For juggling in particular, it's also my experience that teaching complete novices is easier. People who've juggled a bit often listen less, and get frustrated with breaking things down, and just go back to doing what they know.
At the British Juggling Convention I taught a workshop for absolute beginners to pass 5 clubs following http://passingpedagogy.com/ . Most of those who'd never picked up a club got on pretty well. Whereas some people who'd passed clubs in a different way were skeptical; you could tell their heart wasn't in it, and then unsurprisingly some of them didn't get it.
I do understand the resistance to going back to basics to fix things though. I can hoop (as in "hula-hoop") fairly well, and know some tricks. But I mostly hoop in one direction (counter-clockwise). If I try to do a trick clockwise, it's frustrating and I don't feel like carrying on, so I tend to give up, or go back to hooping counter-clockwise (fortunately one of my favorite tricks involves reversing the direction of the hoop). This weakness of mine was actually really useful (back when I still hooped with people). If I was showing someone else a trick, I could try it clockwise, which was an excellent reminder of how hard the trick really is, and to understand how/where it goes wrong.
At the British Juggling Convention I taught a workshop for absolute beginners to pass 5 clubs following http://passingpedagogy.com/ . Most of those who'd never picked up a club got on pretty well. Whereas some people who'd passed clubs in a different way were skeptical; you could tell their heart wasn't in it, and then unsurprisingly some of them didn't get it.
I do understand the resistance to going back to basics to fix things though. I can hoop (as in "hula-hoop") fairly well, and know some tricks. But I mostly hoop in one direction (counter-clockwise). If I try to do a trick clockwise, it's frustrating and I don't feel like carrying on, so I tend to give up, or go back to hooping counter-clockwise (fortunately one of my favorite tricks involves reversing the direction of the hoop). This weakness of mine was actually really useful (back when I still hooped with people). If I was showing someone else a trick, I could try it clockwise, which was an excellent reminder of how hard the trick really is, and to understand how/where it goes wrong.