Difficulty: 5 - Advanced Trick
Siteswap: 5 or 73 or (6x,4x)
Prerequisite Skills: 4-Ball Half Shower, 5-Ball Cascade
Watch Video - WMV - 0.9 MB
The 5-Ball Half Shower is a very good looking trick, especially when you transition in and out of the regular 5-Ball Cascade pattern. Like any half shower, it consists of higher throws from one side (tennis), and underneath throws from the other side.
Instructions:
Once you are able to juggle the 5-Ball Cascade, the Half Shower is not that difficult. Some even say that it's easier than the cascade itself, but I still suggest mastering the cascade before attempting the half shower.
There are three different ways to juggle this half shower. The first one is the easiest. It is just a mutated cascade where you make one side's throws a little bit higher than the other. The second is the true Half Shower, and the third is a synchronous version.
Siteswap: 5 - Start with a nice 5-Ball Cascade. Then try throwing the right hand a little bit higher than the left, so that the right-hand balls always go above the left-hand balls. You might find that instead of throwing the balls higher, you may just want to throw them with a higher release point elevation. This will get the balls higher without affected the timing (or the hang time) of the balls.
Siteswap: 73 - Once you've got the Half Shower shown above, try to exaggerate the difference between the heights of the right and left throws. You'll find a sweet spot where the high throws are quite a bit higher than the low ones. This is the 7 siteswap versus the 3 siteswap throws. If you find that your hand rhythm starts to synchronize, you may want to try the next version.
Siteswap: (6x,4x) - This is the Half Shower with synchronous throws. The difference between the heights is smaller in this pattern than the 73 version.
In actuality, I juggle a cross between 73 and (6x,4x), because my hand rhythm ends up not equally spaced but not quite in sync either. It's hard to explain, but it goes right-left... right-left... right-left (instead of right-left-right-left).
