Newbie. What type, color, weight, etc.

Thanks.

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Mischievous and Deceitful
Chicanerous and Deplorable

For starting out, juggling bean bags is much easier to catch since they don't bounce against your palm. They also are easier to retrieve when you drop them.
(Balls are better if you are doing bounce tricks though.)

I'd get a set of jugging bags, the rounder the better.

Something like these
[www.amazon.com]

but I'd try to find fabric covered instead of plastic since cloth has a much better feel.

Plastic might be better for being more durable if you plan on dropping them on concrete or other hard surfaces when learning.

If you are practicing over carpet or other soft surfaces, I'd go with fabric covered bean bags.

I haven't shopped for juggling items for over 20 years so the tech has changed.
These polyurethane coated cloth bean bags look pretty good to me.
[www.renegadejuggling.com]


Note that its not just the feel but also the sound of the bean bags compared to balls that is important to me. Hearing the sound against my hands lets me calibrate the timing. In particular when you are passing with a partner you have to be in sync in your timing and the sound also assists in letting you know where your partner is if you are walking around (and turning around) while juggling and passing between each other.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2022 08:05PM by TheTominator.

Thanks, Tominator!

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Mischievous and Deceitful
Chicanerous and Deplorable

If you want to start immediately, I'd grab a few potatoes that fit your hand well.
They last longer than tomatoes.
Oranges aren't too bad either and have good hand feel.

I like tennis balls. Do them over the couch or a bed.

TheTominator has it perfectly correct. Also, when you are learning, practice over the bed so that you don't have so far to stoop to pick up dropped bags. In addition, your first step should be tossing and catching a single bag with one hand, while moving that hand in a circle. Then try with the other hand. After mastering that, you should try two hands with two bags, tossing the second bag when the first bag is at its apex and trying to complete both catches. Once you get the hang of that you can move up to three bags and two hands, starting with a single cycle and then building up.

The most fun IMHO is juggling with a partner using 6 bags (Incoming!!). Also, 4 bags is waaaay harder than 3.

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

Pro tip.... start with your legs against your bed, and juggle over the mattress. This will help you avoid the seemingly natural tendency to move forward. You want to toss pretty much straight across the vertical plane a few inches in front of you, but that is a learned skill.
Good luck, and enjoy.....
the better you get, the more relaxing it is.
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You can also roll large sports socks into a ball, while you wait for your order to arrive

Start with chainsaws because they have great handles. I would practice a bit before starting the saws. Note that newer saws have a lockout feature so you’ll have to bypass it.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

Quote
Speedy
Start with chainsaws because they have great handles. I would practice a bit before starting the saws. Note that newer saws have a lockout feature so you’ll have to bypass it.

Back when the body still worked, I used to juggle a bowling ball, softball, and ping pong ball to demonstrate to newbies you have to pay attention, and be able to control your juggling movements. Finding three similar sized objects of vastly differing weights is good, too, but not as visual. Also, make sure that the chainsaw blades are really sharp, that way they don't hurt as much if/when you mess up.
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“ Also, 4 bags is waaaay harder than 3.”

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay waaaaaaaaaaaay harder. I couldn’t begin to do it.

Russian juggling balls started to become popular among technical jugglers (folks interested in juggling five or more objects, as well as using the numeric counting system Siteswap to juggle intricate patterns) about ten or so years ago. Russian balls are partially filled round balls. The partial filling means they don't roll as far when dropped.

[www.renegadejuggling.com]

For about ten years I wrote a "Teach-In" column for JUGGLE magazine. For many patterns, it was important to distinguish a specific balls in the pattern. Since the magazine was published in black and white, I used one white beanbag, one black beanbag and one black-and-white beanbag. The different colours made it easier to describe more precisely what was going on in both the illustrations and the text. Some of these articles made it to my web page. Anyone interested should be able to find them by searching "Todd," "JUGGLE magazine," and maybe "Teach In" or some variation.

Todd's sometimes-drops-more-than-he-throws board

Todd's

….fondle…..

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_____________________________________

I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Quote
Buzz
Back when the body still worked, I used to juggle a bowling ball, softball, and ping pong ball to demonstrate to newbies you have to pay attention, and be able to control your juggling movements. Finding three similar sized objects of vastly differing weights is good, too, but not as visual.

One of the members of my university's juggling club filled a tennis ball with lead shot (mostly) and invited new members to step in and steal his juggling while he was juggling the lead-filled ball and two normal tennis balls.

Holy Todd's juggling keyboard! I did not realize we have an expert in the house!

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Mischievous and Deceitful
Chicanerous and Deplorable

This came up some years back when somebody asked if any members juggled.

I've been the juggling instructor at the National Circus School of France and a private circus school in Germany. I've also been the Chair of the International Jugglers' Association and a columnist for its former print magazine, JUGGLE. I've also written several books on object-manipulation skills that jugglers tend to enjoy: devil sticks, diabolo, dice stacking, and how to learn to juggle four and five balls.

At one point, I was planning on writing an encyclopedia of all of the juggling skills. That was a big motivator to write the Teach-In column for JUGGLE. The Internet made the market for juggling books less viable.

I think I'll take off my shoes, climb a tree, and learn to play the flute.

Todd's up-in-the-air keyboard

Holy Todd's juggling keyboard! I did not realize we have an expert in the house!


I remember Todd's posts on juggling and was waiting for him to post, because other posts notwithstanding, I knew he would impress.

Wow.

I sort of interested in trying it in the decline years of motor skills, lol.

Maybe I'll start with one bean bag.


RAMd®d's-declining-motor-skills-limited-to-a-few-specialized-functions.

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Early in Nixon's first term, I was back up north for summer vacation from UCLA, and had a job leading a crew of mostly former, but also a couple of current, students painting the inside of our old high school buildings. The city cut a deal w/ the teachers' union, that union painters would do the outside, and us (obviously cheaper non-union labor) students could do the inside.

There was another student crew doing clean-up and fix-up, and when the two student crews would take breaks, there were a few kids sprinkled about between 'em that were honing their juggling skills. That's what inspired me to teach myself how to juggle. Got pretty good pretty quick, as most of it was very intuitive. Yes, adding add'l balls was kind of a challenge, especially without any instruction.

Throwing in tricks was fun, but the biggest kick, was not knowing that all that stuff had actual names! Meeting up with other *real* jugglers was a total hoot; they'd start talking about juggling stuff, using names and juggling words, and I didn't have a clue what they were talking about. The more they talked, the more perplexed I got. I'd tell them it's easier if they'd just show me, rather than talk about it. Either I already knew it, or was able to figure it out pretty quickly at that point.

It wasn't until the early 00's, when I started to teach Baby Buzz how to juggle, after a couple of people had given him juggling starter kits, that I payed any attention to juggling nomenclature. By then, the old body was shot, and hands' on juggling was but a memory. Our local middle school teaches juggling to all the kids, so I wanted to make sure Baby Buzz had a several year head start, and thought a few juggling words might help, in case the middle school juggling teachers used them.
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