Siteswap

Siteswap is a mathematical model to calculate possible juggling patterns and also notation to write down juggling patterns as a series of numbers.

Central Description

Siteswap assumes that each throw happens on a beat.

• Each number in siteswap represents the number of beats between throws for one object

Vanilla Siteswap

Siteswap that describes "normal" juggling patterns of the type of the 3 ball cascade or 4 ball fountain are called vanilla siteswap.

Because we only describe these patterns, vanilla siteswap has some some additional rules:

• only one object can land on the same beat (= no multiplexes)
• each hand throws on a separate beat (= only one object is thrown on each beat = no synchronous patterns)

There are extensions to the notation that allow siteswap to handle multiplex and synchronous patterns.

Example: 3-object cascade

This is the normal 3 ball cascade with two hands. Each arrow points to the next throwing event with the same object 3 beats later.

Numbers and arrows are colored with the color of the object involved:

• ball A: red
• ball B: blue
• ball C: black

Height of the curved arrows is also chosen differently for each object to make it easier to follow the path of one object - this is not meant to indicate a difference between throws, just to make reading the diagram easier.

Right and left hand are written underneath the numbers as R and L . As expected, all throws cross to the other hand.

The last three dashes represent throws that have not been made yet.