Claw (juggling)

This article is about the juggling trick. For other uses, see Claw (disambiguation).

Burke's Barrage, siteswap: 423; the 4 is a tossed directly up, the 2 is a carry, and the 4 ball should be claw caught

In toss juggling, a claw (also called a snatch) is a trick where the hand throwing or catching a ball is turned upside down so that the palm of the hand faces the ground. The effect is that of the jugglers hand appearing to snatch the ball out of the air. A claw can be juggled as an isolated trick, or be incorporated into an already existing juggling pattern. For example, the Boston Mess can be juggled with each right hand throw as a claw. The resulting pattern in known as cherry picking.

Many other well known juggling patterns incorporate claw throws or catches. In most instances, both a throw and subsequent catch are performed as a claw. There are some exceptions to this rule however. For instance, in Burke's Barrage the two balls that are thrown as siteswap 4s in columns and caught with a claw, while none of the throws are clawed.

Further reading

• Gillson, George. Beyond the Cascade: Step-By-Step Guides to 88 Classic 3-Ball Juggling Tricks. p6, Ugly Juggling Co: N.Y 1991. ISBN 978-0-9627938-0-6
• Dancey, Charlie. Charlie Dancey's Encyclopædia of Ball Juggling p31, 147. Butterfingers: Bath, England 1994. ISBN 1-898591-13-X

External links

• IJDb: ClawCatch at the Wayback Machine (archived October 25, 2007)