Welcome to Silver's painless guide to beginning contact juggling.....

Balls!

These spherical beasties are the object of choice for most contact jugglers. You'll probably be familiar with them having had them around since the age of 3 months(earlier if you were precocious.)

The ball you have in your sticky mitt is probably the one you are about to use. I suggest its at least 3"(75mm) in diameter and ROUND (i.e. NOT a beanbag.)
A good choice is a 4"(100mm) juggling stageball or a half-size basketball, both of these are easilly available, one from a juggling shop the other from any toy shop/sports store.
If you happen to have a clear and beautiful acrylic, keep it that way and use something else for the first hour or so! Otherwise you'll have a tatty and battered acrylic of the sort that I have lying around my house in increasingly large numbers.

A word on acrylics

Acrylics are the clear balls you've seen elsewhere on this site and probably the thing that made you go WOW!........MUST DO! in the first place!They are extremely beautiful to watch, possess and use.

They are also dangerous. They leave bruises, damage anything they hit and START FIRES, let me repeat that, THEY START FIRES! Leaving an acrylic in direct sunlight is asking for trouble, if you have an acrylic put it away when not in use, I know of several instances of serious house fires started by acrylics, fortunately I haven't heard of any fatalities, please don't be the first.

Having said that, thousands of jugglers use them perfectly happily with only minor injuries, and they are the perfect tool for contact juggling

The First Moves.......

Time to get down and dirty.......

Forearm Roll

With your hand flat and the ball resting in your open palm, you're ready to begin.
place your other hand(open and flat, get used to that you'll be doing a lot of it!) next to your elbow (as illustrated above). Now roll the ball from one palm, along the arm, to the other palm, no don't think about it, just do it.......and presto your first contact juggling move.

With a little time it will get smooth, trust me.

There is something important in the position you now find yourself, you are only a tiny step away from the mirror of your starting position. This means that it will only take the slightest effort to move the ball (and the hand thats holding it.....) to your other elbow and roll the ball into your empty hand. Hey Presto you've closed the loop and are back where you started. Wonderful! Continue with this loop till you feel almost in control.

Reverse it!

This next move is the exact reverse of the first, roll the ball from your fingertips up your forearm and into your empty hand thats waiting somewhere near your elbow.
Again loop the trick by doing it on your other arm.

Tip

If the ball is travelling to fast then your arm is tilted to far down, lift your hand and keep it in line with your wrist, not bent upwards.

Walk (Don't run)

A shorn off version of the first move, so it should present you with no problems, instead of using the forearm you simply use the hands, again keeping it OPEN and FLAT! Also as the title implies it is a slow move, the more control and less speed the more effective the trick.

You don't actually have to move yourself with this trick, although for demonstration purposes I have on the image above, after all,it's quite nice to send the ball on walkabout !

Your First Isolation

What is an isolation?

It's an illusion created by not moving the ball in space, but instead, spinning it on the spot. It's very pretty and attention grabbing. Its also best done with an acrylic, though any solid colour, smooth surfaced ball will work to some degree.

OK here goes, grab your ball with thumb and 2 fingers and turn it like a dial, yep that's it!
Do it slowly.

Next lift your wrist over the ball whilst keeping the ball in the same place, yes, it is a little harder, but not hard.

Finally combine the two moves gradually building the amount of movement you can do without losing the illusion. You may find a mirror useful for this.

P.S. Looks better in reality than on film...........

Tip

You may find a mirror REALLY useful for this.......
It's all in the wrist, don't try using your fingers to move the ball, make your hand a rigid claw.

Forearm Rolls Part II

Introducing the Cradle(or "putting the ball on the back of your hand")

Hold your hand out flat (predictably), palm down, and dip your midle finger. Place the ball in the "cradle" that you have just created. Easy. (Hamster Optional)

Now for the roll, push your arm under the ball so the ball rolls along your arm and falls of the back of your elbow into your ready and waiting other hand, try it a couple of times, no one said this was going to stay easy did they! Once you have this, try catching it in the cradle in your other hand and repeating

Chest Roll

Yep this IS a beginners trick, cool I'm sure you'll agree, afterwards anyway.
Hold both your hands out, palm up, arms straight(ish) and go for it!
Helpful, hey, in fact thats usually enough for most people to get it within half a dozen attempts. If you are having problems, try using a bigger ball, a football (U.S. translation="soccer") or basketball will allow you to get the feel of this trick.

Squeeze Ups

Hold the ball deep in your cupped hand with your little finger, close your hand around it until its sitting on your thumb and index finger. Take it with your other hand and repeat. Play with this, isolate the ball, let the ball climb or descend, mess about, have fun, combine all the above moves into a little routine and amaze your friends

Note

The astute reader will have noticed that the butterfly move isn't included in this section. This is because it's not a move you can learn in 5 minutes as all the above are, now you've got this far however..........

Move on..........

More tricks await you on the main page, including the butterfly, enjoy............

There are some more resources on the web, with hundreds of tricks in video form and many other contact jugglers of all levels to talk to. See the links page for details.