Combinations of Juggling Patterns

In my permanent struggle to remember what comes next or what I have done a thousand times before, I used some technique which has been brought to me by a french gentleman whose name eludes me at the moment.

An example of how to build a sequence of both juggling and moving:

His Idea (the frenchmans´) was to write down the alphabet and besides each letter you write down one of your favourite tricks – in order to then be able to juggle words, sentences, the bible.

Well I gave them numbers or names or Pictures! CREATIVITY ya know?

So to be extremely creative without actually being creative at all you just brainstorm everything you have done troughout your career ( well maybe you´d better skip those years at VEGAS) and write it on tiny little pieces of whatulike.

Then throw all these pieces in the air, try to catch them and remember the order of their arrival.

Rest in pieces!

Okay slow down – from the start!

The man who gave the workshop was Tim Robbins. He was then teaching in „Centre National des Arts du Cirque“ in Chalons – France. He made us write down the alphabet. Next to each letter we placed a trick name.

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Example List of Juggling Tricks

When the List was finished we tried to „Juggle“ our names.

An Example: If your name was George you would start with a lazy penguin catch followed by a chin balance go directly into the shower, do a front roll and catch all balls again with the unmistakable charme of a penguin and end up in a heroical pose with a ball crowning your unshaved glorious chin.

The tricky thing about this was that you were not allowed to use any unnecessary cascade throws – meaning you had to find a way to go directly into the next trick. The transitions that evolved out of such behaviour were absolutely remarkable and worth to enter the „Hall of Fame“ of unique juggling inventions.

When it comes to juggling whole sentences or your favourite poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson you will soon recognise that this is a good method of rapidly building sequences that can be used on stage or elsewhere.

You might even use this method to create a canon of multiple actors following the same choreography or reciting different phrases.

And the best thing about it is that it will always be reproducible in case you are able to memorise where you left your notes-list!