Chapter 472 In The Infinite Almanac Of Useless Web Skills

April 1, 2003 9:44 PM

Teach Yourself To Juggle:but - please! - only if you've got serious time to spare, for it is indeed an exquisite Flash tutorial, wot I am vengefully passing on from Bifurcated Rivets, wot infected me with this bleedin', debilitating, time-wasting disease in the first place.
posted by MiguelCardoso (13 comments total)

that's great. i taught myself to juggle, more or less, when things were slow at work the other day. the throwing part is the hardest part. its damn near impossible at first to get throws consistent enough to develop any kind of a rhythm, which is obviously the most important part of juggling.
posted by oog at 10:35 PM on April 1, 2003

If you've got time, you can work your way up to the tricks demonstrated here. In particular, this one (400K MPEG, from here).


the most important part of juggling.

That would be the dropping -- and of course the subsequent picking up. (That's why you could never really learn to juggle from a Flash tutorial....)
posted by mattpfeff at 10:50 PM on April 1, 2003

I learned to juggle out of a book, which took me about three days. I'd recommend practicing over a bed at first, so you don't have to reach as far for the ones you drop.
posted by emmling at 11:03 PM on April 1, 2003

This is one slick toy, but it just makes me miss my clubs. There's simply not enough space for them in Queens.
posted by muckster at 11:40 PM on April 1, 2003

Juggling 3 balls is easy. (If I, with my coordination can do it, so can virtually anyone.) I can juggle 2 balls in one hand with either my left or right. I just can't do it simultaneously for 4 ball juggling.
posted by salmacis at 11:53 PM on April 1, 2003

I learned to juggle in a somewhat incompetent manner whilst dossing around on the dole. Never got past the three-ball though - just too lazy to keep on practising.

Not a great fan of Flash by any means, but that presentation was awesome.
posted by squealy at 12:13 AM on April 2, 2003

Learning to juggle three things is really easier than most people think it is. I set my mind to learn one rainy day afternoon after reading some basics online somewhere (and being stuck inside). In a matter of an hour or two, I was successfully juggling, and with just a few hours practice could start doing a few tricks.

I never went past three things, and I never did move to juggling pins, but it's pretty easy to get started with the basics.
posted by mathowie at 12:53 AM on April 2, 2003

That is lovely - thank you. I learnt to juggle three balls in drama classes at school and still practice from time to time. Top hint I learnt - start off with rolled up socks - good to practice with if you have no balls. Juggling balls that is.
posted by jontyjago at 1:11 AM on April 2, 2003

I taught myself to juggle when I was a teenager, just for giggles. A hippie pal taught me clubs years ago when I was living in Kerikeri, New Zealand being a fruit-picking backpacker. It was astonishingly easy to learn, actually, after becoming One With The Balls years before, and I'm a big klutz. Haven't met anyone with clubs for years, and so I'm way out of practice.

In my sailing days, I knew a couple of 30-something guys who cruised up and down the Pacific Coast of Mexico and Central America, and into the Caribbean, in a big yearly circle, and made all their food/booze/repair/fuel money for their boat by stopping at resorts and juggling. The Good Life, and one I've always been too much of a coward to emulate, much as I've thought about it.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:13 AM on April 2, 2003

Nice links. Juggling is a much better time waster than video games will ever be.
posted by HTuttle at 3:35 AM on April 2, 2003

Glad to hear that the clubs aren't too hard of a step up from balls, stav. If I ever meet someone with clubs, I'll be much lest hesitant to give 'em a go.

I learned juggling as a combination of watching my dad learn with a ball set that he got for Christmas one year and practising with old pizza dough at the restaurant I worked at in high school. It really is kind of like the whole bicycle thing, hard to unlearn once you've got it down.
posted by Ufez Jones at 7:32 AM on April 2, 2003

Cool Beans! Finally something useful has been posted in the past few days. I've been wanting to learn how to juggle for the longest time.
posted by beatnik808 at 8:02 AM on April 2, 2003

I quite enjoy juggling. I could juggle three balls comfortably, then met a friend with clubs, and I learned to juggle those (and eventually bought a set of my own). After clubs, I learned to juggle five balls and would like to learn five clubs. I just have to buy two more, but the nice ones (Dube) are $25 a pop.
posted by jaden at 4:36 PM on April 2, 2003