Page 32                                              Summer 1992

The Gorilla

The Gorilla is a three-person ten-club feed in which the feeder is passing with both hands, one to each feedee. This is two in­dependent three-hand five-club patterns. There are a number of different Gorilla ver­sions: the feedees can pass right- or left-handed; the two independent patterns can be in sync or out of sync; the passes can be singles or doubles; and the feeder's passes can cross or not (they cannot cross if the two halves are in sync). But most of these don't change the feel of the pattern much, espe­cially for the feedees.

 

Fig. 5 shows what is perhaps the easiest version. Here the feeder's right hand passes to the right feedee's left, and the feeder's left hand passes to the left feedee's left. The feedees both pass right-handed. Since the two five-club sub-patterns are independent, you should practice each one separately be­fore trying to put them together. Then try them together in sync or out of sync, whichever seems easier to you. It's probably easiest if the feedees throw slow singles, but that shouldn't prevent the feeder from throwing doubles to slow the pattern down slightly to the normal passing speed.

 

Symmetrical versions have one feedee passing with the right and one with the left, and Fig. 6 shows one such pattern. Another results from reversing the arrows, and two more come from avoiding crossing the feeder's passes, with the two sides still out of sync. Add two more patterns by not crossing, with the two sides in sync. These symmetrical versions are all assuming single passes.

 

5-Person 17-Club Triple Feed

This is a fairly straightforward extension of the 10-club feed. In fact, it really is just two 10-club feeds that have one feedee in com­mon. The formation has two feeders on one side facing three feedees (see Fig. 7). Each feeder passes alternately to the two near feedees. The middle feedee responds to each feeder's pass with a pass back to that feeder (thus the middle feedee is really a feeder too). The outside feedees simply pass a 4-count as they would in a plain 10-club feed.

 

The two main feeders have four clubs each and start at the same time, each passing to the left feedee of their two respective feedees. The feedees respond as in a 10-club feed, one count after that start.

 

As with the 10-club feed, each right hand feedee must be, sure to keep the passes long, so that the feeder can throw under those passes to the left feedee. This will avoid the one potential collision in the pattern.        

 

Right-Right-Left-Left

The timing in this interesting two-person passing pattern is weird because your right hand makes two consecutive throws and then your left hand makes two. The two jugglers, however, pass at the same time, first ex­changing diagonal right-to-right passes, later left-to-left passes. After each pass comes a self from the same hand that just passed. So each person does: right-to­right pass, right-to-left self, left­to-left pass, left-to-right self (see Figs. 8 and 9). The passes, which are all di­agonal singles, should be thrown from in front of the body to a little outside so that the exchanged simultaneous diagonals won't hit each other. Try also to make the diagonals slightly lofty and slow.

 

After you've got the Right-Right-Left-Left down, just for fun, try changing each self into a straight pass (left-to-right or right-to­left). That leaves the sequence for each jug­gler as: right-diagonal, right-straight, left-diagonal, left-straight (see Figs. 10 and 11). To keep track of where you're throwing, think to yourself: diagonal, straight, diagonal, straight, and so forth.

 

As another extension, when you are making a diagonal throw with one hand, instead of just holding onto the club in the other hand, throw that club straight up and back to the same hand with a quick single (see Fig. 12). Practice this by doing just one of these funny self singles now and then, at the same time as a diagonal in the other hand.

 

Work your way up to doing this with the left hand on every right diagonal. Then work up to doing it every time with the right hand on left diagonals. Then try both hands, but just a couple of throws in a row. If you and your partner can both add this funny self for every idle moment in the diagonal-straight version of the pattern, you'll have mastered a heavy mental pattern.

 

But why stop there? If we add one more person and three more clubs, we can do a Right-Right-Left-Left (diagonal, straight) tri­angle with no selves. The easiest way to do this seems to be for each person to pass the diagonal rights and the straight lefts to the person on the right, and the diagonal lefts and straight rights to the person on the left (see Fig. 13). This way each person is pass­ing to the inside hands of the other two people. Add the funny selves to complete the confusion if you want.     

     

If you have any comments or suggestions for Juggler's Workshop, write to: Juggler's Workshop, Palo Alto, CA or call Martin Frost.

 
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