Twelve Cups and a Left Hand That Supervises

Someone was emptying a dishwasher competitively.

That was my first explanation for the noise coming from the community centre’s demonstration table: a rapid plastic clatter, a pause, then exactly the same clatter again. Through the doorway I could see cups appearing in pyramids and disappearing into columns. By the time I stopped to watch properly, the demonstrator had finished another run.

“Want to try?”

A set of twelve cups arrived in front of me. This seemed an extravagant allocation for a person who had come over to investigate a noise.

We put three aside and arranged the rest in three nested columns. The starting pattern was the 3–3–3: build a little pyramid from each column, then collapse each pyramid back into a column, working across in the same direction.

Watching this had taken almost no time. Doing it revealed several previously undocumented pauses.

My right hand picked up a cup and offered it to my left. My left accepted. Both waited while I decided where it belonged. We had established a service counter.

The demonstrator stopped me and showed the movement again, slowly enough that I could follow the separate jobs. One hand placed a cup while the other was already moving another. No handover.

Then I squeezed a cup hard enough to make separating it from its neighbour unnecessarily difficult.

“Lighter.”

My response to uncertainty had been to grip the equipment more securely. Apparently the equipment had objections.

On the next attempt I held the sides gently and let the cups settle. Two base cups touched; the third sat across them. A very small pyramid, completed without administrative assistance.

Later, the manufacturer’s technique guide confirmed both corrections: avoid passing cups between hands, and use a light grip rather than squeezing. There is something mildly embarrassing about needing written guidance to relax around an empty cup.

We continued across the table. Up went the second pyramid. Up went the third. Coming back, I knocked a cup sideways and reached after it while still holding another.

This brought back July’s juggling exchange, when my left hand kept waiting for the right-hand catch before it would throw. Today I could watch the same hesitation from a comfortable distance above a table. The left hand had a job available. It preferred to supervise.

At least the cups stayed nearby.

After several slow runs, I managed the 3–3–3 without stopping between pyramids. The return journey made a lovely little descending clatter. Immediately I tried to reproduce the sound, hurried the placement of the top cup and left it leaning.

A slanter, apparently.

There are names for these things. In the WSSA’s archived rule book, a tipper falls off a stack, a slider drops onto cups below, and a toppler is a nested column falling sideways. A slanter sits crookedly where it should seat properly. I read the definitions on my phone while the demonstrator helped someone else.

I appreciated the distinction. “I knocked them over” had been concealing considerable variety.

With the spare cups restored, we moved to the 3–6–3. The centre pyramid demanded more attention, and I repeatedly finished it with a hand hovering above the cups, unsure whether it still contained something useful.

Then came a demonstration of the Cycle: 3–6–3, into 6–6, into 1–10–1, finishing back in nested 3–6–3 columns.

I asked to see it again.

On my attempt, the transition out of the two six-cup pyramids left me staring at an untidy collection of nested cups. The demonstrator waited. I counted, rearranged them and asked where my hands should have gone. We backed up and tried that movement alone.

During a break I found the company’s history. Bob Fox first saw stacking on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show in 1990; he eventually left teaching to pursue it full time. I had now missed my intended departure twice, so I could understand the early stages.

Before leaving, I returned to the small pattern. Three pyramids up, three columns down. Clean enough that I asked for another go.

The demonstrator began packing away the neighbouring sets.

I still had a cup in each hand.