1)How do you begin to juggle five rings, ie how do you hold the three so
that you can throw them one at a time?

2)What type of ball do people like Toby Walker and Anthony Gatto, bounce
and balance on their heads. It is smaller than a football but can't
possibly be a cheap thing you get from woolworths, these don't bounce
consistently well.

3) How do you gain success with 744? I can consistently begin five balls
with a 7445555....., but can never get into 744 whilst juggling. Do
people find it better to throw the seven through or around the other
balls? How else can I improve my pattern? 9/10 successes at the start,
0/10 succcesses whilst running a cascade.....

4) I have a record of 300+ for five ball cascade, but nearly always drop
between 150 and 170, why? why? why?

5) What practice have people found effective for 4b mills mess? My second
underarm throw nearly always hits the balls coming down. Help please.

Any help to any of these would be hugely appreciated.

----== posted via www.jugglingdb.com ==----

From:	popstar_dave
Subject:	Re: some help needed
Date:	21 Jan 2005 06:03:41 GMT

rickinepal wrote:
> 1)How do you begin to juggle five rings, ie how do you hold the three so
> that you can throw them one at a time?

Pass. That is, I pass on the question. But I spose you could get into
five rings from a
passing pattern... Hmmm...

>
> 2)What type of ball do people like Toby Walker and Anthony Gatto, bounce
> and balance on their heads. It is smaller than a football but can't
> possibly be a cheap thing you get from woolworths, these don't bounce
> consistently well.

Pass. Again, on the question. Gatto doesn't pass.

>
> 3) How do you gain success with 744? I can consistently begin five balls
> with a 7445555....., but can never get into 744 whilst juggling. Do
> people find it better to throw the seven through or around the other
> balls? How else can I improve my pattern? 9/10 successes at the start,
> 0/10 succcesses whilst running a cascade.....

OK, this one I can help you with. I've only just recently had sucess with
744. Not that I
can run it, but I can throw it (fairly) consistantly out of a 5-ball
cascade. When I first tried
it, it felt impossible. I just couldn't understand how it could possibly
work. A good way
that I found to get the feel of it, is to try the 744 out of the cascade
and not even try to
catch those three balls. I guess you'd be doing
"...555574422*drop*drop*drop*" or
something. From there ou can work out whether you are going to be able to
catch the
second 4 before the 7 comes down. When I started, I didn't have enough
difference in
height and the second 4 and the 7 were coming down at about the same time.
so after
trying to fix that, I tried actually catching them. Again, it can be good
practice to just
catch all the balls and collect initially, to ensure that your timing is
right. But if you can
do that, then you'll be well on your way to doing the full thing.
The first time it actually woked for me, the thing that I remember
noticing was that the
pattern seemed to "split in half" for the two 4s. It felt weird, but the
balls just fell back
down and much to my surprise, they were in the right position at the right
time to be
thrown back into the cascade.
Basically, just keep on practicing, keep the height differences large and
know that it's
not impossible!

If you're having problems with collisions when you throw 7's out of the
cascade, that's
another thing that I can try and help with (i.e. it's another problem that
I had (and
occasionally still do!)). To combat this, I tried to keep my cascade nice
and narrow. I
don't really know HOW this helped me, but I know that it did. Maybe it
was simply the
fact that it forced me to concentrate on the throw rate and keep all my
throws consistant.
And it was certainly only by doing this that I was able to flash the
cascade (i.e.
...55577777005555...).

>
> 4) I have a record of 300+ for five ball cascade, but nearly always drop
> between 150 and 170, why? why? why?

Again, I'm at a similar stage. Just remember that your record is a
"record" for a reason.
It was the best that you have been able to do. That is, it was the one
time that
everything you've practiced has actually gone right and it all came
together for 300
catches. It doesn't sound like it's a real problem of strength and
stamina, otherwise
you'd probably have a record that you usually get close to but you're just
not fit or strong
enough to juggle through. Besides, 300 catches is still under 1.5
minutes, so you're
probably dropping for technical reasons as opposed to strength reasons.
I'd certainly
hold off on the wrist weights until you're hitting five or so minutes with
your cascade (i.e.
it's COMPLETELY technically solid). I know that even though I can juggle
5 for 300
catches, I don't feel that it's completely solid; just reasonably solid.

But you shouldn't discount the psychological aspects of having a region
that you
"always" drop at. When you near that region your heart rate, respiration
rate, blood
pressure and adrenelin levels all increase causing you to be
subconsciously distracted
by these physiological "stress" signals. And it's this distraction that
takes away from the
processing power of your cognitive motor systems which make you more
likely to drop.
Ooh, sorry that was a lot of undergraduate psychology coming out there.
Ignore that ,
but try distractor tasks like only counting left hand throws, or every
second right hand or
have one different colour ball and count how many times that goes around
the pattern.
Or if you have a recording device you can tape your attempts and count
your catches
later. This can even be done with an audio recording, as you can hear
each of the
catches "slap" into your hands.

Give it a go.

>
> 5) What practice have people found effective for 4b mills mess? My second
> underarm throw nearly always hits the balls coming down. Help please.

I've just realised that I've types far too much already, so the only
advice I'll give you here
is to keep the pattern wide. Some times it can even help to sway your
body from side to
side to keep enough space in the pattern. I don't know, it worked for me.

>
>
> Any help to any of these would be hugely appreciated.

Hey... I hope I helped.

Cheers,
Dave

>
>
>
> ----== posted via www.jugglingdb.com ==----

----== posted via www.jugglingdb.com ==----

From:	Mutton
Subject:	Re: some help needed
Date:	Wed, 19 Jan 2005 16:05:33 -0500

rickinepal wrote:
> 1)How do you begin to juggle five rings, ie how do you hold the three so
> that you can throw them one at a time?
>
> 2)What type of ball do people like Toby Walker and Anthony Gatto, bounce
> and balance on their heads. It is smaller than a football but can't
> possibly be a cheap thing you get from woolworths, these don't bounce
> consistently well.
>
> 3) How do you gain success with 744? I can consistently begin five balls
> with a 7445555....., but can never get into 744 whilst juggling. Do
> people find it better to throw the seven through or around the other
> balls? How else can I improve my pattern? 9/10 successes at the start,
> 0/10 succcesses whilst running a cascade.....

I'm not good enough with 5 to do 744, but I have done a round of it. I
throw the 7 through the pattern. I'm guessing your problem is that the
7 is colliding with the other balls. Just try to keep the tempo of the
cascade but throw that 7 with a little more oomph.

>
> 4) I have a record of 300+ for five ball cascade, but nearly always drop
> between 150 and 170, why? why? why?

Because records are rarely equal to your average runs. I think that's
common. My record is a little over a minute, but my average runs are
less than 45 seconds. I guess you and I are both at a plateau. :)

>
> 5) What practice have people found effective for 4b mills mess? My second
> underarm throw nearly always hits the balls coming down. Help please.

A good pattern to practice for 4b mills mess is... 4b mills mess. Also,
make sure you have a good reverse fountain pattern. You should be able
to run it a lot longer than your 4b mills.

>
>
> Any help to any of these would be hugely appreciated.

HTH.

- Andrew

From:	Jay Linn
Subject:	Re: some help needed
Date:	Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:18:07 +0000

rickinepal wrote:

> 4) I have a record of 300+ for five ball cascade, but nearly always drop
> between 150 and 170, why? why? why?

There is probably a good reason, and quite likely it will be something
to do with either your stamina or your breathing, or both.

Stamina you can't do much about immediately, but flaws in your
breathing may be instantly curable. Are you holding your breath at all,
or breathing too shallowly because it helps you maintain a steady
posture? If so, it might just be the kind of thing that becomes
critical, for you, around the 160 catch mark.

--
Jay Linn

Contents (greatest first): Facts, speculation, flim-flam,
misconceptions, flippancy, canards, lies, red herrings, tysop.

From:	Adam
Subject:	Re: some help needed
Date:	19 Jan 2005 12:14:27 -0800

The ball Anthony Gatto and Toby Walker use is called the H.B. 4000 and
was produced in communist Russia using an ancient technique that is now
lost. Only 4 have ever been made because they cost thousands of
dollars and hundreds of man hours each. Only with this ball can the
head bounce be achieved, and Anthony is rumored to have the "original"
H.B. 4000 in it's purest form. Both of the above jugglers disguise
their H.B. 4000's to look like playground balls like the one's at
woolworths and claim that years of practice combined with natural
ability are all that are required to master this technique.

You might be dropping at those numbers because you get nervous knowing
that's where you drop. Counting a different way, like only right hand
throws, might help you overcome this mental block. Lots more practice
probably will not help much.

Since you only have 5 fingers, it is impossible to hold 3 rings in one
hand. One person was able to hold 3 rings in one hand for about half a
second, and by luck a picture was taken at that moment which can be
found here http://users.ox.ac.uk/~juggsoc/tips.shtml

:-)

Adam

From:	Stephen Brain
Subject:	Re: some help needed
Date:	20 Jan 2005 00:50:42 GMT

Does any one know the grip to six in one hand? I know that Gatto does it
regularly, any ideas?

----== posted via www.jugglingdb.com ==----

From:	Mangatang
Subject:	Re: some help needed
Date:	20 Jan 2005 15:29:20 GMT

> 5) What practice have people found effective for 4b mills mess? My second
> underarm throw nearly always hits the balls coming down. Help please.

I have recently made some strides forward with my 4b MM. The under arm
throw collision was a problem for me too. When I get long runnings going
(100+ catches), I notice that my underarm throw goes straight up. It
doesn't go into the middle, so it doesn't hit the other balls. Then, once
you get better at it, you can start to bring that ball in more to the
center, to make it look more like the snake pattern.

----== posted via www.jugglingdb.com ==----

From:	owenjonesuk
Subject:	Re: some help needed
Date:	Thu, 20 Jan 2005 13:32:31 +0000

rickinepal wrote:
> 3) How do you gain success with 744? I can consistently begin five balls
> with a 7445555....., but can never get into 744 whilst juggling. Do
> people find it better to throw the seven through or around the other
> balls? How else can I improve my pattern? 9/10 successes at the start,
> 0/10 succcesses whilst running a cascade.....

I can't do 744 but perhaps this will help anyway: I was trying single
rounds of 75751 and I couldn't quite get it to work. I'd managed to get
the height differences but things always went wrong. With some thinking
I figured out two things I could change, which now make it work: I
juggle a bit higher, giving me more time and space, and I don't try to
rush the 7s. Before I was throwing them slightly early because I was
anxious about getting them high enough.

> 4) I have a record of 300+ for five ball cascade, but nearly always drop
> between 150 and 170, why? why? why?

I find that I often drop out of boredom. There is only so much staring
at a 5 ball pattern I can do before I start zoning out. When I'm really
fired up it can make a difference.

> 5) What practice have people found effective for 4b mills mess? My second
> underarm throw nearly always hits the balls coming down. Help please.

If you want to work on underarm throws try:
3 ball cascade with one hand always doing underarm throws (try not
to let the other hand move across to the middle - if you have problems
with keeping your arm put then try doing two in one hand with every
throw underarm, and keeping the other arm in the right place);
putting underarm throws in 3 ball shower - every other 5 an udnerarm
throw looks nice, every 5 an underarm throw is harder because instead of
going straight up they have to loop back into the centre a bit.

It's harder, but 4 ball windmill is certainly doable, at least for a
bit. That makes you concentrate on having all the balls following the
same path, which might help avoid collisions in 4 mills.

When I do 4 mills I think of it as 3 throws following one arc, then 3 in
the other arc, etc... I learnt by throwing three balls in one arc at
around the right height. I think most people think of it as reverse
fountain with underarm throws. Perhaps looking at things a different way
will help.

> Any help to any of these would be hugely appreciated.

Good luck,
Owen

From:	staticjuggler
Subject:	Re: some help needed
Date:	19 Jan 2005 20:52:36 GMT

rickinepal wrote:
> 1)How do you begin to juggle five rings, ie how do you hold the three so
> that you can throw them one at a time?

http://www.stevenragatz.com/tutorial/grips/grip2.htm
>
> 2)What type of ball do people like Toby Walker and Anthony Gatto, bounce
> and balance on their heads. It is smaller than a football but can't
> possibly be a cheap thing you get from woolworths, these don't bounce
> consistently well.

Donno.

>
> 3) How do you gain success with 744? I can consistently begin five balls
> with a 7445555....., but can never get into 744 whilst juggling. Do
> people find it better to throw the seven through or around the other
> balls? How else can I improve my pattern? 9/10 successes at the start,
> 0/10 succcesses whilst running a cascade.....

I can't do it (yet) in fact I haven't tried it (yet) but I am guessing you
aren't getting enough
height on the 7.

>
> 4) I have a record of 300+ for five ball cascade, but nearly always drop
> between 150 and 170, why? why? why?

Don't think aboout how long you are doing it for, try recording an
endurance run on
video and counting your catches later. Thinking about breaking your record
while
juggling only makes things worse.

>
> 5) What practice have people found effective for 4b mills mess? My second
> underarm throw nearly always hits the balls coming down. Help please.

Remember, only 3 THROWS ON EACH SIDE. When I first tried learning 4 ball
mills, i
would always try to squeeze in a 4th throw on each side. didn't work.

also, for 4 ball mills, it's still doing 2 in each hand. use 2 different
sets of colored balls at
first so you can see which ones you should catch and which ones you
shouldn't.
>
>
> Any help to any of these would be hugely appreciated.
>
>
>
> ----== posted via www.jugglingdb.com ==----

----== posted via www.jugglingdb.com ==----

From:	staticjuggler
Subject:	Re: some help needed
Date:	19 Jan 2005 20:52:36 GMT

From:	cwalker[at]wfw[dot]com.nospam (coleman)
Subject:	Re: some help needed
Date:	20 Jan 2005 13:10:29 GMT

rickinepal wrote:
> 1)How do you begin to juggle five rings, ie how do you hold the three so
> that you can throw them one at a time?
>

as mr static said:
http://www.stevenragatz.com/tutorial/grips/grip2.htm

>
> 2)What type of ball do people like Toby Walker and Anthony Gatto, bounce
> and balance on their heads. It is smaller than a football but can't
> possibly be a cheap thing you get from woolworths, these don't bounce
> consistently well.
>

i have one of these:
http://www.newitts.com/product/MG-36-1/Ritmica_Gymnastic_Ball.htm

i can't head bounce yet but know people that can that use this ball.

>
> 3) How do you gain success with 744? I can consistently begin five balls
> with a 7445555....., but can never get into 744 whilst juggling. Do
> people find it better to throw the seven through or around the other
> balls? How else can I improve my pattern? 9/10 successes at the start,
> 0/10 succcesses whilst running a cascade.....
>

the normal advice here i found is usually 'get your 7 nice and high and
keep you 4's low'.
a 3b flash out of a 5b cascade (77722) should get you used to throwing 7's
through the pattern if that's causing you problems...
i can only do one round of 744 at the moment as my left hand 7's are still
fairly erratic.
i'm finding that running 7441 with 4 balls is a good exercise to work
towards 744.

>
> 4) I have a record of 300+ for five ball cascade, but nearly always drop
> between 150 and 170, why? why? why?
>

my record is far less than that but i would say it might be time to get
the wrist weights out or start doing some press ups...

>
> 5) What practice have people found effective for 4b mills mess? My second
> underarm throw nearly always hits the balls coming down. Help please.
>

4b mills is my nemesis and the problem you describe was the hardest thing
for me to overcome.
try some of these exercises:

cross arm fountains (make sure you practice with either arm on top - this
helped lots with getting rid of my collisions)
half mills
windmills (sometimes called 'spirals' i think?)

try and learn different ways into the trick too - from juggling as well as
from a cold start.
many people have told me that multiplexes
help hugely here but i don't know any
of those so can't help you out but i do:

from inv fountain
from fountain
from inv 5551
from a cold start ( i start with the overarm '1' ball)

the only other advice i can offer is to make the pattern nice and wide
which should give you less chance of a collision.

>
> Any help to any of these would be hugely appreciated.
>

hope that was at least mildly useful.

cole.
*now with added hat*

----== posted via www.jugglingdb.com ==----