Patterns we juggle at Berkeley

To get the most out of this page, you really should make sure you have a copy of JoePass running on your machine. Then you can generate your own animations, view patterns from different angles, and experiment with the causal diagrams. If you like these patterns, have cool ideas for them, or get some people to juggle them somewhere, let me know! This page is maintained mostly by Scott Morrison (scott at-sign math.berkeley.edu)

• 3 Count Accomodation (animated gif (~164k), causal diagram, JoePass file, added Nov 16 2001)
  • This is a pretty cool pattern! It requires one person doing a pass-pass-self feed, one person doing a 3 count, and two people doing a 2 count, one left handed, one right handed. If that's too easy for you, try swapping roles on the fly! You'll probably have to have a look at the causal diagram to make sense of what exactly is meant to be going on. Dave, Will Murray, Eva and I tried this at the 2001 Lodi convention, and we've played with it a few times since at Berkeley.
• Lodi Lowdown (animated gif (~320k), causal diagram, JoePass file, added Nov 15 2001)
• What a pattern! Dave introduced this one to Eva and I at the 2001 Lodi Juggling convention, late on Sunday afternoon. We didn't really get it to work, but it was fun to try. It's not too too hard to describe. For 5 people. Every time anyone passes, they are swapping a club with another person. There's one really easy position in the pattern - let's call that juggler Mr Red (the colours match the animation). All he does is juggle a right handed 4-count, passing alternately to Mr Yellow and Ms Green. Most of the time, Ms Purple and Mr Yellow are just juggling a 2 count with each other, and similarly Mr Blue and Ms Green. This can't quite work - every 8 beats Mr Yellow has to pass with Mr Red. So, at this point, Ms Purple remembers not to throw a club to him, but immediately after that beat passes left handed to Ms Green, who returns the favour. Similarly, whenever Ms Green is meant to pass to Mr Red, Mr Blue should not pass to Ms Green, but immediately after exchange a left handed pass with Mr Yellow! Got that? :-)
• Berkeley Y (animated gif (~630k), JoePass file, added Nov 15 2001)
  • Our very own Berkeley Y - a 3 count dropback pattern. Thanks to Arun for creating the original JoePass file - I just tweaked the positions and the throws a little to make it look a bit nicer.
  • While Theresa was in Arizona, she juggled the following pattern, and realised later it's almost a time-reversed Berkely Y, hence the Y Elekreb (animated gif (~162k), causal diagram, JoePass file, added Nov 17 2001) . We had a go at Berkeley on Nov 16.
  • Also, there's Mercedes Benz (animated gif (~210k), JoePass file, added Nov 16 2001) , an unlikely looking 3-count pattern for 6 people, involving quite a few dropbacks, which sort of grew out of the Berkeley Y. Again, I've just tweaked Arun's JoePass file to make the dropbacks look a little nicer. It actually got juggled at the Berkeley Juggling Club on November 12, 2001, and I even have a photo to prove it!
• Alternating Feed (animated gif (~610k), causal diagram, JoePass file, added Nov 15 2001)
  • This has been quite a popular pattern at Berkeley recently, and isn't too hard! Four people, taking turns to feed. You can try out all your syncopations, and still have a moment of 4-count to recover!
  • At Lodi we tried adding hohos on the diagonal passes. After every right handed diagonal pass, immediately follow with a left hand pass to the same person. You have to do 3 passes in 3 beats, which is getting a little adventurous. (causal diagram, JoePass file, added Nov 15 2001)
• Simultaneous Triangle (animated gif (~340k), causal diagram, JoePass file, added Nov 18 2001)
  • We'd been thinking about patterns with simultaneous throws - we tried something like this, a 3-count triangle, on November 18, at Ohlone, and we'll try it again soon!
  • There's also, according to JoePass, a presumably easier 8 club version. (JoePass file, added Nov 16 2001)
• Isosceles Triangle (animated gif (~100k), causal diagram, JoePass file, added Nov 18 2001)
  • This is a 3 person, 10 club, 3 count triangle pattern. Two sides of the pattern use doubles, one side uses singles (hence the name!) I dreamt this up with JoePass, and we started to get it going on November 18 (Chris, Arun and Scott).
• Torture Chamber (causal diagram, JoePass file, added Nov 18 2001).
  • Our Berkeley version... do you get the impression that certain people have an unhealthy predilection for dropbacks, or is it just me? :-) There's an animation of this on the right.
• Row Row Row Your Boat (animated gif (~650k), causal diagram, JoePass file, added Nov 20 2001).
• This is one of the those patterns where causal diagrams don't even begin to capture it :-) Fundamental to this pattern is the `singing', if you can call it that. Everyone in turn sings:
  Row, row, row your boat,
  gently down the steam,
  merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
  life is but a dream
  That is, each sings a line at a time, always one bar behind the person on your left. Each line corresponds to a particular set of actions. Denoting right-to-left selfs by S, passes to the person on your left by L, passes diagonally by D, and passes to the person on your right by R, the bars correspond to -
  DSSD
  SLLS
  DRRD
  SSSS
  Remember while singing that `life is but a dream' has an extra silent beat at the end! Hopefully between this and the causal diagram you can work it out. We had a go at this at about 4am Sunday at Lodi, quite possibly at a slower tempo than depicted in the animation and causal diagram here.
  
• As soon as I discover how to make people walk in JoePass, I'll put up the 6-person 3-count walk-around all-time-favourite, Guys and Girls.

Experimental Stuff (here lives stuff that I've come up with JoePass, but haven't had a chance to try in the real world yet ... )

• Nothing at the moment! I better get cracking.

Further ideas

• Other things we've been juggling recently at the Berkeley Juggling Club include Jim's Three Count (trying some syncopations), 7 club staggered doubles, 7 club 3 count, 7 triples, 7 singles, and 8 clubs. Also 6 club 1 count, 1 count feeds, 10 club random feeds, and a largely failed attempt at a 14 club N-feed.