The pattern may feel strange at first, but I find it interesting how the body can quickly learn the rhythm and the sequence of passes afte only a little bit of practice. This is great because it makes it feasible to explore many new exciting patterns.

 

Your Body Will Figure Out

 You probably don't need the following detailed explanation of the throw sequences in Jim's 3 Count, but I include it here for completeness and so that you can verify that you are really doing the pattern as described.

 

The straight and diagonal passers' patterns It shown in the causal diagram of Fig. 3. The asterisks (*) indicate hurries, where the indicated person has to make a second consecutive throw with the same hand. You an see that each person has two of these in the 12 count cycle (each juggler has four 3­count passes in a cycle).

 

Note that the straight passer's first two passes are right handed, a direct result of the diagonal passer's first pass, R-R. So the straight passer has to deal with a hurry right off the bat. In fact, the next two straight passes are left handed, so the straight passes are RRLL over and over.

 

The diagonal passer sees a hurry a little later, causing the second and third diagonal passes to be made left handed, with the subsequent pair both right handed. The diagonals thus start RLLR, which results in the steady state of two R passes alternating with two L passes - the same as the straight passes but out of phase.

 

Reversing Roles in Jim's 3-Count

Once you've mastered the above pattern, including both roles (it shouldn't take too long), try some variations. First, try interchanging roles after every four passes (one cycle). That is, switch between straight and diagonal passes after every fourth pass. You both get to alternate between the two roles (and an occasional mistake will prepare you for the random pattern described below!). Remember to go with the flow and do a 3­count.

 

If you watched the two passed clubs follow each other around the pattern before (by passing two conspicuous clubs), watch them again and look what they do now as you reverse roles continually. Are they playing tag?

 

Maybe try reversing roles at some other frequency, like every three passes or on a changing frequency (but always maintaining a 3 count). See what sequences of passes result.

 

Can you create a sequence in which both people do exactly the same thing (in the long run) and in which swapping all the R's and L's wouldn't actually change the long-term pattern? Note that reversing roles after four passes as suggested above results in the passing sequence RRLLRLLR; if here R and L are interchanged, we get the different sequence LLRRLRRL (the first sequence has a sole R in the middle, the second has a sole L).

 

Random 3-Count

After you've done some role reversals (always a good exercise), you're ready for this free-style 3-count. Here, at any given passing beat you can pass either diagonally or straight, whichever you want. You can each do it at random. Now even the new rhythms you learned above go out the window (hopefully the clubs won't). Or at least you get to try them all with no set sequence.

 

If you want a comfortable place to start, just do the regular Jim's 3-Count for a cycle or more and then change roles at any time without telling your partner. Or you can start the random throws with your very first pass. As you randomly vary your passes between straight and diagonal, however, be sure always to pass at the proper time - in a 3-count.

 

You'll soon discover one potentially serious problem that tends to limit how long you can keep the random pattern going - collisions. Highly likely collisions, in fact. These come up when you're both making the same kind of throw (straight or diagonal) but with opposite hands: one R and one L hand, both throwing straight (the two hands are throwing to each other in fact) or both throwing diagonally. In each case, if the two of you throw perfectly symmetrically, you're guaranteed to get a collision.

 

But a relatively easy adjustment will make sure that you and your partner don't throw symmetrically - it will help you avoid collisions so that you can keep the Random 3­Count going for a while. The trick is to have one person throw from outside and the other person throw from inside. The outside straight passes should land well outside the shoulder, but the diagonal passes thrown from outside should land a bit inside. Similarly, the inside straight passes should land a little inside, and the diagonal passes thrown from inside should land a little outside.

 

This way, when you exchange straight passes on the same side of the pattern, each person will have a lane to pass in, free of collisions; and when you pass opposite diagonals, the outside-to-inside passer will throw behind the inside-to-outside passer. Note that you only have to be prepared to make these special throws when you and your partner are about to pass with opposite hands (one R and one L).

 

Oh, there is one other potential collision, but it is easily avoided. When you are both throwing from the same hand (both R or both L), if you're throwing a diagonal, throw it from inside to outside. If your partner does the same, then you again have two separate passing lanes and no collisions.

 

Martin's Madness

Naturally, as soon as I had taught Jim's 3­Count to two people (Nathan Hoover and Art Weininger at the Stanford club meeting), I felt a need to extend the pattern to a feed for the three of us. As the feeder, I figured to do diagonal throws in a pass-pass-self sequence (as in a 3-count feed), while Nathan and Art would do the usual Jim's 3-Count with straight throws. Although my brain knew that it had to handle hurries by doing two R's or two L's in a row from time to time, my body resisted and found a different method of its own (and one that I personally feel is more physically natural, at least to me). But is there some madness in it? Judge for yourself!                             .

 

As in a normal 3-count feed, the feeder always throws two passes in a row and the first is always to the feedee on the feeder's left. The feeder starts off fairly simply, passing R-R (to the feedee on the feeder's left), L-L (to the right feedee), and then doing a self - this is basically a 3-count feed but with diagonal passes. So far so good.

 

But then as the second pair of passes commences, trouble looms. After passing a L  - L to the left feedee, the feeder receives a pass to the left hand, not the right, and, by Jim's 3­Count rules, would do another L-L (to the right feedee). But my 3-count-feed-trained body decides to pass R-R there instead. Well, that causes its own problem, emptying the R hand while the L holds a club with a pass

coming in to it.

 

What my instinct makes me do automatically at that point is to hand a club from L to R, so I can catch the incoming pass in my L. It really was instinct the first time ­I didn't have time to think about it and hadn't worked out any sequence in advance (I was trying to learn by going with the flow). This L-R handacross is just a tad after the R-R pass and then is followed, on "count 3" of the second group, by a normal self (a R-L self - in fact with the same club that was handed to the R). It works.

 

That's half the sequence, with the other half being the same but with R's and L's interchanged. In the second half, the feeder passes L-L and R-R and then does a L-R self. Then R-R pass, L-L pass and a quick handacross R-L, and the final L-R self. That's it. The feeder doesn't make two consecutive throws from the same hand - since the clubs always alternate from the feeder's R and  L hands - but the handacross does make the feeder hurry.