About Siteswap

Siteswap is a way for jugglers to communicate a description of the patterns they juggle. Conventional siteswap only describes the timing of when balls are thrown - not the way that balls are thrown. It is therefore possible for two visually completely different patterns to have the same Siteswap. In short, a Siteswap is a string of digits, each of which represents the throw of a ball. The siteswap is repeated in a cyclic manner and the hands take it in turns to throw balls. The value of the digit refers to how long it is until the ball is next thrown.

Throughout this tutorial, I suggest you try the siteswaps by typing them into The Juggler's window and pressing 'Do Pattern'.

Important things to know about Siteswap:

• When a Siteswap is juggled, it is done so repeatedly. (eg. '3' is actually '.....3333333.....')
• Each digit represents a throw.
• There is a time unit - I will call it a tick - it is whatever length of time you want it to be, but in practise just under half a second.
• There is one throw each tick, and the digits are thrown sequentially.
• The two hands take it in turns to throw.
• The value of the digit for a throw determines how long it is until that ball is next thrown (in ticks).

So, for example, if you had the siteswap 3, this is equivilent to .....333333.... (thrown by hands .....LRLRLR...) which translates into English as repeating:

A throw from the right hand then from the left hand such that both balls are next thrown 3 ticks (threrefore three throws) after they were last thrown.

You can think of the ball being in the air for three ticks.

It is useful to draw horizontal diagrams of where the balls are after a certain length of time. Supposing you had a single '3' type throw. Since it is 3 ticks after the ball is thrown that it is next thrown, and the hands take it in turns to thrown the balls, a throw of type '3' must be to the other hand.

The vertical lines represend a tick - when a ball is thrown. You can see that the hands take it in turns to thrown balls. The red line shows the path of a 3 type ball - it leaves the right hand so that it can be in the left hand three ticks later when it can next be thrown. If we were doing the pattern '3' then this ball would then be rethrown, so that overall it's path between the two hands would be:

However, it is clear that we must make each hand throw a 3 type thrown on each of it's ticks, therefore we need to add two other balls:

This is the pattern for the basic 3-ball cascade. Likewise, 4 is the siteswap for the basic 4-ball pattern. Since 4 is an even number, each throw is to the same hand:

In the three ball shower, one ball is passed directly from one hand to another and thrown the very next tick - this is a '1' type throw. The other throw in the three ball shower is of type 5, since 5 more throws (ticks) take place before that ball is next thrown again. It therefore has the siteswap 51.

There are two special meanings for the digits 0 and 2. 2 could be taken to mean a very quick throw to the same hand (with no other throws from that hand in between), but in Siteswap it is taken to mean that the ball is held for another two ticks before being thrown. Therefore 24 (...24242424....with hands ....LRLRLRLR...) would be holding a ball in your left hand and juggling two in your right hand.

0 is taken to mean that there is no ball meant to be in your hand at this time (so it is effectively a no throw).

So far all the siteswaps shown have been standard juggling patterns. However, with siteswap completely differently timed patterns can be communicated. For example 531. This could be inserted as part of the 3 ball cascade 333333353133333.

As you can see, one ball is completely unaffected (the blue one) and the other two sort of swap positions in the pattern. What 531 actually is, is throwing one ball much heigher (5) and doing a quick cycle of the 2 ball shower (31) before it lands, then carrying on as before. An extension therefore would be to do two cycles of the 2 ball shower - this would be 73131:

Another interesting three ball one is 441.

These patterns look completely crazy in this notation - if you want to see them juggled make sure you get The Juggler in the left hand frame to show you them.

Siteswap Extensions

There are many extensions to Siteswap to add flexibility. Three are recognised by The Juggler.

• Multiplexes. These are throws from the same hand at the same time and are described by placing the throws in [ ]. For example 3[34] would mean a '3' throw followed by the other hand throwing a '3' throw and a '4' throw at the same time.
• Synchronous throws. These are throws from diffrerent hands at the same time. These are notated as (L,R) where L is the left hand throw and R is the right hand throw. eg. (4,4)0 is the synchronous 4 ball pattern.
• Descriptive suffixes. These are a letter ammended to a digit to describe how it is to be thrown. I created this extension and so far the following letters are supported:

Of course - all these extensions can be used at the same time - eg. ([43],5u)

For a huge list of examples - look at The Juggler's popup window (click on The Juggler to spawn it) and double click on any of the listed patterns - it will then be juggled and the siteswap shown in the Siteswap box.