Improve your siteswaps

Prerequisites: Reading Four-Handed Siteswaps & Beginner patterns & Doubles. | Recommended: Improve your passing.

This is a collection of advice for common problems in four-handed siteswaps.

Slow down. The single pass in four-handed siteswaps should be slow and lofty. In particular, the crossing single should be high enough that the partner can comfortably pass below the incoming passes. Return to 5-club one count (744 or 726) to calibrate singles or practice with increasingly fewer zips from 77722 (Parsnip) to 77772 (Martin's one count) to 7 (7-club one count).

Request feedback. Most passers are not good about giving feedback, at it often gets worse as they get better and can catch more things. Explicitly request feedback, possibly direct feedback on every pass while juggling the pattern.

Watch your passes land. Conversely, aim to rely less on feedback by watching your passes land where possible. This will not work for all patterns, but for many. For example, set it as a goal to watch doubles land in siteswaps of length 3 (e.g., 966, 972) -- this is challenging but eventually possible when the incoming passes are decent.

When learning a siteswap, switch starts. When it is difficult to get a full round of a pattern, it often helps to have both passers start with the same throws but start left-handed. This allows them to practice the second side of the pattern and come afterward to the already-practiced first side.

Make zips and flips a full beat. Zips often happen very fast and automatic. Many passers may not even notice that they are doing them, which can make a pattern like Parsnip (77722) tricky to learn. Passers who have learned why not (78627) and Jim's two-count (74667) as synchronous patterns are used to very quick zips. Since zips are so fast, the are often used to fudge the timing, which on the one hand can help make patterns like 972 much more forgiving, but on the other hand can also screw up the timing of a pattern. Try make zips a full beat; to force this try to hand the zip between both hands behind the back. In particular patterns with two consecutive zips, like 77272 and 522, can be fun by handing one zip in the back and the other in the front.

Similarly, patterns with 4s are easier to juggle in a consistent rhythm if the club is flipped rather than just held. For example, actually flip the club in the pause of Jim's three-count (7746666) to juggle the pattern as fully asynchronous siteswap rather than a (nearly) synchronous pattern with hurries.

Focus on doubles in siteswaps of length 5. Double passes in siteswaps with 5 beats can be challenging. Those double passes force each other -- that is, each double pass gets thrown under an incoming double pass to free the hand for that incoming pass. If a double pass is too low or too fast, the pattern can quickly degrade, because the receiving passer has little time to throw a good double pass in response. The best strategy to rescue the pattern from falling apart is to respond to a low double pass with an extra high one. Not likely (72966, see doubles) is a good pattern to practice recovery (it is extra forgiving with the zip) -- intentionally throw low doubles occasionally and try to recover.

Separate passes in stacks. Many patterns throw multiple consecutive passes to the same hand, such as zap and single in 756, single and double in 972, and zap, single, and double in 95678 (and other sequences). Separate those passes clearly in height, which means fast zaps, lofty singles (substantially higher than in synchronous patterns), and lofty doubles. At the same time, make sure that all passes of a stack land in roughly the same location and can be caught at the same height.