Warming Up by Steven Ragatz

Visualization and Juggling by Steven Ragatz

Numbers Training by Steven Ragatz

Throw height and rate by Steven Ragatz

It's a difficult trick. In spite of all of the talk about numbers, I think that the most difficult, and consequently technically impressive tricks, are combination tricks with mixed techniques.

Here are a few things to consider for head bounce/juggle combinations:

First, and foremost, keep your posture up. Straight back with active legs. The bounce comes from the knees, so make sure that you aren't trying to propel the head ball with your neck.

Take a critical look at your head shape. If your head wants to bounce the ball at a certain point, take that into consideration, but also consider the angle that you keep your neck. If possible, keep your chin down as far forward as you can and still see the ball through the tops of your eyes. Just like balancing, you will be focusing on the front edge of the head ball. By tilting your head forward , you will improve the field of vision for the juggle as well as relieve strain on your neck.

Experiment with the focus point. Like yourself, I watch the head ball while juggling in my peripheral, but I know several good combo-trick jugglers that do it differently. You can think of the trick as being two separate tricks, or one whole one. If it is two separate ones, then try to keep the head bound in an invisible zone just above your head and the juggling pattern in a different zone just in front of your body plane. The two zones will shift back and forth as you have to adjust to keep them under control.

Conversely, you can try to think of the trick as a single entity. Try putting your focus just between the head bounce and the juggle, watching both out of the peripheral vision.

In spite of the fact that I don't do it this way, it does make since to me. When juggling numbers, you don't look at individual places in the pattern, but rather you focus on the overall form and shape. A combo trick could be done the same way. I think that it greatly depends on your body shape and the natural technique that you have for each part. Of course, the weaker technique is going to demand the lion's share of the attention, so if one aspect of the trick is more precarious than the others, it might be an indication that you need to drill it separately.

Be duly warned, combo tricks that require balances or bounces while juggling are HELL under stage lights. The shadows cast from the extreme lighting can cause all sorts of havoc. I have yet to be in a formal stage situation where I felt comfortable enough to do them reliably.

Steven Ragatz