🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1992Dec17.021051.16912@csc.canberra.edu.au> kim@csc.canberra.edu.au (Kim Holburn) writes:

>Hi,
>   I've read the help file from moocow on mills mess and I've seen the
>animation from jugglepro2.3. The movie didn't seem to be quite the same
>as the book. I'd like to learn it but I've never seen anyone actually
>doing Mills mess so I have a couple of questions. 

>On Klutz's scale of 1-10 how difficult is Mills mess? 
>Does anyone know of or could invent some preliminary exercises that might
>help? 

As (another) who has just succeeded in `mastering' Mills' Mess, I
feel qualified to answer these questions. MM was sort of my aim when
I started juggling (`When I can do that I will be a real juggler')
so I'm pretty pleased, even tho' I realise there is still a long way
to go yet...

as to your questions...

i) well... I could do forward and reverse cascades, 3-ball showers,
`juggling tennis' and what I believe is known as `pistons' before I
got to MM. Being able to do the latter (aka `juggling hands') was
useful (In fact I thought it _was_ MM for a while). Things I _can't_
do yet are: clubs, 4-balls, under the leg, etc. So I'm a novice too!

ii) I shall try to describe how I was taught. As you probably
realise, tho', MM is easier to watch than to describe.

- take a ball in each hand (this practice only uses 2 balls).
- cross (say) your right hand over your left.
- throw the ball in your right hand to the right, to where your
  right hand would normally be. Start uncrossing your hands, prior
  to recrossing them the other way (ie. left over right).
- at the point where your hands have just become uncrossed, throw
  the ball in your left hand _straight up_.
- Keep your hands moving so as to recross them L over R. You should
  catch the 1st ball thrown with your R hand, and then the 2nd with
  your left (fairly obviously).

You are back where you started. repeat....

Once mastered, it is then fairly easy to see how the descriptions/
diagrams on moocow fit in. To me, it was analogous to the way I
learned the cascade. Whoever's comments there (sorry, can't remember
his name) about one ball staying on the outside and the others
exchanging places on the inside helped me to see what was going on.

I actually realised when typing this in that in fact I started by
trying the above with just _one_ ball, which (say) starts off in the
R hand with arms crossed, and ends up in the L with arms crossed. It
doesn't take long before you work up to the above, tho'.

	hope this helps 

		john N
-- 
john nicoll (jkn@ohm.york.ac.uk)
Department of Electronics  University of York
Heslington   YORK YO1 5DD U.K
Tel +44 (904) 433221   Fax +44 (904) 432335