Introduction to MM STD

The MM STD is a notation invented by MikeDay to describe Juggling Patterns that have Han dMovements. The pages given here have been hastily adapted from the original text lessons which were written in plain text and distributed by email. Converting them to HTML is a work in progress, and if you can help with any aspect of improving this explanation then please Let Us Know.

Start from here

These tutorials will go at a very gentle pace. Some of the concepts involved here will be quite new, subtle and unusual. Please read carefully, do the exercises, and if you have any questions then ask. All feedback is useful, and by giving us your feedback you will play a part in this contribution to juggling theory and practice.

What is this all about?

Site Swap doesn't cover Han dMovements.

As you may be aware, there is a notation for some Juggling Patterns called the Site Swap notation. You don't need to know the Site Swap notation in order to understand these tutorials, but they will occasionally be mentioned. If you want to know more about Site Swaps, follow the link.

One thing that the Site Swap notation does not cover is Han dMovements. In particular, the Site Swap for Mills Mess is just a simple 3. The thing that makes Mills Mess such a beautiful pattern is the smooth, fluid and hypnotic Han dMovements. Site Swaps are used to describe the timing of a Juggling Pattern, but until quite recently there has been no simple way of writing down a description of the Han dMovements.

MM STD does cover some patterns involving Han dMovements.

It was to solve this problem that MikeDay invented a system for describing Han dMovements as related to juggling. This was so successful that it then allowed new patterns to be developed and existing patterns to be analysed and modified. Just as Site Swaps only concentrate on one specific aspect of juggling, the timing, so the MM STD concentrates on just one aspect, the Han dMovements.

Not every possible collection of Han dMovements is covered by this system. There are Juggling Patterns that are not described by the MM STD, although, as with Site Swaps, there are extensions to the notation to cover most of these other patterns. As with Site Swaps, the extensions are often technical and awkward, enhancing the notation at the cost of simplicity. We will concentrate in this series on the basic form of the notation, leaving the more extensive version for later.

Where does the name come from?

The full name of the notation is the

Don't you wish you hadn't asked?

The notation was originally designed to help analyse, understand and manipulate Mills Mess. We don't want to give away too much at this stage, so we won't say any more about what a State Transition Diagram actually is. That is the subject of the tutorial series.

Next step

So, on to MM STD 01

Quotation from Tim Berners-Lee