Here's the general rule for figuring out how high to make anyone special throws.

 

At any time, in any pattern, you can add N extra spins to a throw (for N=1,2,3...) by skipping past N hands in the pattern when you make that throw.

 

What do I mean by "skipping past N hands"? Follow a sequence of N consecutive throws around the pattern to see where the pattern takes you. The final destination reached is where you can instead throw the club from the original hand with N extra spins, thus skipping the intermediate hands. Each hand skipped past gets to pause.

Think of the clubs as being in a relay race. Instead of following just one club around the pattern, we'll follow a sequence of throws. Each time one lands, we'll next follow the club that it displaced, which was just thrown from the same hand.

 

We start the relay with the original club landing in the hand that it normally would be thrown to. From there follow the relay forward N more throws. The hand you reach after those N extra throws is the one to which you can directly throw the starting club, with N extra spins. You get a double if N is, a triple if N is 2, a quad if N is 3, etc.

 

An example should greatly clarify this. Suppose you and I are doing a 2-count, and you want to know where you can throw R hand doubles and triples. Let's follow the relay, calling count 1 the time when you pass from your R to my L. To make room for that club, on count 2 I do a self from my L to my R. Then on count 3, I make room for that club by doing a pass from my R to your L. And on count 4, you make room by doing a self from L to R, followed by a pass to my L on count 5. Therefore, on that original count 1, you could throw to any of the hands we encountered in the relay, with the progressively higher throws shown in Fig. 1. Note that whichever of those throws you make, there are consecutive pauses by each of the receiving hands listed above that throw.

  

If we instead start the relay race with a L self, we find the possibilities for throws from that L as shown in Fig. 2.

 

 

(The figures list the possible destinations for some quads and quints mostly to help you follow the relay race route around the hands. This is not to say that these very high throws are easy or safe. Be careful.)

 

Site Swaps

All of these throws that are higher than normal have a common effect. They change the order of the clubs in the pattern. This is easily seen in the 2-count, where the double club jumps ahead of the club that pauses. This reordering of the clubs is called a Site Swap, because the sites of some clubs within the pattern have been changed.

 

The term Site Swap is most commonly used with solo patterns, which are a bit easier to analyze and to describe, with only two hands. But the early double in passing is about the most basic and probably the most common site swap done. We're not trying to describe all site swaps for passing here. We just want to show you how to work out at least some straightforward ones without any fancy math, just by following the pattern around. In fact we're only describing those that have only one special throw plus some number of pauses. Combination passing site swaps are left for another time.

 

Basic Site Swaps in a 3-Count

Now let's look at a 3-count. Call count 1 when you pass from your R to my L. To make room for that club, on count 2 I do a self from L to R. On count 3, I do another self, from R to L. On count 4, I pass from my L back to your R. So on count 1, you could make any of the passes in Fig. 3.

 

Now suppose that in our 3-count we want to throw a special right, one count after a pass. Following the relay race route, we get the possibilities shown in Fig. 4.

 

 

There's one more count to find the possible passes for in a 3-count, namely two counts after a normal passing count, and the possible throws are shown in Fig. 5.

 

 

Reverse R and L in Figures 3, 4 and 5 and you get the possible L hand throws. These figures and their reversals show that since there are three counts in the cycle of a 3-count, there are three different doubles you can throw from each hand, three different triples from each hand, three different quads, etc. In general, if a pattern is N counts long, there are N possible doubles you can throw, N triples, and so forth.

 

One of the 3-count doubles listed is rarely seen: the self double, from either hand to itself (Fig. 4). Throw it one count after a pass. It's fun and, as with other site swaps here, can be included in bigger site swap combinations; for instance follow it two counts later with a late double pass from the same hand that did the self double.