Numbers juggling is hard. Frankly, it can take years to get good at numbers, sometimes even longer. Everyone responds to different types of practice differently. Each person is different, and the techniques that work the best for one person will not necessarily work for others. Discussed below are some topics generally associated with numbers juggling. This article covers a few different schools of thought for each topic, so the reader can learn to use the technique that works best for them.

Just because Jason Garfield, for instance, does a trick 10 times in a row perfectly and gets better because of that, does not mean that you and I will get as good as him using the same techniques. There are many different methods of practicing, so many that it would be impossible to list all of them, and maybe even pointless. However, this article presents some new and innovative ways of thinking about practice. Also, it sometimes presents a few schools of thought from which many others stem, for a particular trick or pattern. It is up to the reader to try each out and decide what is best for him or her. Then maybe he or she can adapt the technique a little to suite them the best. The topics are not arranged in any systematical order but they each play an important role when one is trying to move up the ladder of numbers juggling.

Note to the reader: If you have not read Boppo's Numbers Notes: I recommend reading that too. It has a lot of important concepts about numbers that are left out from this article.

Also keep in mind that all of these notes can apply to clubs and rings as well.

Specific tips for high numbers.

For high numbers there are usually 3 patterns that one uses. They are either the cascade, the fountain, or the cross pattern.

The fountain: there is not much I can offer. If you are having trouble with a particular number, WORK ON ONE HAND AT A TIME!!! And do it A LOT!!! Most people do not know the importance of one handed juggling. If you can't juggle with one hand, you cant do it with 2 either. Once I was at a convention and someone asked me if I could help him out. He was having trouble with 6, as many people do. he was in the 15-20 throw range and had been stuck there for a while. I asked him to show me his 3 in one hand, and it hardly lasted longer than his 6 in both hands! what is the lesson? If you can get 3 solid in each hand separately, you are then half way to having 6 solid.

For the cross, and the cascade: the balls cross, (but one is synchronous, the other is not). For high numbers like these, things happen very quickly, and sometimes one has to struggle to keep up with the pace. Therefore, if you can eliminate a problem or flaw in your technique that is taking too much time, you will have more time, and will be able to keep the pattern up for longer.

A problem I have seen people do, is using too much scoop. For a pattern like the 8 ball cross, try not to use lots of scoop, it takes up too much time. You are probably thinking, 'if I don't use enough scoop, the balls will land 8 feet on either side of me, so what the heck are you talking about?'. Well, that isn't what I mean. Try releasing the balls 4-6 inches from where you actually caught them, and throw them up straighter. You will keep the pattern narrower, and will in turn use less energy because you wont be scooping as much.

Take a look at Bruce Sarafian's cross pattern. With 8 and 10 balls, the pattern is wide no matter what. Bruce uses almost no scoop, yet the pattern still works perfectly, and looks effortless. The key is that the balls are not thrown from the center (as some people do it), but rather, from 'almost' outside, (just inside of the catch). If he actually scooped them all the way over to a position in front of his body to release them, it would take up way too much time and energy. Doing that, there would be no way for him to have the stamina to juggle 8 balls for over 160 throws.

Bruce 'Boppo' Tiemann, the author of the article, Numbers Notes believes that all of your energy comes from the core, in that throwing from near your body will enable you to throw higher. This is true but never worked for me, especially when I am working on a new number which I hardly have the speed for.

With high numbers, throwing too wide is also a problem. If the pattern gets wide, it will become wider, and it will eventually fall apart. Remember that with high numbers, the props are in the air for quite a while. They do not need too much sideways motion to get where they are going.

Try juggling 5 balls, keep in mind how much sideways motion you are giving to the balls. Then give 7 or even 9 a go, try using the same amount of sideways motion. As you may notice, the balls will probably end up a couple feet on either side of you. Then try to throw them straight up. They won't go that way, but to maintain a narrow pattern (relatively speaking) with a high number, it will feel like you have to throw the balls almost straight upward. If you don't think about throwing straight up, the pattern will get too wide, and one thing always leads to another.

When is it time to move on to the next number?

People ask this question frequently on rec.juggling and get the answer, "there is no right time to move on, do it when you want". Well here are some general ideas for some people if you really don't think you know when you should move on.

Lets assume you are new to juggling, but you are sure you want to get into the realm of numbers juggling. First of all, good luck, you'll need it.

If you are just starting out, stick with 3 for a bit. work on tricks and try to get your record to maybe about 2-3 minutes before you go to 4. Get 4 to at least 50 catches before you go to 5. Don't skip 4!!!! You will be way too frustrated, and you may not get anywhere at all. However if you just can't seem to wait, at least work on 4 and 5 at the same time. Also make sure you use the async fountain for your first pattern with 4. After 5 balls, evens vs. odd don't matter too much. For the most part, they are independent of each other. That means that from 6 and on you can use the cross if you want, or the fountain.

After you get 5 down a little you can ease into 6. When you have 5 to 100 catches try 7. You don't want to jump into it too early or you will get very frustrated and you might even quit (like I did). Many people have trouble with 6, and so 8 helps it a lot, try for 40 catches before you move to 8, but if you get stuck on 6 a little before that, ease on into some 4 in hand, that might help. Many people flash 8 'early'. I am not sure why, but if you start too early, you will be stuck on 8 for a while. No one wants that, unless of course your doing it with 12:-)

I found that 40 was about the perfect number with 7 to move to 9, and 30 throws with 8 was good for working with 10.

In the earlier numbers, the reason to wait to move on was so you didn't frustrate yourself on a new number. Let's face it, with higher numbers, you will be frustrated no matter what. The reason to wait here though, is so that you don't injure yourself. Believe it or not, it does happen, tendentious is one of the many problems you could get.

For even numbers, no matter what pattern you use, here is a good rule of thumb. you should be able to do the same number of catches with N balls, as with N/2 in one hand. For example if you can do 12 catches with 5 in one hand, but 14 catches with 10, your best bet would be to work on 5 in one hand some more. If you were at 16 with 5 in one hand, and 12 with 10, you would probably benefit more by working on 10 balls.

Barriers (AKA hitting a brick wall)

It happens, and it can happen at anytime. They can cause people to get frustrated and even quit. Fortunately, there is usually a way around them. You just need to use creative thinking and different practice techniques until you break your barrier.

A barrier can be psychological, it can just be a flaw in technique, or the way you practice. In either case, it is important that you stick with it, or you may give up before you find the solution.

For example, try this if you hit a barrier:

Work on just even numbers only for a week, and then odds the next week. As Bruce Sarafian says, 'it really helps you to drill the pattern into your mind'. If it is mainly a problem with a particular number, try just working on only that number for your whole practice. Maybe try going back to N/2, or if its an odd number, (N+1)/2. You can also try going back to siteswaps with "lots of N's in them".

How do you practice? do you juggle for 10 minutes 6 times a day? Maybe 1 hour all at once? If you are currently trying one method, use another. Do you practice one number all at once? Do you practice balls for 5 minutes, then clubs for 5 minutes? Again, try the opposite of what you have been doing. Give it some time, and see what happens.

You may also come up with your own ways to vary your practice. That is good, just try everything, and I guarantee you will find a way around your barrier.

Practice Time

Most of the time, on a number, about 30 mins a day is all you need to see improvement.

Some people like to practice a number all at once, and others like to do 10 minutes, and then stop, then another 10 minutes, and so on. It has been proven that if one practices something, connections are being made between neurons in the brain, which causes your skill to slowly increase. Connections are also made for a short while after one stops practicing. The connections can't be made quite fast enough so the point is that one is still learning after they stop practicing. People who practice for short periods and then rest, believe they get more out of practicing 10 minutes 3 times, than 30 minutes all at once. That is true, but depending on the way you learn best, it may not work as well for you as practicing all at once might.

I always practiced all at once. I couldn't juggle balls for 5 minutes, clubs for 5 minutes, and then rings for 5 minutes, it never worked. I was determined so I practiced all at once. There are also benefits to practicing all at once. Mainly, you get more endurance, so you can juggle longer at conventions. It might help your long endurance runs with 4 or 5 balls.

When you start out, make sure you build up slowly. At first, only start with a 10minute session. I started like that, it took me months to get to the point where I could practice for 3 hours non stop and actually get something out of it without becoming totally unable to juggle the next day.

One handed juggling is important but usually 10-20 minutes will suffice for a day. Also if you love showering, DO NOT work on high numbers showering more than 15 minutes a day. If you do you may get serious injury. I got this bit of information directly from 'the human meteor shower', aka Bruce Sarafian. Despite what you may think he only worked on showering that much, yet he still qualified an 8 ball shower! and he runs 6 better that most people run 5 or even 4. So there is further proof that 15 minutes a day will get you to where you are going.

Tips for Endurance

1. running N balls for over 10 minutes

(only applies to 3-5 balls, maybe 6)

A. Make sure you can do it with N-1 balls first, that is essential.

B. When trying to run 5, also try to run 6. If you are going for 15 minutes with 5 balls, and you can run 6 for a minute or 2, that will help your 5 ball endurance A LOT!

C. When attempting your record, listen to music! That way you won't get so bored that you might drop. Trust me, it happens a lot! If you use headphones, dont turn the music up too loud. If you cant hear the balls hitting your hands, it may cause you drop, (Try it and you will see what I mean).

D. A drop is a random event when you are at this level with a number. Over the course of a couple thousand catches, it can be likely to happen. Practice endurance with different props. Try pennies. Clubs are good if your doing balls. Can you imagine how 7 balls would be if you could juggle 7 clubs? (Yeah, I know your probably Anthony Gatto right now. Well he is a prime example of what I mean.)

E. Bruce Sarafian recommends exercise balls, maybe about 1 pound each. Especially when working on 5 ball endurance.

F. Sam Hartford, a great 5 ball juggler, first learned to do 5 balls in 10 different patterns for 1000 catches each! That sounds like overkill to me, but hey, if it works, it works.

G. This isn't really a tip but the better you get at endurance, the less you have to practice it. When I was around 5 minutes with 5 and I stopped, it took quite a while to get it all back. Bruce Sarafian ran 5 balls for 57 minutes back in 1996. After 5 years of not working on 5 (after I told him Josiah Jones broke his record, hehe:-)) He attempted 5 balls. He broke the record on his first try getting 1 hour, 6 minutes, and 35 seconds. At that level, he still had his ability despite 5 years of not doing any kind of long endurance practice.

If you try to run it every week, you will definitely see improvement. Boppo, says that working on tricks with his target number, helped him run it longer. It probably made his saves easier as well.

Notice: All of these jugglers listed in this endurance section are some of the best 5 ball endurance jugglers (or 5 club jugglers) in the world. Also notice that each one of them are great numbers jugglers as well. Maybe there is a connection......

2. running N balls for 30 seconds to 3 minutes

(applies to 6 and 7, maybe 8 if you are Gatto or Sarafian)

A. Exercise balls help. Try N-2 exercise balls and go for 5 minutes with them. Sarafian and Hartford did it, it worked for them. It works for me too.

B. N+2 balls helps a lot. 6 is easy if you can do 8. 7 is easy if you can do 9.

C. One handed juggling. (Again), if your going for 6 ball endurance and you are getting tired, work on 3 in one hand till' your arms fall off.

3. running high numbers

(anywhere from a flash to 50 catches)

There are 3 different types of practice that you can use for high numbers, work on each one the same amount and you will see improvement. A particular one may work better than the others for you. In that case, practice that one a little more. We will use 9 balls for the example.

A. Try to flash 9 over and over continually and do only that for a 30 minute period or whatever works best. See how many times you can flash it in 15 minutes, and keep a record of it to guage your improvement. The launch is always a big handful, and the release can always get better. if you have a better release, you will have a better run.

B. Start with a clean flash. Once you achieve that, go for a clean 10 catches. once you get that, go for 11 throws and 11 catches, and so on. See how high you can get in a certain time period, and remember it.

C. Just try to run 9 balls, and do not worry at all about the catches. Keep a record of how many throws you can do.

Working on your number in these 3 distinctly different ways will help you improve on all aspects of the number you are working on. If you do that, you will get results quickly, (relatively speaking, that is.)

Note: If the number you are working on does not fall into any of the 3 categories, basically that means either one closest to it will work, so try them both out. For running high numbers, as you get better, say past 30 throws, work less on A and B, and more on C.

Additional techniques to improve your juggling

With high numbers, part of the problem mainly with flashing, is not being fast enough to catch all the props. To help this, work on multiplexing, particularly stacked multiplexes. 6 in a 3 ball pattern, [33] is easy to learn. [44] is doable but takes lots of work. [55] looks awesome but I only know of 2 people that have qualified it. Either way, work on [33] and try the normal tricks as you would do with 3 balls. the cooler ones are [44][44][11], and [55][11]. Even try the triple stack multiplex. start out with 33[333]. It is not as hard as you think, but it does take time to get used to. maybe do that, then 3[33][333], [33][33][333], then 3[333][333], and work your way up to [333]. If you are successful with [333], e-mail me!

The idea behind this is that if you are catching balls in close proximity like with [33] or [333], then you can apply that to your normal numbers, with single throws. Maybe in a 9 ball flash 2 balls are really close together, no worries, you now have the ability to catch them effortlessly without dropping.

In addition to multiplexes, try siteswaps. Mostly, ones with high throws. Sarafian says, "I love to throw balls very high", and look how good he is. You can try siteswaps you cant necessarily run, maybe ones you can do for just 1 cycle, those are great. For instance, 88333, 11,444444, and 97531 are great practice. I don't know anyone who can run those continuously besides maybe Ben Beever.

How to hold and release lots of balls

Everyone has their own little way to hold and release large numbers, but there is a fairly easy way to hold up to 7 with a doable release.

There are multiple ways to hold 3-6 balls in one hand, but there are 2 popular styles of doing it. With the first, during the entire launch, the palm faces straight up. the 2nd way, the hand faces the other hand during the launch (inward at a 90º angle) until the last 2 balls, which can be released either way but are usually released with the palm facing up.

Both Anthony Gatto and Sam Hartford use the first style. Bruce Sarafian and I, allthough we use different grips, use the 2nd style.

I will go though my way on how to hold and release. If done properly, this grip can be performed in both the 1st or 2nd style. You will find that it looks like a big clump of balls in no particular order, but with a careful look, you can see that you can just zig-zag down the array of balls, from one to the other, all the way to the last one.

Ball #1- Place in in the middle of your hand.

Ball #2- Place it closer to the tips of your fingers, (on the other side of ball #1).

Ball #3- At this point, your hand should face sideways. Put ball #3 on top of ball #2 and grip it with your thumb. It should resemble a triangle.

Ball #4- Put ball #4 on your finger tips, where it is touching both ball #2 and ball #3. Remember, this is a 2 dimensional array. This is known as the diamond grip.

Ball #5- Put this ball on top of ball #4 and squeeze it with your thumb. You may have to scrunch all the balls back a little to fit it in. Now, at this point, your pinky should be holding ball #1. Your middle and ring finger should hold ball #2. Your index should hold ball #4, and your thumb holds #5. (Ball #3 will be in the middle of all of those and does not need to be gripped by a finger.)

Ball #6- Here is where it gets tricky. Put ball 6 way away from you touching balls #4 and #5, in a 2D array. (#6 will touch #4 and #5 just as #4 touched #2 and #3.) You will have to change your grip a little here to fit all the balls in. The pinky goes on ball #1. The ring finger goes on ball #2. The middle finger goes on ball #4. The index finger goes on the new ball #6, and the thumb stays on #5. See how the balls have to be scrunched back a little bit to fit all of them? This will take a little while to get used to.

Ball #7- Put this ball directly on top of ball #6. It is usually impossible to grip unless you possess some rare talent, so just let it balance there. If you use the 1st style grip, you can put the 7th ball anywhere on the array, not necessarily near ball #6, thus making it 3 dimensional.

The release:

As you may now see, the balls zig-zag from one end of your hand to the other. They release in opposite order, going ball 7, then 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and then 1. That is all there is to it. It will take some work to perfect, but not as much as you would think. It is not too terribly difficult.

Note: Some people that use the 2nd style might prefer to release them in the order, 7, 6, 5, 4, 2, 3, 1.

Weightlifting and juggling

There has been many debates on this topic, so is it good or bad? Well lets look at some evidence. Two great numbers jugglers, Anthony Gatto, and Jason Garfield, at one time or another have worked out. Notice how buff they are the next time you see them. There has to be something to it. Even Boppo says that he weight-lifted for a while, and it was at that time that he was at his peak performance with 9 and 10 balls. I myself lift, and I think it helps me too, especially for large numbers.

There are different lifting techniques that work better for juggling than others. The muscle groups used mostly are the deltoids (shoulders), biceps, and chest, and a little of the upper back and neck. Now if you lift for the purpose of juggling and juggling alone, do your repetitions fast! If you curl a 15 pound weight and it takes you 30 seconds to do a set of 8, that will not do much for your numbers. Almost pretend with the curls that you are juggling, but don't cheat in any way, (use good form for the exercise). If you are starting out, start out with low weight! Even if you can do the high weight, you could hurt yourself doing the fast repetitions. You could also try taking very light weights and also mimic juggling movements for 30 seconds or so, rest, then do it again.

So, for the biceps, use curls. For shoulders, try the front lateral raise (arm goes straight up in front of you without bending the elbow too much). For the chest you can do flys, or normal or wide grip bench press. Since the back and neck aren't used much, those will gain strength fast enough by the juggling itself, so don't worry about those.

Weightlifting mainly helps throwing up high numbers and makes your body quicker; it gives you more time. For lower numbers, use exercise balls. Now remember, just like juggling itself, lifting takes time! Start out carefully, and enjoy the ride, it is worth it. keep in mind that as long as you don't injure yourself while lifting the weights, you will be a lot less susceptible to any juggling injuries that might be down the road.

Injuries

99% of the time if you injure yourself, it will be from tendonitis. That is unless you are juggling exercise balls and drop one on your foot while you are juggling barefoot. But don't worry, I only know of one guy that juggles barefoot, and he's Canadian:-)

With Tendonitis all I can say is rest rest rest. Stretch it a little too. Wait a week, (yes i know it is very hard to do), and then come back to juggling and see what happens.

I do not recommend this (probably because I don't want to get in any trouble) but if done carefully, you can juggle with mild tendonitis and not get hurt. The key is a very slow and gradual warm up. First off, juggle 3 balls for 3 or 4 minutes, if you can do that and the pain doesn't get any worse, then your fine, if it does, then your tendonitis is not mild enough and in that case I would recommend that you go and watch some juggling tapes.

If you feel up to juggling, juggle 3 until you don't feel any more pain that feels like it is being caused by stiffness. Usually that can be 5-10 minutes or so. slowly work up to your target number from there, maybe spend 3 minutes on each number on the way up. Try to spend at least 20 minutes on the warm up, 30 is more than enough. After that you should be fine.

I tried this a couple times, and even with tendonitis I could work on 9 or 10 balls, without any injury. If I had not warmed up slowly however, I could have really hurt my arm.

Another problem could be a neck injury or a muscle pull in your neck from balancing an object or something. Some people are built for doing stuff like that, and some aren't. There isn't too much you can do to prevent it, but try stretching your neck before hand. Do slow neck rolls, then tilt your neck all the way to one side, and then all the way to the other, and repeat that a couple of times.

© Chris Sutton, 2002
cms32186@hotmail.com