Hey guys, Now i've been playing more than 2 year(soon enought gonna reach my third) but I play like a player that has been in kendama since the upsizes & really slay. Now with the topic, how should juggles be counted? Now you're all wondering what i mean. Think about this situation, how do you count your juggle to lighthouse? Some of you would say it's in the kusa tutorial where you pull up then toss the ken to lighthouse or if you do multies is you do the count & when you reach the last number you just toss it again to lighty. Others will do it by pair then do the toss to lighty. Now there are alot of instance of how should you count your juggles such as: •from any balance trick, should you start counting your juggles with the toss of the ken first or get your hands on ken then do your pair of juggles to any trick you chain? •this is a bit quite confusing but is it countable if you start your juggle count on the tama rather than the ken? What do you guys think...
(Just my opinion, but I imagine many others share this as well.) Every time you catch the ken, that is one complete juggle. Which is why in the juggle lighthouse KUSA tutorial, they juggle it 1.5 times, doing a complete single juggle, flipping the ken again and catching it on the tama in lighthouse position. So if you are starting it from say lighthouse/airplane/lunar etc, the juggle starts after you grab and toss the ken up (ex. Airplane, flip the ken in the air, throw the tama and catch the ken, that first flip after you catch the ken at this point would be where the juggle starts).
Jokes aside, I've always thought you should count every throw as 1. With Keegan's version (sorry, only example at the mo) a "double" juggle to lighthouse after starting in ken grip would involve 5 throws. Now to call this a double, or for the rest of this post a 2-juggle, is very non descriptive and frankly contradictory when you consider that a 2-juggle to spike (from ken grip) has 1 throw fewer than the former example. Now, you could argue, "oh but isn't it obvious that it has a extra throw in as it is impossible to lighthouse in ken grip." My response to that would be to use the power of... Maths! Take the number 2.5 and round to the nearest integer. Most teachers would tell you to always round UP so now you get 3. Now take 5 (the number of throws) and divide it by 2 (the number counted) you get 2.5, therefore you SHOULD round up and call it at least a 3-juggle. So that was all rather confusing and convoluted, right? So surely counting each throw as 1 be simpler. With the last system a 2-juggle to lighthouse has the exact same name if you were to start in ken grip or tama grip, despite in my opinion them involving very different techniques to start the juggle-trick off (one begins with a 1-turn, the other with a throw of the ken). Now if you called the one starting in ken grip a 5-juggle to lighthouse you know exactly where to start and how many throws. Same for a 4-juggle if you were to start in tama grip. I know this now leaves the question of what about 2-juggles or even 1-juggles. My answer would be to leave off the "2" when concerned and just call it a "juggle" and as for 1s call it a throw or swap depending on the trick
When you throw one part of the kendama up, swap to the other part, and then catch back whatever you started with, that is one juggle. (Also, when I say something goes up in this paragraph, it obviously comes back down because we're on Earth and are bound by the laws of gravity lol). Example: juggle to spike. Tama's on the spike. Tama goes up, you throw the ken up and catch the tama, throw the tama up and catch the ken, spike the tama. Another example: airplane, juggle 1 turn airplane (when you 1.5 swap like you're going to spike, but then you throw it to 1 turn airplane). Ken is in tama. Ken is flicked out, you throw the tama up and catch the ken, throw the ken up and catch the tama, catch ken in tama. Two different juggle tricks with different grips. With both of these, you're starting off with one part, swapping to the other, and then catching it again with the first part. The name for this KUSA tutorial for "lighthouse juggle lighthouse" makes sense because of this. Starting off with lighthouse, swapping to ken, throwing it back to lighthouse. For this KUSA tutorial, juggle up to lighthouse doesn't really make sense when you think about it. If a juggle is when you go from one thing back to the same one thing, then the video isn't a juggle. It is more of a throw. That's why I call this trick "throw to lighthouse." Because of this, when the trick is "double juggle to lighthouse" but you're starting from ken grip (and not tama), it is really a single juggle and then a throw to lighthouse. Ex: double juggle spike (as opposed to lighthouse): start with ken in hand and tama hanging down, pull up tama and toss up the ken, swap to tama, swapping back to ken (first juggle has now been completed), swap to tama, swap back to ken (second juggle is now completed) and spike the tama. Ex: double juggle to lighthouse: start with ken in hand and tama hanging down, pull up tama and toss up the ken, swap to tama, swapping back to ken (first juggle has now been completed), swap to tama and catch ken on tama. If you look at the two sequences next to each other, you'll notice that there is no second juggle completed based off my beginning statement. Therefore, the trick "double juggle to lighthouse," is really "juggle, throw to lighthouse." I have also heard this kind of trick called "1.5 juggle lighthouse," which also makes sense because of the fact that you did 1 and a half juggles. Doing the extra half juggle would have been to throw the tama back up and then catch it on the ken.
I still think that calling a 3-throw trick a double is confusing, as you are not counting the juggle number as 2 (instead 1.5) and that there are 3 catches instead of 2. Doesn't seem like a double to me. I would also stick by my method for another reason: When a ball-juggler is learning a new pattern or number, they count the INDUVIDUAL catches. If you were learning to juggle 7 balls and had thrown and caught each prop ONCE, they call it "7 balls, 7 catches" not "7 balls, 1 juggle." As I said before, counting the throws/catches is a lot more descriptive and easy to work. And if you think that toss juggling is an entirely different discipline to kendama and we shouldn't use their way of counting, consider this. C-Whip is a trick directly lifted from diabolo - a different disciple. So is trapeze (when people call it a "Flying V" I'm always irritated because of the roots of trapeze) And the term "penguin catch" is also taken from toss juggling. So the two paths have crossed before, along with other props. Here is 11 balls - 26 catches. NOT 11 balls - 2.36363636 Juggle
Both @Nick Lectura @Rob your insight really is both the epitome of those methods. In fact I really do what nick said in his opinion that i won't count the juggle yet until both are hand tossed in pairs. Rob on the other hand , well pretty much some of the dama players kinda do that as well where it's kinda like the throws of the ken is where the juggles is usually counted. Now i might be wrong summarizing this, i guess they are both really helpful. thanks guys