Zaps

Prerequisites: Reading Four-Handed Siteswaps & Beginner four-handed siteswaps | Next: Add doubles, heffs, or trelfs, or introduce takeouts.

Zaps are low, fast passes that only spin half a rotation. The open a whole new group of interesting patterns. Look at a video or an animation for examples. They are usually thrown with an extended arm, letting the club slide down to the knob, without any spin from the wrist, aiming quite a bit behind the person catching the zap. Most of these patterns do not have commonly used names and are simply known by their numbers.

Getting started with zaps (56464). This is a great warmup pattern to learn and practice zaps. Hold the 4s and think of it at self-self-zap-wait-wait, starting with the self-self when it is necessary to free a hand to catch the zap. The zap is always the same club and there is plenty of time to watch the throw.

Once this is stable, replace the wait-wait with a self-zip (56662) to make it feel like an actual juggling pattern. Throw the self from the hand that did not just throw the zap.

Killer bunny (564). The next good practice pattern is shorter and slightly more challenging -- think of it as self-zap-hold or self-zap-flip. Once the pattern is more stable, flipping rather than holding the club will help with timing.

552, 522, and 5. Nice warm-up patterns to lean into zaps with 4, 3, and 5 clubs. In 522, try doing one of the zips behind the back. 5 is simply a very fast one-count with 5 clubs.

756. This a well-known 6-club pattern and a great milestone in combining zaps and singles. Each passer throws a zap and then a single (a "stack") to the same hand (crossing one of the passes), and then, after a self, a zap and a single to the other hand. Ensure the zaps are fast and the singles are lofty.

Other patterns to try. 56252, 75666, Katzi (75724), Funky magazine rack (55564), 75625.