In this issue, we'll discuss some basic passing patterns and interesting variations with them. We'll also touch on a helpful but fairly simple idea which appears not to be discovered by most jugglers as quickly as one might expect.

 

Two-Person Passing

Of course the most basic passing pattern has two people facing each other and exchanging passes from the right hand. This pattern is commonly done in a 2-count (in which the right hand passes every club) or in a 4-count (the right hand passes every other club). The 2-ct is a good medium for doing continuous passing tricks, whereas the 4-ct is good for allowing lots of solo tricks between passes.

 

For learning purposes, the 6-count is quite useful. That's because in a 6-ct, with the right hand passing every third club, the same two clubs keep getting passed back and forth. Have each juggler start with one, say, red club in the left hand and two clubs of any other color in the right. Then do a "slow start" by doing two right hand selves before passing with the third right. If you do a 6-ct with that start, you'll find that you're always passing the red club. This makes it easy for a novice passer to know when to pass without having to count.

 

The 3-Count

A conceptually simple, but too often ignored, important passing variation is to exchange passes from the left hand instead of, or in addition to, the right. The 3-count is an excellent example of this, with passes coming alternately from the left and right hands and with two selves just before each pass. Start by passing from the right hand and then do two selves counting both hands (left, right). Then pass from the left and do two more selves (right, left). That's a cycle, so now you start over with the right hand pass.

 

In the 3-count, you're always passing the same two objects back and forth, one on each side of the pattern (unless you throw a double or higher site-swap that changes the places of the objects). The 3-count has a nice waltz rhythm which is fairly easy to pick up, even for the novice club passer.

 

The 1-Count

If you want more challenge than the 3-count provides, try the I-count. It's like the 3-count without the two selves between passes! You just pass every club out of each hand. To some people that may sound very hard, but it really isn't.

 

Here are a few tips for the 1-count. Throw each club from outside your leg (not in front of it) and make sure it ends up just outside your partner's shoulder. That, makes it high enough for a return pass to be thrown directly under it without colliding. When learning the pattern, keep the throws slightly lofty with a slow single spin so that you aren't too rushed. You can start by passing just three clubs between your right and your partner's left, then try three clubs on the other side, and finally put them together. Watch where your partner catches your passes so that you can correct for throws that are underspun or overspun, high or low, inside or outside, short or long.

 

Back to Back

Passing back to back looks much harder than it is. The main difficulty with this pattern is not being able to see incoming passes as early as you can in a face-to-face pattern. But as if to make up for that, the normal back-to-back toss is some­what slow, spinning approximately 1-1/2 times (it's usually called a double). The throws should go up and straight back, just outside your shoulder, to be caught just above shoulder height.

 

One important question is where you make that pass from: Should you pass inside or outside of the self that is headed for the passing hand? Probably the easier way to control the pattern is with an outside pass (keeping the self narrow and on the inside). If you're used to passing from inside your self, try both the outside and the in­side pass back to back. Be sure, however, that your throw goes straight toward your partner and not away toward the outside.

 

The Line

Now we'll venture out into multi-person patterns with the line, a very common pattern for three (or more) jugglers. (The feed is probably the most common three-person pattern, but we covered feeds of all kinds two issues back, in the Spring 1991 .)

 

In a basic line, there are three people, each with a different role: front, middle and back. The front juggler faces the other two and throws normal passes to the middle. The middle person throws drop-backs to the back person, who throws long singles to the front (see Fig. 1).

 

The middle person stands a normal passing dis­tance from the front person. The back person catches, drop-backs and stands two or three feet behind the middle person and about 12 to 18 inches to the right (to allow the long throws to go around the drop-back thrower).

 

A good technique for throwing drop-backs is to throw with the right hand brought a little to your left side to throw over your left ear. The club should then go back toward the right to reach the person behind you on the right. Throw from the knob.

 

Good drop-backs should be caught on the handle at the waist and slightly inside, with the palm up, like an inside chop is caught. In fact, drop­backs are caught pretty much just like chops, because they are spinning the same as chops.

 

The front person should be sure not to make inside passes, since they would go exactly where the middle person is trying to throw drop-backs from. As usual, practice the line by first practicing each individual's requisite throws. In this case, the special throws to practice are the drop­back and the long throw from the rear. The long throw should be spun slightly slowly to avoid being overspun from its long journey; use a lot of arm and very little wrist to make a good long throw.

 

You can add a drop-back position to pretty much any pattern by simply adding a person behind someone to catch the new drop-backs and to throw to whomever the new drop-back thrower was formerly passing to. See Figures 2 and 3 for a couple of reasonable possibilities.