Comment by nickcw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nickcw | Hacker News Reader

For those of you who aren't jugglers here are some interesting patterns to look at:

Mill's Mess. Once you've mastered this, you've mastered 3 balls!

https://libraryofjuggling.com/Tricks/3balltricks/MillsMess.h...

This 5 ball multiplex is a fun one to learn - look like you are juggling 5 balls but you are only really juggling 3.

https://libraryofjuggling.com/Tricks/5balltricks/FiveBallSpl...

Here is my favourite 4 ball pattern

https://libraryofjuggling.com/Tricks/4balltricks/552.html

Though the difficulty rating is surely wrong - this is one of the tricks you learn on the way to juggling 5 balls and by the time you've got to 552 you are almost there.

I used to practice this pattern obsessively - the 3 different heights of throws are hard to get right but when you do the pattern clicks in and it feels great!

https://libraryofjuggling.com/Tricks/4balltricks/534.html

> Mill's Mess. Once you've mastered this, you've mastered 3 balls!

Ugh, no way. There's way more to three ball juggling than just Mills Mess (no apostrophe, his name was Steve Mills and it's not possessive but just a title).

Mills Mess is the start of learning that there's more to three ball juggling than just a couple of over the top throws, not the end of it.

>Ugh, no way.

Agreed. After mastering the basic cascade, Mills Mess is a great beginner pattern to learn next, but there are way more challenging ones. Burke's Barage is another more challenging pattern.

Agree. The box is also a deceptively difficult pattern that looks very simple on first glance.

I found Burke's Barrage

http://libraryofjuggling.com/Tricks/3balltricks/Burke'sBarra...

MUCH more difficult to learn than Mills Mess. The needed move is so much faster and your arms 'follow each other' less, whereas Mills Mess the hands sort of snake around.

Early in my real juggling days, learning mills mess, followed by Boston mess was eye opening. I'd self taught a three ball cascade and four ball columns a decade beforehand, waiting in a hospital ward. Learning those two messes, which for all their complexity, are just the same three ball cascade, opened my mind up to how much 'movement' could change what you were doing, and how it was perceived.

Boston Mess and Cherry Picker are hard but very satisfying patterns once you get them figured out.

There's a level you can reach in juggling where it's like you're watching your hands do something that even you don't know how they're doing. The muscle memory outpaces your perception. It fees like magic.

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