Passing for total beginners
We’ll build up to 5 club/ball passing: animation with balls. Every throw will be a pass, which is known as “ultimates” or 1‑count.
Beginners who’ve never picked up a juggling club before usually manage to pass clubs within one session with an expert, and sometimes with another beginner.
This workshop is based on https://www.passingpedagogy.com/. See there for animations for each step.
For this session, choose one person (“student”) who will always pass straight, the other person (“teacher”) always crosses their passes.
Yes, it’s good to practice both sides of a juggling pattern. However, when first learning a passing pattern it’s easy to get confused about where you’re supposed to be throwing. Don’t add to the confusion by swapping around the roles within a session.
Practice passing 1 object.
Clubs: Throw and catch from the top of the handle, near the middle of the club, which spins less fast than the ends. Hold up your hand at shoulder-height to the side of your body and open your hand. That’s where you want to catch the club. An ideal pass should turn around in the air once so that the club is vertical when it arrives in your hand. In practice, you’ll need to reach to catch imperfect passes. Try not to throw passes at your partner’s body or face! Keep your passes fairly wide by throwing inside to outside.
Balls: You’ll catch passes at more like waist-height, a perfect pass would land into your held-out open palm. As with clubs, you’ll want the balls to land to the side of your body, so later you’ll have room to throw from the inside.
Two exercises with 3 clubs:
The person with 1 club in each hand passes one of them to the other person’s empty hand. You can wait as long as you like between passes. Which club should you throw? If you remember whether you’re the one passing straight or crossing, that will tell you which club to throw.
The “teacher” starts with one club and passes it. The student reacts with a pass to catch the incoming club. Stop. Then repeat. If both jugglers are beginners, swap around who starts with the single club after a few throws, but don’t swap who is crossing and who is straight.
Here, and throughout steps 0–3, don’t rush ahead through the exercise too quickly, and go back to previous stages if you’re finding it difficult. Trying to rush on to exchanging more passes when the passes are out of control will be frustrating rather than productive.
4 clubs, exchange 2 passes each then stop. There are 4 starts to practice, one for each of the two jugglers’ four hands. Work on each start: at first with the “student” passing first. Once you can do all four starts, cycle through them: if you can make one club a different colour, then you can always start with that one. You can now do everything you’ll need to do to pass five.
5 clubs. Nothing has changed; don’t panic! Go the same speed, with just the same throws as before. If the “teacher” starts with three clubs, the “student” has exactly the same job as before for the first two passes. But then it just won’t stop, you’ll do another pass, and another. Some jugglers like to set a target number of passes and then try to stop with a clean finish. Go back to 4 clubs if the 5th club is putting you off.
If you get to here, congratulations, you’re passing!
Feel free to keep practicing, or take a well-deserved break.
When you’re hungry for more, there are three sections with different next steps.
[ Aside for theory nerds: this pattern could be described as the 4‑handed siteswap “5”. Although at usual juggling speeds, the passes would be really fast and zap across, as in passist’s siteswap 5 animation. We’ll throw clubs like that in a “zap” workshop, but not a beginner workshop! Instead, we’ve been throwing big floaty passes that are more like siteswap 7. We’re juggling a pattern closer to 744 (siteswap 744 animation), but the 4’s are holds rather than flips. A bored teacher could try to flip their two clubs between each throw, but it would probably put off the student! ]
Stretch goal A: 6 objects
How it’s going to work: We know it’s possible to juggle 3 objects between two hands, for example one person’s right hand and the other person’s left hand. If we can juggle 3 objects on each side separately, then, at least in theory, we can juggle on both sides at the same time and juggle 6 objects.
Now both jugglers will pass every club straight across (no crossing passes!). Below we take you through two versions: synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous passing is good for getting early success and looking at your passes, but asynchronous passing will last longer in the end.
Passing every throw (ultimates) is intensive, so don’t worry if you can’t run it for many throws at first. While there’s more to think about in the next main section (3‑count), it’s less intensive to juggle, so you can press on to that!
Synchronous pattern
Start with just 2 clubs. One person holds one in each hand and throws both clubs at the same time to the other person. Throw this pair of clubs back and forth until you’re happy. Try to throw from low down in the middle of your body and catch the clubs when they’re vertical on the outside of your body, next to your shoulders.
Then try holding 2 clubs each. When one person throws a pair, the other person waits until the clubs are half way towards them and then throws their pair before catching the incoming clubs. After both jugglers have thrown a pair, stop. Then swap who is starting. You’ll notice how important it is to throw wide and high, so the other person can throw low from the middle.
How’s it going? If it’s easy, one juggler might pick up two more clubs so they can respond after the first two pairs have been thrown. You’re then passing 6 clubs!
Usually it’s not easy! The juggler holding 4 clubs might want to practice throwing a pair while holding 4 clubs. If it’s not working at all, don’t worry. Try the asynchronous version and come back to it.
Asynchronous pattern
Start with 2 clubs in one juggler’s right hand and 1 club in the other juggler’s left hand. Face each other and try to juggle those three clubs between those two hands. Avoid collisions by throwing inside to outside. Don’t let clubs cross the centre line between your noses, you need that space for juggling on the other side!
Now both jugglers swap hands and juggle 3 clubs on the other side.
Now try putting it together! Normally both jugglers start with two clubs in their right hands. They make eye contact, and then at the same time they lift their clubs up, bring them down, and then throw their first passes at the same time.
Aside: comparison to 4‑ball solo juggling
If you’ve seen or done 4 ball juggling, a comparison may help (but passing 6 things is easier). For 4 balls, you can practice two in one hand, then two in the other, then put them together. You can throw synchronously: pairs of balls are thrown at the same time; or asynchronously: each hand alternates throwing.
Synchronous throws are great for getting the balls on each side to go to the same height: your non-dominant hand can copy your dominant hand. It’s often easier to get the first few throws working synchronously, to flash or qualify the pattern (throw each ball once or twice). However, mistakes are harder to correct when catching two balls at once, and the asynchronous pattern is likely to be more stable, and easier to run for a long time.
Stretch goal B: 3‑count (pass-self-self)
Start again with 3 clubs, the “student” holding one in each hand, and the “teacher” with one differently-coloured club. When the teacher throws in, the student does a self to catch it, another self, and passes back the same (coloured) club that they were passed.
When happy, the teacher picks up another coloured club, and now also passes everything straight. When the student passes the first (coloured) club back, the teacher passes their second (coloured) club at the same time. The student is now doing pass-self-self-pass-self-self… continuously. They are now doing the target pattern, 6‑club 3‑count: pass-2-3-pass-2-3.
Now that the student doesn’t have to do anything different, the teacher can pick up two more clubs and do the other half of the pattern whenever they want. By not juggling at the start, the teacher can do more dramatic saves, better passes, and devote more attention to giving feedback.
The final piece is that the student needs to be able to start with 3‑clubs, and pass a chosen coloured club out first.
Practice on both sides. If the teacher crosses their throws, this happens naturally. But the final pattern won’t have crossing throws in it!
3‑count animation or 3‑count juggled slower
Stretch goal C: Parsnip
Parsnip is a pattern where the only self throws are zips, where you can hand-across the club between your hands rather than really throwing it. So if the normal self throws aren’t happening yet, it might be easier. Parsnip is also lots of fun in its own right!
The pattern is: pass pass zip pass zip
Juggler one holds 3 clubs, with straight passes. Juggler two starts when the first club is coming towards them with pass-zip and then continues as written above, with all of their passes crossing.
Warning: according to the theory, these passes are higher or “floatier” than normal passes (as in 3‑count). So you’ll need to push the passes up higher, locking your wrist so they don’t spin too much. If you don’t, the pattern will seem super-fast and difficult. For that reason Parsnip isn’t necessarily a “beginner” pattern. But if you concentrate on throwing high floaty passes (a useful skill), it might work out.
5‑clubs Parsnip animation and details
If it’s too hard, you could try a 4‑club alternative: