Half-Shower
Other Tutorials:
- Siteswap: 3
- Difficulty (1-10): 3
- Prerequisites: Cascade, Juggler's Tennis
- Related Tricks: Shower
Expert Village (demonstration)
The Half-Shower is one of the first asymmetrical (one
hand does one thing and the other other hand does something else) patterns
jugglers learn. It is called the Half-Shower because it bears resemblance to
the Shower pattern, where the
lower ball is thrown horizontally between hands.
As always, we are going to break this trick down into its core throws. It
can be plainly seen in the animation that one hand is making a constant
overthrow, while the other hand is making constant underthrows. This is even
more evident if we exaggerate the height of each throw (as seen on the
right).
For the sake of this tutorial I will be assuming that you are already able
to perform Juggler's Tennis without too much trouble. If you are not
familiar with the trick, go learn it; that way you will have a good grasp on
doing overthrows. Practicing the Half-Shower is rather simple. Start by
doing a single overthrow, and then do a second overthrow from that same
hand. After you do that, fall back into the regular Cascade. The idea is to
slowly add in more overthrows as you are practicing. Below, the animation is
doing a run of four:
As you get more and more comfortable with the trick, you can keep adding
more and more overthrows until eventually you can run the pattern
indefinitely. You will also begin to notice that your pattern can shrink in
size, and the overthrows can be made at regular cascade height (as is seen
in the main animation at the top of the page). Like the animation directly
above, you want to make sure you practice with both hands.