Where should I focus my eyes when juggling 3 balls with a balance (club balanced on forehead)?
When I do head balance the 'Made in' sticker on the club is in sharp focus. I can also balance a club on my forehead, while looking at a point on the ceiling. This is much harder.
Are my club balance skills lacking? I can balance a club for minutes, but not without moving my feet.
Incidentally, I have some other questions about balance:
James Hennigan - - Parent #
I've been dedicated to learning this trick for the past few weeks, so I'll give my insight as a beginner.
My eyes are always focused on the highest point of the club I can see (regardless of whether I'm juggling with the balance or not). At the very start I found it easier to keep my focus on that point if there was an imperfection (like a small chip or stain). It might help to put a dot on the highest point of the club you can see with a marker.
Remember that you are supposed to pay all your attention to the balance. Learning to balance while juggling is about learning to balance while ignoring a distraction. Spend a lot of time working on 1 ball. Make sure you can throw and catch it without taking your eyes off the balance for even a split second.
How much are you moving your feet while balancing? If you're only making a few small steps then it's probably not much of an issue, but if you're walking around a lot then you might need more practice. I try to correct the balance by moving my head slowly in the direction the club is falling.
I found it easier to balance on the chin and nose when I first learned balancing, but I think the forehead is usually recommended when balancing and juggling because you can see the juggling pattern better. I have only used my forehead so far.
Once you overcome the initial stages, you can make very rapid progress with this trick: https://www.jugglingedge.com/records.php?UserID=990&PropNumber=3&PropType=b&Trick=cas%2Bbal
Here are some tutorials which have helped me a lot over the past month:
https://www.anthonygatto.com/free_tutorial_vault/
https://thomwall.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/BalancingAndJuggling.pdf
https://youtu.be/RlmGdP5VgIo
https://youtu.be/Fh7fx8chZdY
https://youtu.be/2nnMhRa_fNU
The last two are on head bouncing but the advice is quite similar. Good luck with learning this trick! It's very fun and rewarding in the end.
Stephen Meschke - - Parent #
The progress graph and tutorials are great resources. Thank you.
I shuffle my feet during head balance. The Wall tutorial says static feet are required. I'll try using a long dowel instead of a club for training.
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
I am very good at head balancing, and very bad at juggling while balancing.
Nose or chin is easier because you can relax your eyes, and with my nose I feel like I have more control by also turning my head, which has less effect on the forehead. I do use forehead nonetheless, I think it looks better.
I look at the top of the club when I juggle. If you wanna try something new, take a hoop or a ring, you can look at a lower point on them and cross your view with the juggling high point.
Head balance on rola bola is not hard for me any more.
I've never had a ball land on my balanced club... Probably when a ball would go there I would drop the balance, but I can't imagine that it would hit very hard unless you are throwing super high!
Balancing for one minute without moving feet is super easy for me, yet I can juggle 3 clubs for an average of 6 catches maybe. I do not know if this stable balance is a prerequisite for juggling.
Little Paul - - Parent #
Barely coherent ramblings follow, I hope you can pick something useful out of them...
Where to focus: Always watch the balance, not the juggle - the juggle should be in your peripheral vision. With any balance, watch the highest part of the object you can see.
Feet: I think it's better to shuffle your feet a little than it is to lean all over the place to correct the balance. Either way, you should be really comfortable with a balance and "a couple of minutes" should be the norm, not your personal best.
Nose/Chin/Forehead: This is pretty much personal preference. Some people say forehead so you can see the pattern better, but I find a forehead balance really awkward, difficult to see (because I'm looking over the top of my glasses) and stressful on my neck. I prefer my nose for short/light objects and my chin for larger/heavier objects. Up to you, try them all and use what works best for you.
Avoiding balls landing on the balance club: Don't throw them there! Your juggle should be in front of you not on top of you anyway.
Is it possible to head balance on a rola bola? Yes. It's not easy though, your balance and rola bola techniques need to be on point and working together. Split your body in two at the navel. You need to be able to control the balance with your head/neck/torso and the rolabola with your hips/legs/knees/ankles. If you're the sort of rola bola person who uses your arms to balance - yeah, that'll wreck your head balance.
Other advice for learning juggle with a balance includes:
- Don't learn with a club. Make life easier by balancing a longer object like a devilstick or broom handle. The balance will be slower, and allow you to devote slightly more attention to the juggle
- Let the juggle disintegrate, not the balance (although that's more for the safety of people around you)
- Juggling clubs with a balance is easier than juggling balls - there's just more of them to catch
- I found "juggle while staring at the ceiling with no balance" and "balance while flailing your arms about wildly" are both useful exercises as they simulate different aspects of the trick without having to combine the whole lot
Stephen Meschke - - Parent #
Several tutorials suggest balancing a longer object. I have tried several different objects and find a club to be the easiest. There must be something wrong with the selection of objects I have tried; rigid rods around 3 feet. What object is easiest to balance?
Applying equations of motions suggest that both length and center of mass are important in considering the design of an object used for balance:
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its state of motion. An object with a larger moment of inertia requires more torque to change it's rotation.
Rotational Inertia = .5 * mass * radius^2.
Consider two objects of equal length and weight, but different centers of mass:
The dowel and steel ball should be easier to balance because more force is required to move it out of a balanced position.
I think, the inertia (or simply the mass) of the mass that's above the mass center acts as counterweight(?) to the mass part below. You can use it, controlling its (the mass part above's) position with the eyes to `take´ the mass center straight above its basis contact, but acting on and sustaining always the mass center. [But I've only casually balanced stuff only with hands, fingers, foot yet] See also: [german:] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichgewicht_%28Physik%29#Mechanik . https://www.tphys.uni-heidelberg.de/~huefner/PhysikUeberall/V04S.pdf , chapter 3 [ found with "physik des balancierens"]: Pencil vs broom: a long prop falls slowlier! That's why it's easier to balance. Dynamical equilibrium; See also: "metastability" (stable unto a certain point, then unstable), but alas, no example or relation to prop balancing found, so that is maybe a specific term for particle physics and chemistry, and might not apply for mechanics. [Sorry for german, but didn't find corresponding english info.]
The overall length of an object is irrelevant to how easy it is to balance. Only the distance from the pivot to the center of gravity is relevant (effective length). A steel rod falls faster than a light rod with a steel ball at the end (same overall length) simply because its effective length is shorter. Having said that, I think that having some length above the center of gravity helps with visual feedback because the movement at the top where you look will be larger for a given change in angle.
.. which gives me the idea of weldering or soldering a long, thin, light pin to a teaspoon for better control or practising purpose.
James Hennigan - - Parent #
"Only the distance from the pivot to the center of gravity is relevant"
I'm quite sure this is incorrect. How 'fast' the rod falls is determined by its angular acceleration. This is determined not only by the distance from the pivot to the center of gravity, but also by the rod's moment of inertia.
If a uniform rod of length L and mass m is tilted at an angle A to the vertical, then its angular acceleration is 3g(sinA)/2L
This shows that a longer rod will fall slower, and so is easier to balance.
Now imagine putting a steel ball of mass M at each end of this rod. Note that its center of gravity does not change, but it's moment of inertia does. It's new angular acceleration is (3g(sinA)/2L) x (m+2M)/(m+3M).
This is smaller than the old angular acceleration, showing that placing a mass at each end causes the rod to fall slower. The bigger the mass, the easier it is to balance.
I see your point, although if that were the case would it not be the same for a non-inverted pendulum? Yet the period of oscillation of a pendulum is proportional to sqrt(L) at low amplitudes, where L is the effective length from the pivot to the CoG and the distribution of mass is not relevant. If we're talking about balancing an inverted pendulum then by the time it gets far enough from vertical for angular inertia to have an effect then it's probably already too late to correct. Admittedly I've not thought about this at length and you could well be correct.
James Hennigan - - Parent #
The distribution of mass is always relevant to rotational motion. I assume the formula you are thinking of is T=2πsqrt(L/g)
This only holds for 'simple' pendulums: Pendulums which consist of a bob hanging from a massless thread.
In general, a pendulum can be a rigid object. The more general equation for the period at low amplitudes is T=2πsqrt(I/Mgh); where I is the moment of inertia of the body, M is its mass, and h is the distance from the pivot to the center of mass of the body.
Both I and h depend on how the mass is distributed.
Also, the formulas in my previous post should be valid even for the very small angles involved in head balancing.
This seems relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pendulum
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