Introduction to Four-Handed Siteswaps & Notation
Prerequisites: Learn to pass / teach to pass; Next: Beginner four-handed siteswaps
Four-handed siteswaps describe a large class of two-person passing patterns. They are all ambidextrous and symmetric, performing the same sequence both one the right and the left side. They are all characterized by an asynchronous beat where both passers juggle the same sequence but offset from each other and by having one passer throw crossing passes.
Four-handed siteswaps come at all difficulty levels and can be learned as the first patterns, before synchronous patterns. We strongly recommend to learn how to read the notation first and then try the beginner patterns. After that doubles, heffs, zaps, and trelfs can be added in any order.
Notation
Here we only describe how to read a pattern; for understanding why the notation works this way and why some passes are crossing, see four-handed siteswap theory.
A four-handed siteswap is written as a sequence of numbers such as 744, 77722 or 8686777. Similarly to the letters used for synchronous patterns, each number denotes a throw:
| Nr | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Zip | Hand-across without rotation; 1 in solo siteswap |
| 4 | Flip | Holding or flipping a club in the same hand; 2 in solo siteswap |
| 5 | Zap | Fast, low pass with a half rotation; crossing for passer A, straight for passer B |
| 6 | Self | Normal self; 3 in solo siteswap |
| 7 | Single | Lofty pass with a single rotation; straight for passer A, crossing for passer B |
| 8 | Heff | Double-spin self to the same hand, as in a basic four-club solo pattern; 4 in solo siteswap |
| 9 | Double | Double-spin pass; crossing for passer A, straight for passer B |
| a | Trelf | Triple-spin self |
The number sequence describes the infinitely-repeating alternating actions of two passers; the first digit is the first action of passer A, the second digit is the first action of passer B, the third digit is the second action of passer A and so forth. A common and helpful way to think of (and write) siteswaps is to repeat a siteswap twice and alternate the numbers between two rows. Now we can read the actions of each passer in separate rows -- for example seeing that passer A starts with the sequence 7-8-4-5-6 (single-heff-flip-zap-self) in the siteswap 75864:
Note how both passers do the same sequence of throws in the same order, but start in different places of the sequence.
What about other numbers? The numbers 1 and 3 are conceptually passes that are not used in popular patterns, because it would be difficult to impossible to pass fast enough. The number 0 for an empty hand can be used, but most people avoid such patterns, simply because having an empty hand for a beat is awkward. Higher numbers are possible -- for example, b for a triple pass -- but less common.
Starting a pattern
Passer A always starts the pattern with a right-hand action (the first digit of the siteswap) and passer B always follows slightly afterward with a right-hand action (the second digit of the siteswap). Technically, passer B should start between passer A's first and second action; in practice most patterns are fairly forgiving to fudge the timing a bit.
It is possible to start a siteswap on any beat of the sequence, or conversely to shift siteswaps -- for example, 786 is the same pattern as 867 and 678. Here, we write all featured siteswaps as they would usually be started and we indicate how many clubs are in each hand (read "right|left") -- see the theory section for how to select a start and figure out clubs or use an online tool like passist.org). We additionally include hints about which hand does the action for the initial throws (R and L for right and left), whether to throw a pass straight (||) or crossing (X), and how many clubs are in each hand at the start ():