Episode
The Art of Catching Bad Passes
- Podcast
- The Buoyant Leader
- Published
- Jun 9, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 417
- Processing state
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Summary
When I lived in London in my early 20s, I took up juggling. The city was a hot spot for the best jugglers in Europe, who could make a lot of money as street performers in Covent Garden, the South Bank, and Camden Market. I discovered that these elite jugglers practiced in a sports center in Blackfriars, at a weekly event sponsored by Max and Susi Oddballs’ Juggling Shop. I’d go every Saturday and watch a colorful cast of characters manipulate balls, clubs, rings, cigar boxes, devil sticks, diabolos, hats, eggs, and knives. I’d practice on the periphery, watching other jugglers and trying to imitate their simplest tricks. Occasionally I’d gather the nerve to ask one of the pros to show me a pattern or give me feedback on my form. One world-class circus clown took a break from juggling 11 beanbags (he was going for a world record) to give me pointers on Mills Mess. Another helped me change the angle of the clubs I was double-spinning to reduce the incidence of bloody lips. But my favorite moments were when one of the professional jugglers took a few minutes to pass clubs with me. We started with the simplest format: two jugglers passing six clubs back and forth in a simple “every other” pattern. That is, one toss from my right hand goes to my left hand, and the next to my partner. Add in two self-passes, and you get the pattern: 1-2-3 pass. The goal is to send each pass the perfect distance, at the perfect height, and with the club perfectly vertical when it reaches their open hand. When a toss is perfect, catching becomes trivially easy. The club hits your palm and your fingers automatically close around it. The hard part about clubs, compared to balls or beanbags, is that clubs are not symmetrical. If you put too much or not enough spin on a toss, your partner has to c…