Life's a Circus, Friday, Second Period

[exboywonder.livejournal.com]

"I know, last week was weird or disgusting, but at least a lot of you got to ride an elephant," Dick said to start off class. "This week, we're going with something a little simpler in concept, but much harder in execution. And I'm not even going to talk about how it ties into life because that should be pretty obvious."

"This week, we're talking about juggling," Dick said, picking a red colored balls off the ground, leaving a blue ball and a yellow ball by his feet. "There are two keys to juggling. First is hand eye coordination. You throw a ball in the air so that it's level with your eyes and then make sure you know where it's going to land." The red ball flew in an arc from his right hand to his left. He tossed the ball quickly back to his right hand and threw it in another arc toward his left hand. "And then you do it again, and again, and you keep on doing it until you know exactly how to get the ball from one hand to the other without having to look."

Dick threw the red ball high as he bent down to grab the yellow ball from the ground. As he rose, he caught the red ball in his left hand. "Two balls is pretty much the same thing. Take the ball in whichever hand is your dominant hand," Dick said, holding up his right hand, "And throw it the same way you did before. But right before it hits your other hand, take that ball and toss it to your main hand, again, keeping everything at eye level." Dick demonstrated and it looked easy. "Don't worry, you're going to mess it up a few times as you figure out how to not throw the second ball right into the first. And if you start having to take steps to catch the balls, you're throwing a little wildly. If that happens, take it a little slower and see if you can get some concentration back."

Dick juggled the two balls for a little while longer just so everyone could see how he did it. Once he figured everyone had seen it long enough, he stopped juggling and bent down to grab the blue ball.

"If anyone gets to this point before our time is up today, I'll be surprised. If they master it, I'll be impressed," Dick said. He showed the red ball in his right hand and the other two in his left. "This time, you're going to start with the subordinate hand. You're holding two balls in it. Throw one of them first. Just like before, throw the ball in your dominant hand before the first ball lands, then repeat with your other hand, and just keep this going for as long as you can."

Dick started juggling the three balls like an expert for just a minute before continuing his lecture while juggling. "It takes a lot of practice to get a feel for this, but once you have that, it's a breeze. Then you can start moving on to more balls, juggling pins, knives, things on fire, even chainsaws if you're either really good or completely mental. But you can't rush it. Because once you start trying to juggle too much at once..." Dick let one ball go just a little wild, so he had to overcorrect on the next one, which led to the next ball going wild, and within a couple more throws, all the balls landed on the ground. "... everything's just going to fall apart.'

"Obvios activity time! Grab a couple balls and start practicing. You can team up if you want to, if anyone whips a ball into someone else's face, that's a detention."

[OOC: The link above has gifs! Gifs of diagrammatic juggling!]

Comments

Juggle!

[exboywonder.livejournal.com]

Start with one ball. Work your way up to two. Try three if you dare, but it's going to be tough.

Or maybe pair up and talk as you play a glorified game of catch.

Re: Juggle!

[notlikebobby.livejournal.com]

Jack grabbed three balls, but tucked one into his pocket. "I used to be able to do this," he said to no one in particular. He settled for getting the two ball toss into a rhythm first.

Re: Juggle!

[hurtingzeebo]

"Somehow," said Sam, currently in the process of not even really quite trying to juggle the right way. "That doesn't surprise me."

Re: Juggle!

[notlikebobby.livejournal.com]

"It's a great party trick," Jack replied with a smile, keeping his eyes on the balls.

Re: Juggle!

[hurtingzeebo]

"Even better if you can do it standing on your head," Sam mused. "Or, ooo, juggle fat cakes. While eating fat cakes."

Re: Juggle!

[notlikebobby.livejournal.com]

"Fat cakes? They sound too big to juggle." He fished the third ball out to give it a try.

Re: Juggle!

[wrongkindofsith]

Cara, shockingly enough, had never juggled before, but she was good with her hands, had excellent coordination, and could pick up new skills involving those things fairly easily.

She felt vaguely ridiculous, but by the end of the class she was able to work with three balls without dropping them. Much.

Re: Juggle!

[geewhizfellas.livejournal.com]

As far as Butters was concerned, a pretty girl who could handle balls that well deserved admiration. "Oh, boy," he said once Cara had gotten a handle on the trick with three balls without dropping them, much, "you sure are good at that!"

Re: Juggle!

[wrongkindofsith]

Luckily for Butters, Cara could not read narrative so he was spared a suspicious side-eye.

"It's not that hard," she replied shortly. It was throwing and catching balls. It wasn't like it was something like dancing, or cooking, or embroidery, or holding a civil conversation. Those were hard.

Re: Juggle!

[geewhizfellas.livejournal.com]

Butters himself gave it another go with his three balls, managed it for a second, before they all fell to the ground and rolled away. He quickly scrambled to pick them back up. "You're lots better at it than me, but maybe I just need more practice."

Re: Juggle!

[wrongkindofsith]

Normally Cara wouldn't let an opening that easy slip by. She caught her balls before shrugging. "Maybe you do."

Re: Juggle!

[geewhizfellas.livejournal.com]

Butters fiddled a little with his hands for a moment, sort of building himself up to giving it a try, before he picked up one ball and gave it a try. Well, that was pretty easy. Time for two! Two went along clumsily at first, but started to gain a real rhythm for the thing. And then three! Three took an awful lot of work, and Butters kept dropping balls everywhere, but he wasn't about to give up until he got it!

Re: Juggle!

[batwaffles.livejournal.com]

Stephanie had played varsity softball back in Gotham, so she was fairly confident in being able to handle a single ball; besides, her pesky need to impress wouldn't let her start with anything less than two.

She didn't do horribly; Bruce kept harping on her need to work on her hand-eye coordination, so she'd been working on it. (Which was easier, somehow, when not under his constant observation. Or Barbara's, although she was nicer about the critique.) Still, she had a tendency to overthrow, and kept having to stop when she caught herself doing a little dance to keep in line with the balls she was juggling.

Sigh. Something else to work on.

Re: Juggle!

[randomspanish.livejournal.com]

Freddie was no juggler. He stick with one for a while, eventually moving up to two. Even then, though, he was not having a lot of success.

Re: Juggle!

[hurtingzeebo]

Sam sent a ball winging at the back of Freddie's head.

Accidentally.

Yeah. Totally by accident.

Re: Juggle!

[randomspanish.livejournal.com]

When Freddie got hit in the back of the head, he didn't even need to turn around. He just got an expression on his face and shouted.

"Awww, come on, Sam!"

Re: Juggle!

[hurtingzeebo]

Sam glanced around, then pointed at random. "They did it."

Re: Juggle!

[randomspanish.livejournal.com]

Freddie turned around and shook his head. "You think I'm gonna fall for that?"

Re: Juggle!

[hurtingzeebo]

Sam, not much one for patience and with great confidence in her hand-eye coordination, immediately picked up all three balls, threw them into the air, and attempted to catch them all at once.

She even succeeded, the first time she did this. The second time, when they all fell to the floor, she threw her arms in the air for a big olympic finish.

She wasn't much for patience -- or directions -- but she was one hell of a show-woman.

Re: Juggle!

[walkswithcoyote]

Mercy laughed, tucked her balls under her arm, and applauded. "Very nice!"

Hey. Gotta appreciate the spirit, right?

Re: Juggle!

[hurtingzeebo]

"Thank you, thank you," Sam took a bow. "Don't applaud, just through money."

Re: Juggle!

[walkswithcoyote]

"Sorry, you'll have to settle for applause," Mercy said with a smile. "Though I could toss my own balls at you."

Re: Juggle!

[annieadderall.livejournal.com]

Annie had never even attempted to juggle, so this was going to be a new experience!

She was feeling pretty confident with one ball. After all, it was pretty much like playing catch with yourself. So she decided she could try two... and everything fell right apart. If she caught one, she'd drop the other, every single time. It should not be this hard to juggle balls, seriously.

Re: Juggle!

[richieryan.livejournal.com]

Juggling was not something Richie had thought to try before. But he could manage one of the balls just fine and eventually his effort with two could probably be deemed passable. He got overly ambitious and tried three briefly but that way quickly led to 3 dropped balls that had be chased around the room.

Re: Juggle!

[walkswithcoyote]

Mercy hadn't done the juggling thing before. Lockpicking, now that she could do easily. Still she was faster than most humans with good hand eye coordination, so after a few false starts she wasn't doing that badly.