Mills Mess
From JuggleWiki
This has become a "basic" trick for being very popular and a measure (or pretense) of progress.
It is, however, definitely not a beginner pattern.
You will need three skills:
- Cross-arm Reverse toss
- Outside toss
- Under-arm Reverse toss
In this pattern, each type of toss has its own ball, as you see above -- and should practice practice practice.
You can see the critical combination at 2 Ball Mills Mess.
Contents |
[edit] Mills Mess
When you put all three together, the pattern is like this:
The key ball for understanding this pattern is shown in blue:
it is caught and tossed from an upper Cross-arm position, tossed backwards each time.
The other two balls "chase" it, tossed exactly like Windmill/False Shower:
the second ball is a normal Outside toss, the third is an Under-arm reverse toss.
Everything swaps sides after each set of three tosses, so the whole pattern swings back and forth.
All balls follow a Reverse Cascade path: up from the side, down towards the center.
Some do it short: the arms stay in contact, with the hands making a fast figure-8 around and back.
Some go big, with arms crossed to the elbows, rocking like a surfer on a wave.
If the third ball does not arc with the others, you're missing a main part of it.
You can see a video and tutorial with animations by Matt Mangham.
There is an excellent normal and a slow-motion video by Rob Abram only if your computer will run QuickTime.
There is a tutorial with clips of Steve Mills himself doing single ball paths from Todd Strong (very long download).
Oddly translated from French, there is the arlabosse tutorial with many animations and clips.
If you like to read, have a look at juggling.org or ~jag or ~twjc and the classic Encyclopedia of Ball Juggling by Charlie Dancey.
There is a 1:02 min. entry at YouTube that will link to others.
The term "Mess" was applied to other tricks at the time, such as Boston Mess, meaning a lot of arm motions.
What is distinctive to "Mills Mess" is the sequence of Cross-arm toss, Outside toss, and Under-arm toss;
and the 3-ball Chase is its particular result, even if the arms wrapping around is what the juggler remembers.
The Mills Mess toss pattern has been used for up to six balls, and all 3-period site-swaps plus attempts with others.
Here is a variation that demonstrates an "error" for Mills Mess:
[edit] Flipped Mess
It looks the same, but the order of tosses has been changed to Under-arm, Outside, Cross-arm.
That is a true permutation, not a mere rotation: UOC from COU.
Here is another "error" called:
[edit] Half Mess
the other hand is doing only Under-arm, one a Column and the other a proper Mills reverse arc.
Each ball has a 4-toss cycle, which is confusing and so not shown with colors.
This one is no mistake:
[edit] Reverse Mills Mess
The Outside toss has been made another upper Reverse arc, with each hand doing all three throws.
This form is based on Cross Arm Cascade, reversing on thirds.
