Beginner Siteswap 3
The Cascade (Ball)
Siteswap 3. The foundation. Both hands throwing alternately, every ball crossing center.
Foundation concept
Ball.
Club.
Ring.
Three props. Three positions. In any change, every person holds one of them - whether they know it or not.
The core insight
Where you stand
determines what
you experience.
When a change lands in an organisation, the people closest to it feel the impact like a ball in their hands - heavy, immediate, impossible to ignore. The people rebuilding their technique around it hold it like a club - it has its own rotation that they have to account for. The people in the outer orbit hold it like a ring - a wide arc, infrequent return, still fully present.
The same change. Three completely different physical and psychological experiences. Three props.
The Ball
Closest to the change.
The ball is the prop you feel the most directly. It is in your hands continuously. It is the team that is running the new process from day one - the people who cannot step away from the change because the change is their daily work.
The ball is also what most change programs are designed for. The communications, the training, the support - they default to the ball-holders because the ball-holders are the most visible.
What the ball asks of you
Soft hands. Precise release. Tolerance for a long correction arc. You cannot manage the ball from a distance. You have to be in the range of the catch. The energy field of the ball is immediate - anything inside it is in active relationship with what the ball holds.
The Club
Rebuilding technique.
The club is the prop that has its own physics. When you catch a club, you have to account not just for where it is but for how it is rotating. The momentum was set before you arrived at the catch.
The club corresponds to the mid-orbit participants - the teams that are not running the change but are rebuilding their own technique around it. New tools, new workflows, new methods that have their own rotation they have to account for.
What the club asks of you
Timing. Not just placement. The club pass is a contract: when you throw to someone, you are making a commitment that they will have their hands open at the right moment. The club does not wait for you to be ready - it arrives with its own momentum.
The Ring
The outer orbit.
The ring is the most structurally flexible of the three props. It can be foot-juggled from a seated position. It can be contact-spun. It can be rolled along the floor. Its defining feature - the empty center, the circular continuity - does not require a specific grip to be activated.
The ring corresponds to the outer-orbit departments - furthest from the center of the change, longest arc before return, widest scope, most rings in the air at once.
What the outer orbit actually looks like
What reads as absence from the center is often active engagement at a different scale. The outer-orbit department is not waiting to be convinced. It is running rings at a scale the center cannot see from the middle.
The convergence
has no entry requirement.
All three props arrive at the center together. Remove any hand from the frame and the convergence is incomplete. The insight that emerges from the intersection of brain science, technology, and change requires everyone in the frame - not just the ones who arrived first.
Read: Balls, Clubs, and RingsSee it in motion
The patterns in practice
Each siteswap number tells you how many beats before that prop is thrown again. The ball (3), the clubs (passing), the rings (high arcs) - all visible in these live animations.
Beginner 
Intermediate Siteswap 531
Heights Vary (Club arc)
Siteswap 531. Not all throws need to be equal. The 5 is high, the 3 medium, the 1 a quiet pass.
Intermediate Siteswap 4
The Fountain (Ring orbit)
Siteswap 4. Both hands run in parallel. Two columns that never cross. The ring's wide orbit.
Dive deeper
From the blog
Jun 2026
What Each Prop Asks of You
The ball, the club, and the ring are not three versions of the same juggling prop. Each has its own physics, its own learning curve, and its own demand on the practitioner - and each maps to a different position in an organisational change.
ReadJun 2026
The Two Modes of Juggling
The image is a diptych: on the left, one pair of hands with three silver balls in a solo cascade; on the right, two pairs of hands with clubs crossing between them. The cascade coordinates inside one person. The club pass coordinates between two. These are not two levels of difficulty. They are two different architectures.
ReadJun 2026
Everything in the Air at Once
The long-exposure photograph shows all three props simultaneously: blue balls in arc, orange clubs rotating, purple rings in orbit. This is what an organisation in full-speed change actually looks like - not a single clear initiative, but three completely different patterns running in parallel, each requiring different handling, none able to wait for the others.
ReadContinue learning