One thing that A and B have to get used to here is doing the back and forth feed but not always receiving clubs back from the person they're throwing to. This can be confusing at first - even painful!

 

Now you may have noticed that C and D have pretty easy roles (a mere 4-count, although their incoming passes come from different places at different times, making it more interesting). So if you want to really spice up the pattern, add one more club and have C and D pass it back and forth as a triple. Essentially C and D will be passing 7 clubs with triples in a 4-count, but instead of doing selves, they'll be passing to B and A respectively. Use the sequences in Fig. 3 except replace each self that C or D has with a triple to D or C. The person who normally starts with a self (D in Fig. 3) starts with the extra club, throwing it on beat 1 as a triple to C. Keep those triples outside for safety purposes.

 

Shooting Star

The Shooting Star is a pattern you can do when you wanted to do a five-person star but one person didn't show up and another didn't bring any clubs. This pattern, invented by Bryan Olson of Baltimore, Md., involves a lot of running through the star by the star's own points.

 

Arrange your four people in four of the five positions of a star, leaving the fifth position empty (Fig. 4). Each of you passes to the second person on your right. The person whose receiver is initially missing starts with no clubs (since there is no one to catch them). Everyone else starts with three clubs. In Fig. 4, juggler C starts with no clubs be­cause juggler E is missing.

Now you do a normal right handed star, passing a 2-count. The person who starts with no clubs will find clubs coming in (from the second person on the left) and should start juggling them and be ready to pass them when they get to the right hand. Fortunately just as this person starts to pass, to the position that was initially empty, someone will magically appear in that position to catch the clubs. That's the trick of this pattern.

 

What happens is this. When a clubless person starts receiving clubs, another person starts running out of clubs because of the empty position. Whenever you run out of clubs in this pattern, you immediately move to the position in the star that was empty ­ the position that would have been passing to you, namely two to your left. Just as you get there, a club will arrive too, and you just start juggling again, passing a 2-count like everyone else, to the person two to the right (where you used to be!).

 

The question is, how do you safely get from one position to another in the star while people are passing clubs through it? You start through just after a club has gone by in front of your face, but there are two routes you can take to your destination-the direct fast route and the indirect sauntering route.

 

Let's say that you are B in Fig. 4 and you want to saunter over to E. After you pass your last club, wait for the club from the person on your left (A) to go by and then move straight forward into the middle of the star. Once in the middle, keep moving in and turn to the right, towards C. Intercept C's next pass somewhere in the middle and back out, following that club's route out of the middle to E.

 

It's important not to cross D's line of fire until you've caught the club from C, and then you back out of the middle through the same point where that club from C would have gone. That gets you out without colliding with the club from D. Once out, face the position you came from (B) so that you can be ready to pass to there once you get enough clubs from C. With this route, you don't have to move too fast.

 

You can, instead of sauntering, shoot straight from B to E, cutting pretty close to A on your left. After you make your last pass, as usual wait for the club from A to go by and then watch nothing but the clubs coming from D. Those are the clubs that can nail you. In fact, I start out by watching D pass and just notice Ns pass go by without really looking at it. This lets me know where D's club is without having to locate it at the last minute. After you go right behind the club from A, you go right behind the club that D threw at the same time. As you run close by A directly to E, stare directly at that club from D-if you don't, it may stare directly into your head.

 

Once you get safely outside the star, past D's line of fire, look quickly into the star to­ward C and you'll find a club quickly approaching where your left hand should end up. Catch the club, face your old position B, and resume juggling.

 

This direct fast movement is more exciting than the slow, almost laid-back, sauntering move described earlier, although it gets you to the same place. It's up to you which one you use - some people are more comfortable sauntering through the star rather than shooting through. Note that in the fast move you go behind D's first pass, whereas in the slow move, you go behind D's second pass.

 

By its nature, the Shooting Star requires that a new person move shortly after the previous person. You can't just hang around waiting for your nerve to build up. In fact, if you use the basic nine clubs, then on every third pass someone has to move. Once you've got that pattem down, though, you can add one extra club. If you're thus using ten clubs, the rule is that you move to a new position right after you throw your next-to-last club, and you take your last club with you. The movement is the same (saunter or shoot), but someone has to move on every second pass and takes along one club.

 

Finally, you can add an eleventh club, in which case someone will have to move on every pass, taking along two clubs, and each person will have to move once every four passes. To start the ten or eleven club versions, give the extra clubs to the person who would have started with none if there were only nine clubs.

 

One more useful note. When you're the person who had no clubs and you're just now beginning to pass, you'll find that you're facing an empty position. Don't pay any attention to the runner - just pass normally to the empty position as if someone were there. Don't try to figure out where the runner might be. Just pass assuming the runner will be perfectly positioned outside the star by the time your pass gets there.

 

By the way, you'll find, as you shoot around the star, that you're always passing to the same person, who of course is often getting there just in time.

 

The Double Triangle

This is a well established and not too difficult pattern for four people. Basically, on each beat, three of the people pass right handed in a triangle while the fourth person does a self.

 

A triangle can be done with inside passes or outside passes (or possibly switching back and forth). An outside pass is a pass that stays on the outside of the triangle (Fig. 5), whereas an inside pass cuts across the triangle (Fig. 6). I'll describe the Double Triangle here with outside passes, but if you reverse the directions of the passes, you get the double triangle with inside passes. ("Reverse the directions" means wherever it says A passes to B, change that to mean B passes to A.) All the passes here are right hand passes, al­though triangles are natural patterns for passing with both hands (e.g., see the Collected Nightmares referenced above and also the Spring 1993 Juggler's Workshop).