Rubenstein's Revenge

MPEG VIDEO

Rick Rubenstein, Rubenstein's Revenge, 375553 bytes, 359 frames, 160x120.
Rick Rubenstein, of Clockwork, demonstrates the definitive Rubenstein's Revenge.

MPEG VIDEO

Rubenstein's Revenge, 379326 bytes, 51 frames, 162x146.
Rob Stone demonstrates Rubenstein's Revenge in a brief video clip.

Benjamin S.

According to Ben, Rubenstein's Revenge is just a simple extension of Burke's Barrage."

First of all, Rick Rubenstein's Revenge (RR) is now just Reverse throw, Swoop, Chop, with wrist rotation on the reverse throw. I'll elaborate.

Without worrying about the wrist action, try a Reverse, then Swoop. At the end, you are back to cascade position so you can Chop with the other hand. If you don't know Chops, think of it this way: if the right hand has just reversed and Swooped, it is making a throw next from right to left. The left hand wants to catch this ball, but first it makes a fast circle over the top (clockwise). That's a chop. Since the next step is to start the cycle over on the left side, don't stop with the chop, but go right into a reverse throw, which merely completes the circle. Repeat this cycle on both sides until smooth.

Last step (one which Rick Rubenstein considers an essential feature): when you are making your reverse throw at the start of a cycle you then grab a ball. Get into this by turning your hand completely over (or even more, so that the knuckles face inward. This allows you to deftly pluck a ball out of the air and Swoop it.

P.S. Ask Jack Kalvan to show you this with clubs! There's no wrist thing, and the Swoops are done over the top.


This is a very attractive 3 ball trick. It was invented by Rick Rubenstein of Clockwork. One ball goes up and down on the outside of the pattern while the other 2 get whipped, weaved, caught, thrown, and clawed through the pattern. This trick is highly impressive and is pretty hard as well. It isn't too hard not to try though. I think if you can do Mill's Mess you can do Rubenstein's Revenge.

One ball goes up and down on the outside of your trick, and makes a big U-shaped pattern. But let's not worry about that ball just yet. The way I learned this trick is by breaking it down.

First I wanted to tackle the hardest part of the trick, the middle. Get two balls. LH=left hand, RH=right hand. Take one ball in each hand, ball A in the LH and ball B in the RH. You should start with your right arm under your left arm.

  1. Now uncross your arms, but don't stop. Continue to unwind your arms by putting your left arm under your right arm.
  2. As your left fore arm hit's your right arm, throw ball A from your LH, strait up, about eye level.
  3. As soon as you throw ball A up, quickly have your RH go under ball A, so your right hand is moving to the right, and then go above ball A with your right hand. Quickly toss ball B strait up about eye level and then with the same motion claw ball A. A claw is a catch with you palm facing down (like how lion would CLAW at you.)
  4. You should now have your right arm on the left side of your body. Catch ball B with you LH under your right arm. Now you should have your arms crossed right over left.

Now you do the exact opposite on the other side. Practice it on one side for a while until you get the feel then do both sides. That's the middle of Rubenstein's Revenge. Now you may have noticed from step 2 to 4 you have nothing in your left hand. Well that's where the third ball comes in. The third ball make's a big U like pattern up and down on the sides of your juggling space.

I will explain the whole trick now. I get 2 balls in the right hand and 1 in the left. I start the trick, the same as I said, with my right arm under my left arm but to get there I toss ball C straight up just above my head on the left side of my body out of my RH, which is under my left arm. Now I have my arms crossed left over right, and I can move on to step 1, of the middle part of this trick, which is explained above. I quickly unwind and toss ball A up with the LH then come around with the right hand. As I am making my circle with the right hand I catch ball C on the left side of my body with my LH. I move my LH under the right arm and throw ball C straight up on the right side of my body a little bit higher than my head. By this time my RH should have tossed ball B straight up and clawed ball A. So I catch ball B with my LH, which is under my right arm. My arms are crossed right over left and ball C is about 8 cm above my head.

Now that is RR on one side of my body. I do the exact opposite (a mirror image) on the the other side of my body. I continue going back and forth, left and right.

Every throw is to your other hand. You never throw to the same hand twice. If you understand site swaps, it is 52233. It may not look like a 5 or a 3 but they are, because they change hands. A way to see this is to download juggling software from the JIS software files. My favorite is Juggle Master.


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