Perhaps of interest: I came across this retrospective of the author of that site and how he moved it to static hosting a couple of years ago [1].
I would also say that this library covers more or less the “lower half” of solo ball juggling in terms of difficulty. With lower ball counts (say ≤ 4), there are a lot of these patterns that have complex arm movements and can be difficult to explain with words, so having such a listing with animations and step-by-step instructions is very valuable. Starting with 4 balls, there’s less and less time for moving your arms around and it is more about the sequence of heights of the throws, which are well described with just their numeric “siteswap” pattern and you can learn them just from knowing the number sequence. The site has only the most basic of those (e.g. 534) and even very common 4-ball (7531, 633) patterns are missing with hardly anything beyond that.
Juggling is one of hobbies with the highest ratios of being able to impress random people versus the actual effort you have to put in, and I generally find I never forget 3-ball stuff I learned as a kid. It's also as good as a long walk for getting you out of your head when needed.
Shout out to anyone that remembers the Mushy Pea juggling shop in Manchester many years ago, where I learned all sorts of circus skills.
I've also found it to be a magical incantation to silence crying babies. Sometimes I'll quickly flash (juggle for one round) three random objects to shut up a baby in public and their parents don't even notice.
Juggling 3 is a skill that is way easier than people think until they do it. But the very next question is will be, "how many can you juggle?" as they apparently think juggling 4 is just 33% more difficult than 3.
For those wondering: to juggle 4 balls, you either have to decrease the time between catching a ball and throwing it again or increase the time a ball is in the air.
Unless you start throwing feathers or balloons, the latter requires you throw higher. That requires you to either spend more time launching them up (bad for the ‘decrease time between catching and throwing’) or use more force (bad for throwing accuracy.
Also, even assuming you juggle 4 balls keeping “time in hand” equal, you have to throw it higher by a factor of (4/3)². That’s almost 2.
And even if you manage to make those throws with the same accuracy in angles, the errors in location by the time you catch the balls scale by the same factor.
It’s also fun that you can tweak it without the layperson even noticing the change in relative difficulty.
Cascade pattern = easy difficulty
Shower pattern = normal difficulty
Box pattern = hard difficulty
As someone who loves to run their hands up and down in the piano in grand sweeping arpeggios, I'm a huge fan of patterns where the perceived difficulty is higher than the actual difficulty.
Sadly, doing the trick with a single ball yields a FactorySingleton and scores an extra Java point, but doesn’t impress as much. We can’t have nice things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .
I would also say that this library covers more or less the “lower half” of solo ball juggling in terms of difficulty. With lower ball counts (say ≤ 4), there are a lot of these patterns that have complex arm movements and can be difficult to explain with words, so having such a listing with animations and step-by-step instructions is very valuable. Starting with 4 balls, there’s less and less time for moving your arms around and it is more about the sequence of heights of the throws, which are well described with just their numeric “siteswap” pattern and you can learn them just from knowing the number sequence. The site has only the most basic of those (e.g. 534) and even very common 4-ball (7531, 633) patterns are missing with hardly anything beyond that.
[1]: https://ianconvy.github.io/projects/other/libraryofjuggling/...
Shout out to anyone that remembers the Mushy Pea juggling shop in Manchester many years ago, where I learned all sorts of circus skills.
Unless you start throwing feathers or balloons, the latter requires you throw higher. That requires you to either spend more time launching them up (bad for the ‘decrease time between catching and throwing’) or use more force (bad for throwing accuracy.
Also, even assuming you juggle 4 balls keeping “time in hand” equal, you have to throw it higher by a factor of (4/3)². That’s almost 2.
And even if you manage to make those throws with the same accuracy in angles, the errors in location by the time you catch the balls scale by the same factor.
The rating is described as a rating "1 - 10"
But every trick is actually graded 2 to 9. ( https://libraryofjuggling.com/TricksByDifficulty.html )
Presumably no-one ever wanted to define a grade 1, just in case an easier one was discovered, and similarly for 10.
https://libraryofjuggling.com/Tricks/3balltricks/Factory.htm...