I've heard all sorts of different things about effective practicing - and much of what I've heard appears to be very contradictory in nature at first glance. Consequently, I did some research on learning motor skills to see if I could come to the truth of the matter. The tips below represent some of those findings that I thought would be most useful.

As a qualifier,
I juggle 7 balls (fairly solid),
I can flash 8 balls fairly regularly (fountain, wimpy, 999999990)
I juggle a stacked fountain, and
I can juggle the majority of tricks on this site (5 balls and under).
I'm working on 5 clubs (haven't really given this much effort).
Given the fact that I learned most of this within two years time (spending less than an hour a day juggling six days a week) my learning curve has been somewhat faster than average - and I began juggling seriously only after I was 28 years old. Although I acknowledge that there are several factors that may contribute to a learning curve, the following techniques have proven quite effective for me (and they are scientifically backed).

Generally speaking, there are two schools of thought concerning practice techniques:

says "if you can't practice a trick 10 times in a row without failure, you don't know the trick." This theory generally tells jugglers that they should practice a trick 10 times in a row BEFORE they move on to another trick. Moreover, these people will tell you that you should never try a trick that is beyond your abilities. In other words, don't try 4 ball Mills Mess before you are solid on a 4 ball fountain. Not only is this futile, IT'S FRUSTRATING & frustration inhibits your ability to learn. Obviously, this type of technique is very effective - it does produce world class jugglers like Jason Garfield - but it can be very discouraging to a casual jugglerand it fails to recognize the value in the second school of thought.

Additionally, this school of thought ignores the fact that some people like to juggle just for fun and like to try new things - for fun. That is, it presumes that the goal of juggling is perfection in performance. Thus, perhaps only the performer need be seriously inclined to live by the first school of thought.

Lastly, while it is true that practicing a trick incorrectly teaches you to perform that trick incorrectly, it is also true that many mistakes are made while attempting to perform a trick 10 times in a row (without error). What should the juggler be doing to enable him/herself to juggle a trick 10 times in a row without error?

says "push yourself: keep trying tricks that are just above your present capabilities. Try a 4 ball Mills Mess while you are still learning the 4 ball fountain." This school of thought teaches that pushing yourself in this manner somehow stimulates the brain & increases your learning curve. (This is scientifically proven to some degree - see Scientific Juggling Articles) Thus, if your brain is forced to attempt to figure out a 4 ball Mills Mess, it will kick into high gear. Once your brain is in this higher gear, trying the 4 ball fountain is easier for your brain to process. If correct, this means that you will learn the 4 ball fountain faster than the juggler practicing under the first school of thought! This advice comes with a significant caution: remember what you were trying to do was to learn the 4 ball fountain - the attempt at the 4 ball Mills Mess was merely a MEANS to speed up your learning of the 4 ball fountain - although you do need to make a sincere effort to perform the 4 ball Mills Mess.

 

Both schools of thought are right - for different types of practicing.

Motor skill researchers are drawn to jugglers for one simple reason: we learn motor skills very very quickly compared to athletes who perform in other sports. These researchers figured that there must be a reason that jugglers learn motor skills so quickly - so they used us as their ideal standard for learning motor skills. What did they find? They found out that the second school of thought is absolutely right. That is, when jugglers switch from prop to prop and juggle different numbers of objects, balance things on their bodies, balance their bodies on things, and do dozens of other tricks all in one setting, they instigate an accellerated learning process in their brains. Researchers have theorized that switching between so many different props and trying so many different manipulations in one setting causes the brain to learn new skills faster. This is great news if you are in a hurry to learn a lot of tricks.

However, this discovery only addresses how quickly you learn a new skill. It does not address how well you learn that new skill; nor does it address how well you will retain that new skill. This is where school of thought number one comes in. If you want to become solid on a trick, stick with the 10x rule: practice the trick until you can perform it 10 times in a row without failure. If you are working on a series, Jason Garfield suggests practicing until you can perform the trick for twice as long as you intend to perform it. I try to practice a trick until it is more solid than that (and this applies to transitions as well - in other words, if you are trying to learn Mills Mess but you are doing a routine where you go into Mills Mess from Rubenstein's Revenge, make sure to practice the transition between those two tricks 10x in a row).

I suggest mixing these two practice techniques in the following manner:

I consistently have new tricks that I want to learn on every prop I use (balls, clubs, cigar boxes, contact juggling, knives, etc.) When I practice, I divide my time to learn a trick on every prop that I use. Of course, I may want to learn more than one trick on any given prop as well. I practice one trick until I achieve significant improvement using techniques from school of thought number one. Then, I move to another prop and/or another trick and/or a different number of objects. I try not to spend too much time on any given prop or trick unless I have a gig that I am preparing myself for and I need to solidify some tricks for my routine. The point is, I try to diversify my practice session so that I am increasing my learning curve and solidifying my performance of newer tricks.

Although this means that I may not become solid on any given trick in a specific practice session, it does mean that it will take me less actual practice time to learn that trick. In other words, it may take me 3 practice sessions of 20 minutes each [60 minutes total] to learn a trick but it would take me 80 or 90 minutes to learn the trick if I tried to learn it in one session under the first school of thought.

That said, when I am preparing for a performance, I alter my routine significantly. I practice any trick that I do not feel completely solid on many, many times before I put it on the stage. If I know that I will perform a trick three times a row on the stage and I am not comfortably solid with that trick, I will practice that trick until I can perform it dozens and dozens of times in a row without failure. This will not ensure that your performance is perfect anyways - stage lighting, heckling, fatigue, audience response, and other variable factors can all have an effect on your performance and may even cause you to loose concentration enough to have a disastrous drop. However, see Jugger's Jokes (under drop lines) for ideas on how to make this a positive event for the audience.

Some days are better than others.
If you happen to be learning a trick very quickly one day, you may want to take advantage of that fact by practicing that trick extra that day. However, research has shown that if you practice a trick well a few times in a row and then move on to something else, your brain will process that information better than if you practice it well a few times & then practice it badly a few times (because you got tired from over practicing). Of course, you don't know that you are overpracticing until you drop ... Consequently, when I am having a good session with a trick, I often practice it until I notice that my progress is slowing down - then, I stop before I start making too many mistakes.

Similarly, if you are having a bad day with clubs, move on to another props. Often, the days that I am juggling poorly with balls are the days that I can expect to really learn some cool club tricks. Some days you just have a bad juggling day - don't give up! At the same time, don't keep practicing something wrong either (at least, don't do that if you are trying to learn a trick for a performance)! Remember: when learning motor skills, your brain can learn to make mistakes too - that is why school of thought number 1 tells you to make sure that you practice the trick correctly 10 times in a row before you quit.

Miming and Visualizing the Trick
(description from JugglingPoet.com).
Try the trick in slow motion with imaginary props. When you juggle, your hands are going through the motions mostly subconsciously. Mastering a trick is a matter of getting familiar enough with the proper moves so that your body can do them without much thought. One way to help this process is to do the moves slowly (more slowly than you can with props in the air) and then gradually getting faster until you're up to the speed you need to actually perform the trick. We've found this to be especially true of siteswaps and combination tricks.
Webmaster's note:
This is especially helpful with tricks like Burke's Machine, Scythe, the J Shower, or J Box where your hand movements are vastly different than what they are used to. Breaking down the trick to one or two of the props at a time is also very helpful for some tricks.
Studies have shown that visualizing a task 50% of the time and performing the same task 50% of the time optimizes your learning curve. I have found this to be especially helpful in my juggling practice. There are a couple of tricks that I probably would never have learned well without this added help - notably, the 5 Ball Jig, 744, the 6 ball Fountain, and 7571.

 

Research has also shown that your brain is still learning even though you appear to be stagnating on a plateau on a given trick (i.e., you don't feel like you are learning anything any more). The good news is this - if you are on a juggling plateau, your improvement will show up in large amounts AFTER you pass the plateau. However, if you do not endure through the frustrating plateau & instead, you quit practicing for longer than normal, your brain will lose valuable experience & you will not be able to learn the skill you are trying to learn as quickly as if you had simply endured the frustration of apparent non-progression.

 

Of course
all of these practice techniques
are summed up best
by our motto: