Juggling Patterns

Patterns we juggle at Berkeley

To get the most out of this page, you really should make sure you have a copy of JoePass running on your machine. Then you can generate your own animations, view patterns from different angles, and experiment with the causal diagrams. If you like these patterns, have cool ideas for them, or get some people to juggle them somewhere, let me know!

3 Count Accommodation

3-count-accomodation This is a pretty cool pattern! It requires one person doing a pass-pass-self feed, one person doing a 3 count, and two people doing a 2 count, one left handed, one right handed. If that’s too easy for you, try swapping roles on the fly! You’ll probably have to have a look at the causal diagram to make sense of what exactly is meant to be going on. (JoePass file)
3-count-accomodation-causal-diagram

Lodi Lowdown

lodi-lowdown What a pattern! For 5 people. Every time anyone passes, they are swapping a club with another person. There’s one really easy position in the pattern – let’s call that juggler Mr Red (the colors match the animation). All he does is juggle a right handed 4-count, passing alternately to Mr Yellow and Ms Green. Most of the time, Ms Purple and Mr Yellow are just juggling a 2 count with each other, and similarly Mr Blue and Ms Green. This can’t quite work – every 8 beats Mr Yellow has to pass with Mr Red. So, at this point, Ms Purple remembers not to throw a club to him, but immediately after that beat passes left handed to Ms Green, who returns the favor. Similarly, whenever Ms Green is meant to pass to Mr Red, Mr Blue should not pass to Ms Green, but immediately after exchange a left handed pass with Mr Yellow! Got that? 🙂 (JoePass file)
lodi-lowdown-causal-diagram

Berkeley Y

berkeley-y Our very own Berkeley Y – a 3 count dropback pattern. (JoePass file)

Y Elekreb

y-elekreb While Theresa was in Arizona, she juggled the following pattern, and realized later it’s almost a time-reversed Berkely Y, hence the Y Elekreb. (JoePass file)
y-elekreb-causal-diagram

Mercedes Benz

mercedes-benz An unlikely looking 3-count pattern for 6 people, involving quite a few dropbacks, which sort of grew out of the Berkeley Y. (JoePass file)

Alternating Feed

alternating-feed This is fun and isn’t too hard! Four people, taking turns to feed. You can try out all your syncopations, and still have a moment of 4-count to recover! (JoePass file)

alternating-feed-causal-diagram

You can also add hohos on the diagonal passes. After every right handed diagonal pass, immediately follow with a left hand pass to the same person. You have to do 3 passes in 3 beats, which is getting a little adventurous. (JoePass file)

alternating-feed-hohos-on-diagonals-causal-diagram

Simultaneous Triangle

simul-triangle We’d been thinking about patterns with simultaneous throws – we tried something like this, a 3-count triangle. (JoePass file)There’s also, according to JoePass, a presumably easier 8 club version. (JoePass file)

simul-triangle-causal-diagram

Isosceles Triangle

isosceles-triangle This is a 3 person, 10 club, 3 count triangle pattern. Two sides of the pattern use doubles, one side uses singles (hence the name!) (JoePass file)

isosceles-triangle-causal-diagram

Torture Chamber

torture-chamber-small Our Berkeley version… do you get the impression that certain people have an unhealthy predilection for dropbacks? (JoePass file)
torture-chamber-causal-diagram

Row Row Row Your Boat

row-row-row-your-boat This is one of the those patterns where causal diagrams don’t even begin to capture it 🙂 Fundamental to this pattern is the `singing’, if you can call it that. Everyone in turn sings:

Row, row, row your boat,
gently down the steam,
merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
life is but a dream

That is, each sings a line at a time, always one bar behind the person on your left. Each line corresponds to a particular set of actions. Denoting right-to-left selfs by S, passes to the person on your left by L, passes diagonally by D, and passes to the person on your right by R, the bars correspond to –

DSSD
SLLS
DRRD
SSSS

Remember while singing that `life is but a dream’ has an extra silent beat at the end! Hopefully between this and the diagram you can work it out. (JoePass file)