Passing Patterns

Someone calling himself "adremeaux" (may or may not be a real name so I’ll play it safe withe inverted commas) posted quite a lengthy description of some interesting passing patterns on rec.juggling. I have to admit to not being the best club-passer in the world, but I like the look of some of those patterns. Check out the "Dallas Deal":

Can have as many people as you
want, and can be any count as well. Put X people in a circle, as so:

     A

B          C

   D    E

Each succesive beat, each person passes to the next person on their
right, and when they get to themselves they do a self. That is, if we
begin with D passing to B, next beat D will pass to A, then next to C,
then to E, then a self, and we are back to the beginning. You always
recieve from who you pass from. As long as you start corrent, the
pattern will work. One person needs to start with a self, and you work
outward from there: if A is the self, B and C pass, as to D and E.

I like the "as many people as you want" bit. I also like the fact that it has a very simple pattern but a very long period, since the period works out as the beat length (the number of throws between passes) multiplied by the number of people in the pattern. Five-person every-others (where every second right-handed throw is a pass) has period 20. I imagine it will always look like it’s changing and flowing. Even the three-person version could be interesting as a simplified triangle pattern. I’m going to need some volunteers.

CategoriesUncategorized