Flash Pirouette

Juggle three clubs, toss all of them high into the air and turn once with the grace of a ballet dancer before catching the lot - you have just turned a Flash Pirouette.

More likely you have just dropped everything, made yourself dizzy and cricked your neck into the bargain! The Flash Pirouette is a trick that truly deserves the applause when it's pulled off.

Here's how throwing three Triples (5's) from a Three Club Cascade leaves you with both hands empty for a moment.

First you'll need to develop a really good Flash. Just throwing three Triples is not quite enough because they don't give you quite enough time to make the turn. Three Quads are better, but then you have the extra spin to contend with. Some jugglers upgrade just the first Triple to a Quad to gain a little extra time.

Others use pattern compression. This heavy sounding term simply means reducing the spacing of the clubs in time, making the three throws of the Flash happen in rapid-fire succession:

Bam - bam - bam - bambambam!

Practise your Flash long and hard until you manage to increase the time for which

both hands are completely empty to the absolute maximum without losing control of the throws.

Next, you need to work on the Pirouette itself. Skilled exponents of the Flash Pirouette snap around at incredible speed. The turn must not interfere with the throwing of the Flash and it must be a complete three hundred and sixty degree rotation - getting most of the way around is simply not good enough. It's important not to force the move. Use control rather than brute force, it's very easy to pull your neck out of joint by trying too hard!

Notice how dancers turn a Pirouette, they keep their eyes locked onto a fixed point for half of the turn and then snap their heads around quickly, locking back onto the same spot. This technique is the answer to dizziness. The dancer usually chooses a spot directly ahead, but jugglers take a higher viewpoint, right through the tangle of turning clubs in the air.

It's quite nerve-racking building up to a Flash Pirouette (not this one...not this one...NOW!) so it's a good idea to use a standard routine so that you are working to a rhythm. For example, juggle three right hand throws of a Three Club Cascade and then throw a Triple spin Flash, three more rights and throw just one Triple and Pirouette underneath it, three more rights and throw two Triples and Pirouette, and finally three more rights and throw the full Flash Pirouette.

A four club Flash Pirouette, while certainly possible, is hardly ever seen, it's very difficult. An equally impressive (and much more learnable) move is to juggle Four Club Synch Doubles and throw just two clubs high, while you Pirouette holding the other two.

Five club jugglers can throw a three club Flash Pirouette while hanging on to two clubs. If the Five Club Cascade is being juggled on Double spins the pattern is already 'compressed' and three Triples should do the trick.

Four Four Eight

Here's the double-handed version of the Three Three Ten. The Four Four Eight is a passing routine for two jugglers and six clubs and involves passing with both hands. The sequence of passes starts slowly, gets faster and finishes with a burst of One Count passing (also known as Ultimates).

Stand facing your partner, three clubs each, two in the right hand and one in the left. Together you do an Up-Down-Go! then a Slow Start. You follow this with four passes of a Five Count, four passes of a Three Count and finally eight passes of a One Count. The full count is:

(Up down) - go! - and - two - and - pass!

One - two - three - four - pass!

One - two - three - four - pass!

One - two - three - four - pass!