Library of Juggling(libraryofjuggling.com)
73 pointsby tontony9 hours ago7 comments
  • mfsch3 hours ago
    Perhaps of interest: I came across this retrospective of the author of that site and how he moved it to static hosting a couple of years ago [1].

    I would also say that this library covers more or less the “lower half” of solo ball juggling in terms of difficulty. With lower ball counts (say ≤ 4), there are a lot of these patterns that have complex arm movements and can be difficult to explain with words, so having such a listing with animations and step-by-step instructions is very valuable. Starting with 4 balls, there’s less and less time for moving your arms around and it is more about the sequence of heights of the throws, which are well described with just their numeric “siteswap” pattern and you can learn them just from knowing the number sequence. The site has only the most basic of those (e.g. 534) and even very common 4-ball (7531, 633) patterns are missing with hardly anything beyond that.

    [1]: https://ianconvy.github.io/projects/other/libraryofjuggling/...

  • thom5 hours ago
    Juggling is one of hobbies with the highest ratios of being able to impress random people versus the actual effort you have to put in, and I generally find I never forget 3-ball stuff I learned as a kid. It's also as good as a long walk for getting you out of your head when needed.

    Shout out to anyone that remembers the Mushy Pea juggling shop in Manchester many years ago, where I learned all sorts of circus skills.

    • vikingerik6 minutes ago
      Rubik's cubing is another. Most people here with enough logical aptitude to be programmers could probably learn a beginner method in a day or two. I'll pick up a cube anywhere I see one scrambled, solve it in a couple minutes, and then the last flourish is to leave it in the checkerboard pattern.

      I also juggle, and the result of the combination is that approximately every single person on Facebook has posted to me the video about solving cubes while juggling them...

    • c224 hours ago
      I've also found it to be a magical incantation to silence crying babies. Sometimes I'll quickly flash (juggle for one round) three random objects to shut up a baby in public and their parents don't even notice.
    • LanceHan hour ago
      Juggling 3 is a skill that is way easier than people think until they do it. But the very next question is will be, "how many can you juggle?" as they apparently think juggling 4 is just 33% more difficult than 3.
      • Someonean hour ago
        For those wondering: to juggle 4 balls, you either have to decrease the time between catching a ball and throwing it again or increase the time a ball is in the air.

        Unless you start throwing feathers or balloons, the latter requires you throw higher. That requires you to either spend more time launching them up (bad for the ‘decrease time between catching and throwing’) or use more force (bad for throwing accuracy.

        Also, even assuming you juggle 4 balls keeping “time in hand” equal, you have to throw it higher by a factor of (4/3)². That’s almost 2.

        And even if you manage to make those throws with the same accuracy in angles, the errors in location by the time you catch the balls scale by the same factor.

      • vunderbaan hour ago
        It’s also fun that you can tweak it without the layperson even noticing the change in relative difficulty.

          Cascade pattern = easy difficulty  
  Shower pattern = normal difficulty  
  Box pattern = hard difficulty
        As someone who loves to run their hands up and down in the piano in grand sweeping arpeggios, I'm a huge fan of patterns where the perceived difficulty is higher than the actual difficulty.
  • flyosity15 minutes ago
    What a great website aesthetic, takes me way back to when the Internet felt a lot smaller.
  • xnorswap6 hours ago
    I find it fascinating that it uses a 2-9 scale to grade difficulty.

    The rating is described as a rating "1 - 10"

    But every trick is actually graded 2 to 9. ( https://libraryofjuggling.com/TricksByDifficulty.html )

    Presumably no-one ever wanted to define a grade 1, just in case an easier one was discovered, and similarly for 10.

    • IAmBrooman hour ago
      Well, do we really even need to discuss juggling 1? I just call that tossing the ball around...
  • ragazzina28 minutes ago
    The website is great, but I find the lack of hyperlinks maddening.
  • postsantum4 hours ago
    As a Java developer, I recommend Factory trick. Simple, but impresses people the most

    https://libraryofjuggling.com/Tricks/3balltricks/Factory.htm...

    • ronjouch3 hours ago
      Sadly, doing the trick with a single ball yields a FactorySingleton and scores an extra Java point, but doesn’t impress as much. We can’t have nice things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .
  • bartonfink8 hours ago
    [flagged]