use jugglingdb's search function
I do not realy agree with the practice does not make perfect. That would
be like saying practicing is all bad. Will be hard to learn new tricks?
When i was learning 5 it took about four monts before i had 20 catches.
Afater 6 monts i had 50 once in a while, but could do 20-25 reliably.
Then I started to work on triks. I did 20 perfect catches, then trying
to do eg a multiplex, and go back into the five ball cascade. Took a
long time before the 5 cascade was reliable, but when it was i had
picked up a few tricks on the way too.
Ohh what a crime he did! Did you even check that he is using the poor
website to post? (yes he did)
I think what was meant was "Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect
practice makes perfect"
5 balls requires 90% practice and 10% of practicing the right thing.[1]
If you are consistently practicing bad technique, your technique is
unlikely to improve. However, if you are practicing good technique
you'll wind up with perfect.
> Will be hard to learn new tricks?
No, because if you've practiced in the right way, tricks are an
extension of what you're doing already. Strong houses are built on good
foundations. The same goes for juggling patterns.
-Paul
[1] And we can all quibble about what "the right thing" is until the
sheep come home[2]
[2] They stay out later than cows.
Good Luck,
Leo138
Good Luck,
Leo138
Swing and a miss. Apologies, that's the point I was trying to hit. I
swear I heard what I said before somewhere... I might have made that up.
Chiok
www.gravityvomit.co.uk
("Practice makes perfect, but then no one is perfect. So why practice?")
Look, if you can't get runs that last at least a few minutes
after three months of practice, you should give it up.
You weren't meant to be a juggler. Some people don't
have the coordination...
OK, seriously, have you assessed your accuracy? Five is thrown
higher than three and until you can comfortably and accurately
throw to a greater height don't expect long runs.
Luckily for you, it is possible to practice the 5 throw without
needing to practice with 5 balls, so you'll drop a lot
less and get more efficiency out of your practice time.
Practice nice controlled throws that go at least a couple feet
above your head with three balls. As you gain more
accuracy, practice reducing the dwell time to a minimum
and practice your timing until they are evenly spaced.
There are lots of other drills, but that's the most basic
one that I've found very helpful myself.
Good luck,
FreeJuggler
p.s. A lot of us practice 5 for years before we get it
solid.
Maybe measure you average rather than trying to always improve your PB.
Have 10 goes, and take a note of the average.
Do the same tomorrow ...
You're at the stage where to keep going you have to learn to correct the
pattern if it goes
slightly wrong. This is not easy to learn, sorry. Practice.
You also have to learn to relax, breathe, blink, whilst juggling 5. :)
Try 50505 with three balls (the snake).
Really helped my 5 clubs at a similar stage.
hth
>
> -Paul
> [1] And we can all quibble about what "the right thing" is until the
> sheep come home[2]
>
> [2] They stay out later than cows.
Cows have early-morning milking.
At least sheep let you know which baa they're going to,
and they usually have a dedicated driver.
Hubris,
Lots of people say just practice more. I really can't agree with them. I
personally don't think your problem is that you have not practiced hard
enough. Yes it does take a long time to learn, but I would bet you have a
problem in the way that you are throwing the balls leadinding up to the
collapse. To resolve the issue do the following:
1) Use video... alot. Look for a pattern of where the balls are going.
Is the left hand always throwing a little lower? Does the left usually
wear out right before pattern colapse?
2) Get 3 exerballs. Run three and 4 a lot with some heavy balls to build
up those muscles. Or just do a lot of club juggling. Large heavy balls
are another good way. Try flashing 5 heavy balls over and over and get it
perfect. Try flashing 5 russian style curcus balls over and over and see
if you still have it. Try to run the pattern with something other than
what you normally use. Try to run the pattern high. Try to run the
pattern low. Learn 3 up 360. Juggle 4 in regular conversations with
people (look right at them).
3) practice it a little bit every day (or 3 times a week can work well
giving you some off time which you can really learn in)
I find sometimes a pyramid works pretty darned well. For instance do:
5 throws (10X)
10 (10X)
15 (10X)
20 (10X)
15 (10X)
10 (10X)
5 (10X)
This way you will focus on doing things right and not on dropping Only
allow a drop at the peek of the triangle. The low points of the triangle
are what you would probably do in front of people when your heart is
beating fast and are freaked out about doing well, the high point is near
your personal best but only 80% of it.
If you want to record another best and change the triangle, fine, run it
hard and up the pyramid but only do this once a week (when you start it
because you probably are not maxing your potiential) but more often every
other week.
-Daniel
Ok, so here comes my advice, maybe already told, but not emphasized enough
(i think). It would have been useful if I practiced this way at your
stage.:)
So I hope it helps you. Maybe not now, but later on.
Pay attention for the rhythm. I haven't seen your runs but it can happen
that
your throws are accurate enough, but the rhythm is bad so after some
throws it
is impossible to keep it going. (If you know about Shannon's theorem in
the maths of juggling, I think it's the same thing.)
Of course 5 is fast at the beginning, but you can start to work on rhythm
with
3 balls.
1. Counting. I used to count to measure personal record, then I stopped it.
Now I count most of the time again, not for record, but for keeping the
rhythm.
It means that you're counting uniformly, and try to follow it with
juggling.
You're still counting catches, but it's quite a different idea. Out of the
three possibilities (counting for record and trying to make one more catch
vs
no counting vs rhythm counting), it works best for me. For exmaple I could
never do siteswaps before, but this helped a lot.
2. 3-ups, snake. Can you do it with proper counting? It means that what you
throw up on the one, you catch on the five. I couldn't do this good enough,
not even after 100+ catches in 5 balls. Try to run these with different
holding times, different heights, different rhythms. (Also try extremely
different!)
3. Key throws. Start your 5-ball runs with some more energy. I think it is
psychologically important.
Cheers,
B
Is there any evidence that gatto learnt the 5ball cascade solid "in a
few weeks"? I've never seen any evidence (factual or annecdotal) that
he learnt 5 especially quickly.
Sure, he learnt it very early in life, but he was coached by a respected
profesional juggler from an early age and I wouldn't be at all surprised
if it took him at least months to run it solid. Mind you, he would have
been working his arse off for those months as having a coach and
structured practice routine would have made sure of that.
-Paul
I can't believe ewe would make such an awful pun.
-Paul
Wool you forgive me ?
This is the thread from Anthony Gatto's forum about his 5-ball and
7-ball cascade learning times:
me: I was curious how long it took Gatto to get the 5-ball cascade
solid which would have been years ago. (solid = able to consistently
do the pattern for a minute.) And repeat the question for 5-club.
Thanks.
wasabi: I think he doesn't remember...
maybe he was 5-6 years old.
Gatto: I really don't remember but Nick has told me that there was
really not much learning time. When I was able to do 4 balls and he
had me attempt the 5 there was a visible pattern that very day. I
think it was a matter of weeks before I could run it. As far as having
it solid well, I was doing shows at 6-7 years old(local shows in
Maryland)so I think I was performing it then. A.G.
icanjuggle: In 1983 Anthony worked with me for about one week at the
Reno Hilton Razzle Dazzle show. He appeared as a special guest and did
his kid routine the end of my act. He could juggle 5 balls very
well... very sure... and could do a number of variations without
problem. There was a movie producer there filming for the "JUGGLING"
film that was later produced and also a camera crew from PM Magazine.
I don't believe that Anthony had ever tried 7 balls before. He tried
it one day in front of the camera and in a matter of no more than 15
minutes he could cascade 7 balls quite well. The camera crew filmed
the whole process of learning it and getting it going.. and I believe
I have a video tape of it as I bought the tapes from the television
company after the program aired. I don't remember if he put it in the
act that week... quite possibly he did. I also have a tape of his show
and will look at it to see! If he did... he went from learning it ...
to performing it in front of people in a matter of days. -Dick Franco
Gatto: Weren't those the days Dick. Man...that was so much fun. I just
watched the Razzle Dazzle video of us recently as Alan Plotkin added
it to the documentary....brought back a lot of memories. -A.G.
you see where it says "----== posted via www.jugglingdb.com ==----" at the
end of his post. Well
he didn't write that, come to think of it neither did I at the bottom of
this post.
I was pointing out that on jugglingdb.com there are loads of different
ways to read about how to
juggle 5 balls. Creating a new post on rec.juggling asking a question
that, quite frankly, I'm sick of,
might not be the best way to go about learning 5 balls.
try spending 1 hour each day for 3-6 months practicing and you will make
some progress
> try spending 1 hour each day for 3-6 months practicing and you will make
> some progress
Amen to that. Most people cang et atleast 50 catches in 6 months with
that amount of practice.
Guy
Shear madness? No, but it's Flocking
ridiculous. There's some Silly Baa-stards around ;-)
Gyppo
John Craggs - Writer - Adult Tutor - Storyteller
and All-Round Rogue
Need a laugh? Then subscribe to the free Monday Silly Digest:
mail to: gyp...@ntlworld.com With 'MSD SUB' as subject.
I'm 39 years old. I started practicing 5 balls every day about a year
ago. Some days I may only get 10 minutes to work on it, others maybe
an hour. My best run after all this time is 37 catches. I log my best
run each day and recently I've been able to break 30 catches for up to
10 days in a row. It's amazing to me how slow the progress has been.
I'm pretty sure part of the problem is my age, but I'm trying everyday
to prove I'm not too old to do it. My goal is 100 catches.
I hit a barrier around 25 catches because I was throwing too low. It's
tough to keep a low pattern going for very long. It tends to widen,
speed up, and get lower. I would almost be batting the balls back into
the air as there wasn't time to actually catch and re-throw.
Strength is an issue. I don't mean weight lifter strenght, but muscles
that react quickly and accurately. Even the slightest bit of fatigue
and I can't hold the pattern. It doesn't matter what your brains say
if your arms can't respond. With three balls you can get very tired,
the pattern can get very sloppy, and you can keep it going. Not so
easy with 5 balls. If you make a bad throw and have to reach out to
grab it, it takes quite a bit of strength to pull your arm back into
position and make an accurate throw in the very small amount of time
you have. If you think it's easy, then you have the strength necessary.
If you suffer with this, then welcome to my club. The obvious
solution is to throw higher. This will negatively impact your throwing
accuracy, but it's something you'll need to learn to progress. I've
recently increased my pattern height by only a few inches, and find
that I can at least make corrections now. Sometimes I can even make a
reverse throw to recover from a wide toss.
The other thing I've been focusing on is keeping my arms closer to my
body. Sometimes I find myself juggling with my arms way out in front
of me. I don't start that way, but I end up there. All the joint
motion is in my shoulders. I seem to be doing better by keeping my
arms in and bending at the elbows when I throw instead of the
shoulders. Related to this is the pattern of my hands when I throw.
If I get a good pattern started I try keep my hands and arms in the
same pattern of motion. When you're first starting out each catch and
throw seems to be a separate, unrelated event. When you get a good
pattern going it's very fluid and continuous.
The last thing I'll mention is that I'm starting to think the bean bags
I'm using are a little too light. They're old smaller fabric covered
Fergies. They're more of a numbers bag and I'm wondering if a heavier
bag might land in the hand a little more solidly. Many times I blow a
pattern because I catch the ball funny and then can't get a good throw
because it's in my hand wrong. Of course then it takes more strength
to throw so I don't know if the trade off would be favorable. Has
anyone ever switched props and seen an immediate improvement?
Enough for now - I'm supposed to be working.
Jim
> The other thing I've been focusing on is keeping my arms closer to my
> body. Sometimes I find myself juggling with my arms way out in front
> of me. I don't start that way, but I end up there. All the joint
> motion is in my shoulders. I seem to be doing better by keeping my
> arms in and bending at the elbows when I throw instead of the
> shoulders.
VERY important piece of advice! It took me rather long to realize how
important that is. I've read it in Boppos numbers notes and in several
posts here on rec.juggling. I've been told by various people to do it,
observed in a lot of videos that all good jugglers are doing it. I always
thought that I was kind of doing it right but I didn't. I finally ended up
tyeing my elbows to my body with a belt (no kidding!). That gave me a good
feel for how my elbows should feel at my sides and it taught me that my
throws where ALWAYS going too far forward. Not much, but enough that I
couldn't really catch them with my elbows tied to my sides. That was what
always made my arms move forward and upward before.
The frustrating thing in the beginning was that I pretty much had to
relearn the 5 ball cascade with the correct arm position. But after I
managed to do that the improvement came very quickly. Not only in terms of
number of catches, but more importantly the feeling was quite different.
It suddenly felt like juggling.
To summarize:
The three most important things to focus on when learning the 5 ball
cascade are IMO (in order of decreasing importance):
1)Keep your elbows at your sides
2)Keep your elbows at your sides
3)Keep your elbows at your sides
Honestly!
HTH
gantenbein
Don't lamb-ast me !
Mutton earth is going on here?
- Andrew
Just a few 'word people' having a funny five
minutes, but I don't know 'wether' I can go on with
this [1], ;-)
Gyppo
[1] wether. n. castrated ram. © From the
Hutchinson Encyclopaedia.
Personally, I'm having tremendous difficulty learning the 5 ball cascade.
The main reason is my progress is so haphazard. My record is about 20
catches, and one day I nailed 15 catches in a good pattern almost every
time I did it. Now, three days later I can't even qualify it, not once
after a half hour of countless attempts. Very frustrating!
Paul
Tim923 wrote:
> Gatto: I really don't remember but Nick has told me that there was
> really not much learning time. When I was able to do 4 balls and he
> had me attempt the 5 there was a visible pattern that very day. I
> think it was a matter of weeks before I could run it. As far as having
> it solid well, I was doing shows at 6-7 years old(local shows in
> Maryland)so I think I was performing it then. A.G.
>
> icanjuggle: In 1983 Anthony worked with me for about one week at the
> Reno Hilton Razzle Dazzle show. He appeared as a special guest and did
> his kid routine the end of my act. He could juggle 5 balls very
> well... very sure... and could do a number of variations without
> problem. There was a movie producer there filming for the "JUGGLING"
> film that was later produced and also a camera crew from PM Magazine.
> I don't believe that Anthony had ever tried 7 balls before. He tried
> it one day in front of the camera and in a matter of no more than 15
> minutes he could cascade 7 balls quite well.
----== posted via www.jugglingdb.com ==----
Don't hogget all.
I'm not Boverd, ay, but there's certainly been some 'ariesing puns here.
Guy
>Personally, I'm having tremendous difficulty learning the 5 ball cascade.
>The main reason is my progress is so haphazard. My record is about 20
>catches, and one day I nailed 15 catches in a good pattern almost every
>time I did it. Now, three days later I can't even qualify it, not once
>after a half hour of countless attempts. Very frustrating!
Yep, 8 years of practice here. Max 33 catches. I gave up. Did most
of my 5b practice after age 25. Maybe if I had started young. -Tim923
Gues it's your weak will power causing the trouble.
agree
if you have basic coordination and your general fitness is normal, then
you get it preaty easy. Quite often people drop and strugle becouse they
are in such lousy shape.
Nerd, your a prat!
Haha. There's always this reasoning to protect my ego:
I am perfectly able to learn 5,6,7 object juggling. I just prefer not
to. Why work at it when others have done it for me for my enjoyment?
Because:
a) Go on you know you want to try it
b) It'll get you girls, lots of them
c) It makes you look tough and big
d) All the cool kids do it
Oh, wait a minute, that's smoking isn't it.
-Paul
Sorry, that should read :- Nerd you're a prat!
Although now I come to think of it the word pillock might be more
appropriate.
Agreed, and relax relax relax relax relax.
Focusing on the feeling of my elbows, especially left one,
I lately feel that I'm doing 5 ball cascade.
Wiht eyes watching the balls up,
The mind(consciousness) at the same time starts to
observes the body, especially arms(upper, fore), elbows, hands, fingers
and one more,
Chin has to be closer inward while eyes upward.
Bok.
*goes limp*
*falls on the floor*
-Paul
*unplugs direct brain to usenet feed*
Eew! A Keyboard! How retro!
-Paul
Well what do *you* use to catch your crumbs?
I have staff to do that for me darlink.
-Paul
Does it twirl?