From: naw@planet.bt.co.uk (Ab Wilson)
Newsgroups: rec.juggling
Subject: four ball shower
Date: 8 Jan 93 12:26:43 GMT
Reply-To: naw@planet.bt.co.uk
Organization: BT Labs, Martlesham Heath, Ipswich, UK.


: andyv@minster.york.ac.uk
In-reply-to: <swordfish.726486146@minster.york.ac.uk> "andyv@minster.york.ac.uk"
Subject: Four ball shower.
Reply-to: naw@planet.bt.co.uk
BCC: naw
--text follows this line--

   From: andyv@minster.york.ac.uk
   Newsgroups: rec.juggling

   Hi,

   I've just read your posting on 4 ball showers/half showers and I 
   thought I'd let you know about my experience...

   It literally took me 2 evenings of an hour a piece to get a reasonably
   solid (major hand throws higher) 4 ball half shower. I don't present
   this as evidence of me being a superb juggler (far from it !!!!) but
   this is how long it took !  

   I started working on 5 balls seriously about June last year and
   part of this involved nailing my basic 4 ball tricks. It was about
   three or four evenings into my week of 4 ball (2 to 3 hours an evening)
   that I had a go at the half shower. The trick sort of clicked, this
   happens every now and again when I'm learning tricks -- I suddenly
   `saw' what I had to do (got a lucky couple of throws) and all of a sudden
   it was there. At the same time I had very little success with the
   shower.

   I found that the half shower the other way round (minor hand throws high)
   came without me having to do very much at all. I had a little go every now
   and again and then it was sort of there (not brilliant -- but basically
   ok). The same sort of thing seems to have happened with the 4 ball
   shower -- as my 5 ball cascade has improved, I've found that the four
   ball shower has started to get there a little bit by itself. This and
   now starting with two balls in each hand rather than 3 and 1....

   I think I probably found the half shower a lot harder than the shower
   for my level of difficulty at the time -- maybe now (9 months better)
   I would disagree with that statement and say that the half shower is
   a harder trick......

   cheers
   andy

To me learning the half shower was a long slow process starting with
syncronous 4 ball crosses. I learned it first with my major hand doing
the low throws because I found it easier to get my good hand to
consciously make a low throw, than my bad hand. I suppose, within
about two weeks I could do reasonable 20 catch runs of a very dodgey
half shower pattern with very bad timing. However it has taken me from
the summer until now to get the pattern looking anything like decent.
ie each hand throwing alternately with an even rhythm.

During this time I attempted the full shower a few times but never
realy praticed it, this was mainly because I thought 71 site swap=too
hard to attempt. However now after about three weeks of practice I've
got the pattern solid enough to get runs of 40 catches or so.

To me the half shower is defininately the harder trick, and I'm sure
that if I'd practiced the full shower first I would have got it
sooner. ie it wouldn't have taken me 6 months. The reason for this it
seems to me is that the half shower feels like a very loose pattern,
and IMHO this is because the timing depends on what both hands are
doing and you have two arcs to keep track of. (One of the biggest
difficulties with the half shower as getting both arcs into the field
of view.) In the full shower it doesn't really matter what the hand
doing the 1s is doing because the 1s don't really contribute that much
to the rhythm and you don't have to look at where you're throwing
them.

Now I put it to you as a five ball juggler, which 5 ball trick would
you rather attempt, the half shower 73, or the full shower 91. Bear in
mind the height difference in the 73 is going to be even greater than
in the 53, and you have that awkward floaty 3 to take care of.


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