Page 29                                                  Summer  1991

Some interesting patterns have four jugglers in the middle and four outside. With all moving to their own right, they can pass every right hand to a new juggler. Or they could pass every other to make it a little easier, or pass two clubs to each juggler to allow time for getting to the next juggler. If you eliminate the move­ment from this pattern, you can have each juggler just feed the two nearest facing jugglers, say starting on the left. Then maybe start moving after some number of passes.

 

DOUBLE FEEDS AND MULTIPLE FEEDS

If we add a fourth juggler next to the feed­er in a basic feed, we get a double feed (jugglers 1 through 4 of Fig. 2). The old feedee opposite the fourth person becomes a second feeder in the pattern, passing to the original feeder and to the new person. The two other jugglers of the original pattern are not affected and keep pass­ing as they were in the original feed.

 

In fact, we can keep adding one more juggler at a time opposite an end feedee to turn that feedee into a feeder. In this way you can add any number of people and everyone gets to feed except two people, one on each end (see Fig. 2).

 

THE COMPLETE FEED

We can change a big double feed like Fig. 2 so that almost everyone feeds three people instead of two. But there's no reason to stop with three.

In the complete feed there can be any number of people in each of two rows with everyone feeding. Each person feeds all the people in the opposite row plus some number of phantoms" on the ends of the row. If there are X people in your row and Y people in the other, you do a normal feed of those Y people plus a total of X-I phantoms on the ends. See Fig. 3, in which all the passes of two jugglers are depicted.

 

A phantom is an invisible juggler off one end of the opposite line whom you feed by doing a self. It's important to actually visualize the phantoms as you feed back and forth past the real jugglers and the phantoms. This allows you to keep track of where you are and when to resume passing with the real end juggler after you've fed some phantoms.

 

Unless you are on an end yourself, you have phantoms on both ends. In fact, you have exactly as many phantoms on your right (off the end of the other line) as you have people on your left in your own line, and the same number of phantoms on your left (off the end) as people on your right in your line. Visualize your phantoms' positions and just do a feed of all positions and you shouldn't have any trouble keeping the pattern going. Everybody should start feeding, say, at the extreme left (with a phantom for most people, a real juggler for only one person in each row). Try the complete feed first with just 2 people on each side - everyone will have just one phantom, on their own end of the opposite side.

 

THE AMOEBA

In the amoeba, everyone takes turns being the feeder, in a fairly simple sequence. When you're feeding, you make exactly one sweep right and left of all the other jugglers. When you start sweeping back to the left after having passed to the feedee on the extreme right, that feedee comes over and stands to your right in preparation for becoming the next feeder. You make your final feed to the person on the extreme left and then you go stand on the end next to that person. Mter your last pass, then next feeder takes over, starting with the person you ended with, and then sweeping right and left once in a normal feed. So everyone comes from the right, becomes the feeder and goes back to the left to become a feedee again.

 

THE FEED WEAVE

The feed weave is a fun moving pattern. The formation has one person feeding three. The feeder just does a normal back and forth feed of those three positions, but the excitement comes from the fact that the feedees are constantly changing places while juggling.

 

All three feedees do the same thing, following each other around in a figure eight as they all go sequentially through the three feedee positions. Each feedee does a 6-ct (passes every third right) while moving around, with each pass coming from a different position in the feed (Fig. 4).

 

If you're the first feedee, on the feeder's extreme left, here's what you do. The feed starts with you. As soon as you have passed, start backing up slowly, waiting for the incoming pass. When you've got that club, move back­wards and to your left into the middle slot.

 

After you've gone past the juggler who is vacating the middle slot for the slot you just came from, move quickly forward, straight toward the feeder. As you go through this middle position, make another pass and keep moving forward until you catch the feeder's pass to you. Then quickly start sliding to your left to get out of the middle, and back up slowly in the outside slot As you're backing up on the outside, you pass again and continue back­ing. Then start. moving to your right. Again, as soon as you've gone past the juggler who is vacating the middle slot, move quickly forward, straight toward the feeder. And again make a pass as you go through the middle heading straight forward. When you catch the pass, immediately slide to your right to get out of the way, and then back up slowly in the outside slot, back to where you started. You'll make another pass from that slot and keep on backing up as you continue the weave.

 

Wherever you start, stay in place until you make your first pass. At any given time, the feedee in the middle goes forward and those on the outside go backward. If you start in the middle, the thing to remember for the start is that you go forward and then to the right after catching your first pass.

 

The feeder can help things enormously by leading the feedees as they move forward and back. To do this, the feeder should throw short passes in the middle (toward approaching jugglers) and long passes on the sides (to jugglers backing away). You can take your time on the outside, but it's important in the feed weave to move very quickly through the middle. You should be almost running to get forward and out of the way of the next juggler. Before sliding to the outside, go about half way to the feeder from the normal position to give the person crossing behind you enough room. Remember, you make one pass from each slot that you visit.

 

THE FEED LOOM

The feed loom is very similar to the feed weave in that the feeder feeds three jugglers who are moving among the three feedee slots. In this variation, however, the feedees never move forwards or backwards, only sideways (Fig.5).

 

To avoid crashing into each other, the feedees choose three different distances from the feeder: close, normal and distant. Then they slide sideways past each other, always moving after each pass to an adjacent slot and making a pass from there before moving on. As in the feed weave, each feedee does a 6-ct while moving among the three positions, with one pass made from each position encountered. If you're the close or normal distance feedee, make sure, however, that after passing you don't move until any immediately following longer pass goes by in your next slot.      

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