3 Ball Gurus: Part 2 – Dan Jaworski

Dan: For me, juggling has always been about solving dynamical puzzles – ones that can be infinitely re-imagined by morphing or modifying certain parameters in meaningful ways. By bending, breaking, or blending new rhythms/shapes together, I’ve longed to create illusory, geometric structures that have the quality of momentary beauty and whose underlying character highlights symmetry through orthogonality on the flexing stage of space-time. Much like mathematicians have endeavored for centuries to distill complicated numerical tapestries into elegantly robust equations, I believe the discovery process for juggling patterns follows a similar set of axioms that help to guide researchers toward wonderfully complex designs, refracted through the trappings of simplicity and harmony.

Dan: When crafting an original variation, I usually split up a few well-known patterns into a series of prime components or movements. These elements are then stitched together in a linear, piece-wise fashion – smoothing out the transitions between each part often illuminates nascent structures that can be further mixed together. Indeed, the hybridization of patterns offers the ultimate challenge if one only considers that the total possible combinations is equal to n!/(n-s)! – where n is the number of potential elements and s is the number of those parts used in sequence for a particular variation. For example, if one sources from a total of 10 juggling elements and any 3 are used in a given pattern, for potential combinations, it follows that: 10!/(10-3)! = 720. This, however is not full picture because of redundancies that crop up (e.g. ABC = CAB = BCA, meaning that 720/3 reduces the total to 240 different variations). It is only the tip of the iceberg, as the number of components can be expanded without bound. Most of the elements I’ve used to construct variations have been borrowed from patterns like Romeo’s Revenge, 441, Mills Mess, and Active 2’s (2T for those who are site-swap savvy). Recently, I’ve been working with patterns that incorporate (0,2x) and (4x,0) elements – where each zero represents an empty hand; this approach is similar to developing 4 or 5 ball pattern with holes.

Dan: Lou Duncan, Andrew Olson, Quinn Lewis, Masateru Sakabibara, Jake Hart-Predmore, Bridger Williamson, Mike Moore, Josh Mermelstein, Dan Barron, Ryohei Kimura, Michael Karas, Alex Rozanov, Stefan Thaler, and Kotaro Fukuda.

Dan: I would encourage those who have creative wanderlust to try opening up an old book in search for new ideas. By returning to the basics and strengthening the foundation of each discrete, interlocking component, the process of finding new transitions and shapes will become more intuitive. The visual aesthetics of a pattern can often run antithetical to how juggling the particular pattern feels – the twists and turns of momenta that dovetail with the nuances of timing each particular throw are not always obvious and will need to be explored more fully by actively seeing with one’s hands and feeling with one’s eyes. Additionally, it’s valuable to not only record oneself juggling (for the purposes of revisiting patterns and correcting errors more keenly) but to also look around the room and see what other jugglers are conjuring up; this will help to train one’s gaze and facilitate the cross-pollination of ideas in the mind’s eye more naturally. Lastly, learning site-swap and modeling existing patterns in Juggling Lab, though not necessary, will spur eureka moments that may not been realized through exploratory, brute practice alone. It has been said by many before me that the most pivotal moments in any scientist’s career often begins with three simple words, “Wow, that’s strange…”