Juggling Again

Those people that have been around the Juggling Community for a long time, may remember that I won the International Jugglers Association Junior's Championship in 1985. Leading up to that was about 4 years of intense juggling practice. Following that where a few more years of improvement.

Then, at the age of 17 or 18, I stopped practicing all together and scarcely juggled anything for about 21 years. Last year, 2009, I suddenly was struck with an incredible desire to juggle again and so I started. I now juggle about 2 hours a week - a long cry from the 4 hours a day that I used to do, but nevertheless, I find it is enough to improve slowly.

I am back to working on 6 clubs which is coming along. My current record (8/30/2010) is 16 throws and catches which I have done several times with a clean finish (probably isn't usually very “clean”, but I do catch them all). I have learned several new 5 ball tricks including:

• (6x,4)(4,6x)
• (6,4x)(4x, 6)
• 645
• 663 (Needs work still)

You can enter those SiteSwap notations in this Juggling Applet to see what they look like or do a search for SiteSwap to learn more.

Wow, The truth is I love juggling and am happy to be doing it again. It is wonderful exercise and meditation and seems to strengthen and relax the mind. I'd really like to get to the place of juggling 7 clubs. In 1985, I believe only Anthony Gatto could do that. In recent years, I understand, it has become a good bit more common.