From: miller@quiver.enet.dec.com (Brian A. Miller)
Newsgroups: rec.juggling
Subject: Re: Site Swap Notation and the Three Ball Half Shower
Date: 14 Oct 92 23:37:05 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


In article <1992Oct14.204825.29926@reed.edu>, celarier@reed.edu (Stuart Celarier) writes...
>In article <1992Oct8.191711.21616@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> miller@quiver.enet.dec.com  
>(Brian A. Miller) writes:
>> ...
>> Back to the original question of half showers:  a 3 ball half shower is (in
>> my mind) still basically a "3" (not a "53"), though the throws from one hand
>> go slightly higher than the throws of the other hand.  Can we agree on this
>> point first, and then start talking about 4 balls again with a better grasp
>> of terminology?
>> 
>> --BAM
>> Brian A. Miller
> 
> 
>Brian is certainly not the first person to have this problem, so let me see if  
>I can help straighten it out.
> 
>	THE THREE BALL HALF SHOWER CANNOT BE COMPLETELY DESCRIBED
>	USING SITE SWAP NOTATION.
> 
>There, I said it, now let me see if I can rationalize my way out of this one.
> 
>First, let's agree on what site swap notation (SSN) is and isn't.  SSN is a  

  [explanation deleted]

> 
>Now let me take on *why* a three ball half shower (3BHS) is certainly not 3 in  
>SSN.  Some have suggested that the 3BHS is 3 because they can take their  
>animation program and tell one hand to have a negative scoop (that is, one hand  
>carries the ball away from the center prior to the toss).  SSN says nothing  
>about scoop, and Bengt and Boppo implied, if anything, that all scoops are  
>towards the inside of the pattern (cascade for odd numbers, one-handed outward  
>showers for even numbers).
> 
>What's more, to achieve the visual effect of the half shower (as compared to a  
>whole shower) one wants the balls thrown from the outside to go over, and hence  
>higher than the balls thrown to the inside.  This is as Brian Miller correctly  
>observes. If all other things are constant (including the dwell time) the  
>higher ball must take longer (cf., Galileo Galilei).

  [more stuff deleted]

>One early result from SSN theory is that average (arithmetic mean) of the  
>numbers in a SSN trick must be an integer, and is in fact the number of objects  
>being juggled.  Therefore,  5 3  is a four ball trick, not a three ball trick  
>as Brian and others have suggested.  It is, indeed, a four ball half shower  
>(4BHS).  Are there other 4BHSs?  Certainly, they involve changing the relative  
>heights of the two tosses, which again results in varying degrees of  
>syncopation -- nice patterns, but not SSN tricks.  In fact, many people learn  
>the 4BHS with the hands throwing simultaneously.  Again, a wonderful pattern,  
>and obviously not a SSN trick. 




Okay, rebuttal time.

In my opinion, a three ball half-shower is a sort of 3.5 2.5 site-swap.
Granted, there isn't really such a thing as a "3.5" throw in site-swap
notation, but if you watch someone doing a 3 ball half-shower (or 3BHS as you
so cryptically refer to it), the timing of the throws will be awfully close to
a 3-ball cascade (at least if they are doing the trick as I do, with the higher
throws from one hand only slightly higher than the lower throws coming from the
opposite hand).

I'll agree that a 5 3 is a four-ball pattern.  I knew that before, I just
wasn't thinking when I mentioned the 5 3 in my last post on this subject. 
However, I personally do a 4-ball half-shower with synchronous throws, so I'll
call the 5 3 something more along the lines of a four-club triple-single
pattern.  

Now, a triple-single pattern is supposed to have even timing, ala
siteswap "3", but with triples from one hand and singles from the other.  If
this is 5 3, something doesn't make sense.  5 clubs are juggled with doubles,
not triples. Perhaps the "5" of the 5 3 is thrown as a triple, but to the
height a double is thrown in a 5-club cascade?  Sounds suspicious to me.  

I guess the 5 3 with clubs would be more like the double-single a couple of
people mentioned before, and a triple-single pattern is somewhere in between
5 3 and 7 1 (the shower).

>--
>Stuart Celarier		"No Problem, Easy Pickup" Portland Jugglers
>celarier@reed.edu	PO Box 82842
>503/331-1877		Portland, Oregon 97282


--Brian A. Miller
miller@quiver.enet.dec.com  (valid until November 20 only)
bnm3550@cs.rit.edu
BAM3550@ritvax.isc.rit.edu

P.S. Say hi to Bruce Fields at Reed for me, I went to high school with him.
Newsgroups: rec.juggling