Hi everyone,

Here's an interesting idea...I used to juggle quite a bit and am just starting to get into magic now. I can understand how much practice time it took me to juggle. I am wondering if people here would like to have some fun and compare the amount of time and effort it took to learning how to juggle to the time and effort it took to learning sleights.

To start off, I am into about four days of consistent practice learning the overhand shuffle and controls. Already in a short time I am noticing improvement. I would imagine then that this is like learning the basic cascade with balls.

I remember how long it took me to learn to shower the three balls and also some tricks. All in all not too hard. Would this be similar to learning basic sleights like the glide, the glimpse, hindu shuffle and riffle shuffle controls?

Next I learned how to juggle clubs. Getting the spin-thing down was a milestone. Is this similar to learning a solid "palm"? In both time and effort invested?

I went on to learn how to juggle four balls, and also ball and club passing with a friend. The passing was fun and was more similar to spending time and effort in coordination and choreography than actually developing new skill.

At the peak of my juggling career, I was spending the better part of three to five months trying to learn to juggle five balls. I got fairly good but never reached a level where I could go "indefinitely" and correct mistakes. Mistakes would tend to continue to magnify until failure. I found this incredibly time and effort consuming! Is learning "the pass" similar? I've heard the pass is incredibly practice-intensive. Or is learning the pass more like learning to juggle seven balls? I also never mastered juggling three balls while riding a unicycle. Each on there own is easy but trying to do both at the same time is hard! Which is more difficult? Learning juggling or learning sleights?

I find the thing that makes learning sleights difficult is the lack of immediate feedback. In juggling, you either succeed or you don't. Sleight and misdirection require an audience for your feedback and yet you can't get that feedback until you feel you are ready to perform. A real catch 22, isn't it?

What do you guys think?

I'm not sure about the specific time ratios, but I can tell you that I'm in the same boat as you. I used to juggle but my partner and I split up and I'm not much into solo performing (of juggling).

I would definately not compare five or seven balls to the pass because the learning curve is completely different. In learning five balls you generally break it down into smaller steps and practice each step until you can reach the next plateau. You start by:

1. Flashing three balls
   
2. Flash three balls with a clap
   
3. Continuously flash three balls and clap
   
4. Maybe work on a four ball half shower left and right side
   
5. Then flash five and catch...etc.

I believe the pass and many other sleights in magic are better compared to the three ball cascade. You can learn the move in a relatively short period of time—once you see it done and your hands get a feel for what the motion is like. The practice part that everyone is talking about is just refining the action so that it is smooth and effortless—natural.

A beginner can do a passable cascade—an expert can do it without trying—allowing creative freedom in the artform. That is why I think sleights are like the cascade, they don't take long to learn but to make them beautifully invisible and natural is what the practice is all about.

Very interesting comments Lithix! I see your point. I guess my overhand shuffle is like an awkward and tense beginner's cascade. I guess that's why I'm finding it frustrating. Because I can do it, I wan't to go on to the next thing, but I need to appreciate what doing it effortlessly will be like.

:clownjuggling:

I think that moving on is ok as long as you have the basic move down, because only practice and TIME will improve your slights once you know the move...Add other stuff, just don't forget to practice the first stuff you learned. I have a list of 10 moves that I do 10 times each, every day. This helps me keep the move fresh in my head and hands. It also builds muscle memory, just like jugglin. When you first start juggling, you have to move your hand to catch the ball. After years you gain that muscle memory and can throw the ball and it goes to the same spot every time...Just make sure you are doing the slight right to start with or muscle memory is tough to fix if it's wrong...

I think that another thing that will really help your "finesse" with a move is to learn a trick that requires the specific move you are working on. That way you can practice it in the context of a broader pattern.

Instead of working on rote muscle movements, you're working on a motion that has a direct magical result. Basically, it just helps to learn a sleight if you have a specific purpose in mind for it. I don't have any logical explanation for this, it's just something that's worked for me in the past.

Also—for muscle memory development—I like to practice enough so that I know what it feels like, then watch an old movie and just absently repeat the motions while my mind is semi-focussed on something else.

With juggling, you practice hard to show off. With magic, you practice hard and then some to show not...isn't that unfair?

I think it's ok to move on to the next sleight even if the previous one is not perfect because it will really take its time before you do even a simple trick with naturalness. However, in magic it's important to avoid showing people something that is not yet 100% perfect which, on the other side, is perfectly ok to do in juggling.

Yes...I definitely think juggling and magic are opposing forces. Ying/Yang sort of thing.

I can see what you mean with regards to opposing forces, however, within the context of my original post it is evident certain tricks and sleights in magic are very difficult compared to others. In juggling, the basic cascade is your foundation. Five ball cascade is a major milestone. In magic, I'd say a good and versatile overhand shuffle with cards is a foundation.

The "pass" is probably like the five ball cascade.

I think an invisible pass is probably more like a five ball cascade. You can get a "passable" pass much easier. It's more like learning a basic four ball pattern or maybe Mills Mess, because it's easy after you understand the basic motion. You just have to get a feel for it.

Making it so invisible so that people can burn your hands would be like a solid five ball pattern.

There's a good point.

You can do a solid five ball pattern or you drop BUT you can do passes of different skills.

Good points guys. I was referring to an invisible pass, but it's true that a pass doesn't have to be invisible to be effective if your misdirection is established...I saw Jay Sankey give his thoughts on the pass and it was freaking amazing. He must have repeated the move about 30-40 times, and I was burning his hands the whole time and each time it just looked like he was ruffling the deck. One of these-->

However...you can practice the pass movement as calmly as you want but you'll have a hard time slowing those **** five balls down!

Juggling on the moon anyone?

I think the only way you can grow as a magician is to perform in front of people. You can practice in private, get your sleights down, but the true test comes when you do a trick for an audience. Misdirection, patter, dealing with mistakes; these things can only be improved with actual performance. And that makes magic so difficult, I think.

Juggling in private or in front of people is also different, but not so much as with magic. You don't tend to "juggle with misdirection". And if you drop a ball, you can do a cool kick-up, and impress people even more. But if they see your pass or top-palm, there's not much you can do. The illusion is pretty much ruined.

But you can pratice more things at once with magic, more so than with juggling. If your side-steal is giving you trouble, you can work on your coin trick for a while. But if you can't do two in one hand yet, there's not much point in trying the Factory or Weave.

It's hard to compare the two; magic is more acting and juggling much more athletic. But after trying both (magic for years and juggling for about eight months), I think I'll get the five ball cascade down before I'll be doing an invisible pass. That's fine with me; Mills Mess is the prettiest bit of ball magic I've ever seen!

The discliplines required are very similar though, many hours of practice to get the fluidity/smoothness to be happy to show it to others. Patience and dealing with frustrations—just when you think you've got it bang, the ball hits the floor again!

I have only just started learning to do card magic, and have been juggling now for nigh on five years. Wanted to learn something new.

:)

Cheers for now,
Sam C

I have found very similar learning curves with both. For the first week or so you can accomplish absolutely NOTHING, then as you get the basics down gradually more and more complex things become possible.

That first week is a killer though!

I disagree, a lot of people think juggling is three ball toss juggling, but it's not. Sphereplay, Diabolo, Club Swinging, Cigar Boxes, Cup Stacking, Ball/Plate sPinning are all forms of juggling. If you can't do a simple cascade you can always practice butterflies with sphereplay or several other things.

(Just me two cents)

Joculari, you're quite right. I was just talking about
three and more toss juggling. Of course all that other stuff forms a part of juggling and there's a ton of wonderful things you can do to keep yourself busy practising.

A good jug act on a magic convention show will steal the show every time. Figure?

Giday to you all

For me juggling took about a month to get the basic cascade effectivley for about 10 throws.

My children were in their teens at the time that I took an interest in the art so they pushed me to continue to improve. Before long most of their friends were practicing and then it became common to see high school students waiting for the bus (rural Australia) practicing with home made balls made from rice and balloons. That year or so saw juggling being taken on by a lot of local teenagers who I had no direct contact with as result of my own interest in the art being taken up by my children and their friends.

What became apparent to me was that where it took me a realy long time to master the basics,(because I was not a natural and had no one to teach me the short cuts), others were picking up the basics in 10 minutes. This was because they were being introduced by others who knew about ways to train in the basics that helped you to move on quickly.

These days as a result of lots of reading and videos and discussions with more experiences jugglers I have developed methods of teaching the basics that enable many beginers to master the basics in a very short time.

What about the comparison with learning magic? Bulk practice is essential and when some one who is a competent magician and competent teacher patiently shows me the basics of a rouitine I find that I can often make it my own more easily than just reading the instructions.

Troppo Bob

I've been told by other magicians that jugglers new to magic have a lot more patience when it comes to learning new sleights than most magicians who have been doing it for a while.

You really cant compare the two though, juggling can be incredibly easy for one person and magic can be equally difficult and vice versa.

For me magic has seemed to be much easier to learn than juggling because ti is more versatile when it comes to practice. For example I can carry a deck of cards with me and practice during lectures at school . I can't carry around three clubs and practice during lecture.

Iunno , that's just my opinion.