Spinning plates...an easy juggling trick to learn

I've done a lot of plate spinning in the past week or so and I thought I'd mention it here, because it's an easy juggling trick to pick up, and it might encourage newcomers to the hobby.


The essential thing you need for plate spinning is a trick plate. Spinning plates have a special rim on the underside and a cone-shaped indentation to help stabilize the spin.

Along with a plate, you need a stick....I use a quarter-inch diameter dowel sharpened on both ends.

Once you learn to spin a plate -- and I've seen adults and kids manage to do it after a few minutes of practice -- there are several tricks you can learn to do with the plates.

Some decent plate-spinning instructions can be found here. Plastic spinning plates are not expensive; many juggling suppliers sell them. Here's one.

My 10-year-old son has been having good luck learning to spin plates lately. Anyone with sufficient hand strength to hold a plate up on a dowel ought to be able to do it.

After you learn to get a plate spinning, try tossing it in the air and catching it, and then try flipping the stick during a toss. I like to hand a spinning plate to a kid to hold, and because it's a pretty easy trick, I complicate it by putting a kid on my shoulders, getting two plates spinning on sticks and having the kid hold them, then juggling with the kid on my shoulders.