Causal Diagram

Causal Diagram: The arrows in this diagram point to the hand/throw that is caused by the object. Like "This throw has to be done so I have a free hand to catch the object".

The causal diagram has a direct relation to the siteswap diagram, in which the arrows just represent the siteswap-number: As the arrows always point to the throw that needs to happen for the hand to become free to allow the catch, the number represented by the arrow is the siteswap number minus the number of beats until the same hand throws again.

This makes the graph often look a bit counter-intuitive (specially if one expects the arrows to represent the siteswap numbers):

• arrows for zips point to the left, i.e. are pointing back in time (because the throw to free the hand actually happens before the zip)
• "zero", i.e. empty hands go even further back in time
• flips have an arrow that points back to itself - which just shows the fact that nothing forces you to throw a flip and you can replace it by a hold

Disadvantages of causal diagrams:

• counterintuitive
• hard to see where an object ends up (i.e. some things are only obvious in a siteswap diagram)

Advantages of causal diagram:

• shorter arrows make the resulting diagrams much less cluttered
• less overlapping arrows make it easier to validate 3 or more person patterns
• directly show which throw triggers (and maybe causes) a bad throw happening in the pattern. Often the obvious bad throw that ends the pattern is caused one throw or several backwards in the causal chain of throws.