41-3,p35

Ten-Club Feed

For good practice toward passing seven clubs, take a feedee position in the ten-club feed. The feedees are essentially passing seven clubs, but they only have to pass every other (a 4-ct). The feeder starts with four clubs and the feedees three clubs each, and all passes are doubles.

The feeder starts first and simply alternates throwing doubles to the two feedees (starting, say, by passing to the left feedee). Each feedee starts by passing a double, one count after being thrown the first pass - the same start delay as when passing seven clubs. Continue by passing every other club.

One common problem in this feed occurs if the passes from the right feedee are short or low. That's because the feeder has to throw under those passes to get to the left feedee (left and right are from the feeder's perspective). So the right feedee should be sure to throw high and long enough to avoid this problem. It's also important to throw decent doubles of course.

Trick throws can be added, such as flats (easy), chops (harder) and under the leg doubles. These throws should be high enough so that they take the same amount of time to land as a double would. Higher throws such as early or late triples or quads can be made to fit in quite naturally. Try a triple-quad from the feeder, or continuous triples from both feedees.

To make the pattern more challenging, a trio of experienced passers should try it with singles instead of doubles. The same problem with the right feedee's passes occurs here, but with even less room for error.

Although the feeder usually starts with the extra club, someone else often has four clubs after some dropped clubs have been picked up. See if you can figure out how to start the ten-club feed if one of the feedees has the extra club.

13-Club Feed

Of course we can add more feedees to a ten-club feed. With three feedees, we get a 13-club feed, and the feeder has to learn to catch a club coming from a feedee two positions behind where the next pass goes. This can be a little confusing at first, but it's fun when you get in the habit of just catching whatever club shows up near your catching hand.. You don't have to figure out where it came from. Maybe try a 13-club feed with singles.

Random 13-Club Feed

Now comes the fun when we make the 13-club feed random and thus require strict attention by the feedees, because no one knows what the feeder will do next.

In a normal 13-club feed, the feeder goes down the line and back continually. Each feedee passes back to the feeder one count after a pass from the feeder.

In the random feed, the feeder is allowed at each passing beat to pass to any of the feedees. Whoever the feeder passes to has to respond with a return pass. Because there is one count between the feeder's pass and the resulting feedee' s pass, it's not hard to respond in time. The feed can move down the line normally or it can jump around. The feeder can even throw in an occasional self triple without disturbing the juggling pattern.

In order to be ready to respond, each feedee should keep an eye on the feeder's passing hand (or body in general) to figure out when a pass will be coming. For starters, it's easier if the feeder doesn't throw two or more passes in a row to the same person, but even that can be handled with some practice.

In Conclusion...

Do you have another passing pattern involving throws to random people, such as the random feed above? If so, tell us how it works.

A regular part of Juggler's Workshop will be a pictorial description of a juggling move. This time we have peel offs, which have a pleasing visual effect but which aren't difficult provided you can balance a club with either hand.