Threads tagged #upchuck2014

Orinoco - 2014-01-28 12:34:44 UTC - Parent #

It's a good idea to practice on the non opening side.

The Void - 2014-01-28 11:04:02 UTC - Parent #

Deliberately walk backwards immediately after your first throw.

HardAttack27 - 2014-01-28 11:57:11 UTC - Parent #

How about ur front? Face the door and juggle up close! Also if it's warm try going outside with one ball and throw it up as high as u can and try to catch it without moving ur feet,kelp those feet planted, if u have to take a step to catch the ball, u just let it fall, try again and again,

Mats1 - 2014-01-28 13:58:45 UTC - Parent #

Forget the wall and forget the mirror.

Start out with two balls, one in each hand and throw them to around head height one at a time a try to catch them. I always say to people try to say out loud "throw, throw, catch, catch." It does really seem to help.

Your aim is to try and have the balls go to roughly the same height in the air. Another important thing to remember is that the throws are very important whereas catching is not very important. Juggling is about making good throws that lead to easy catches, so focus on trying to make the throws good. Good throws lead to easy catches.

Once you can do that at least 50% of the time, even if you're throwing forward or whatever, as long as you can "throw, throw, catch, catch" most of the time, you are ready for 3.

Start with two balls in your strong hand and one in your weak hand. This time, we are going for "throw, throw, throw" and letting the balls hit the floor. That's right, no catching at all to start with. Practice throwing the balls so that they go roughly towards your other hand and go to roughly the same height in the air. It's extremely important that you do not pass any balls across the bottom. The balls must go to roughly head height. Again, it's not so important if the throws are a little forwards, getting the throws out of your hands well and to a similar height is most important of all. I suggest practicing this part over a bed or something of a similar height, so you don't have to spend so much time picking up juggling balls from the floor.

Ok, once you can throw those 3 balls comfortably, you are ready to try and catch them. Remember throws are most important so make sure you are focused more on good throws. You are going to go for "throw, throw, throw, catch, catch, catch"* and once you can do this at least 50% of the time, you're very nearly juggling!

The stage after that is simply to add in an extra throw, so that you are doing 4 throws in total and once that is happening most of the time, add in a 5th. Somewhere around the 6th throw, you should find you are able to start doing little runs of 3 and shortly after you will be juggling.

*Technically when you juggle later on, the first catch will happen just before the 3rd throw, but it doesn't matter when you're just beginning.

I'm not sure how well this method comes across in text, but I've taught hundreds of people to juggle now and this is the method that I found my teaching refined into over the first couple years of teaching.

Mats1 - 2014-01-28 14:43:09 UTC - Parent #

I will never get used to using HTML tags on a forum... haha

It's Him - 2014-01-28 14:50:33 UTC - Parent #

That sounds a lot like one of the methods I have used in the past for teaching. My current preferred method for teaching everybody (and always bearing in mind that not everybody learns in the same way so be prepared to try different methods) is to get them learning the cascade with scarves and not move onto balls/beanbags until they can do at least 20 throws. 

Primarily the reasons for doing this are that it slows the whole throwing and catching process down and you then have the time to say "throw before catch" each time. The other major reason is that the timing of the throwing gets more ingrained before speeding up the process with balls.

On every occasion when I teach the main thrust of what I am saying is that the direction and timing of the throws are much more important than catching.

Also if you are throwing forward, stand over a bed/sofa. It makes you less likely to throw forward as you know you can't move forward to catch and you don't have to bend down so far when you drop. Throwing against a wall just means that the wall is correcting your mistakes rather than you.

Nigel

Helena Coker - 2014-01-29 10:33:49 UTC - Parent #

Thank you everyone! One more question, I only have bean bags at the moment, are these going to be harder to learn with? I'll try giving it a go over the bed again and we'll see if I'm juggling before UpChuck!

Ps. I do have walls, just a lot more stuff in the way of them :)