I’ve mentioned juggling before on this blog but never went into detail about it or how I got into it. Those of you who know me fairly well are already familiar with my story; for those who don’t know it, I’ll use this post to share my love of juggling with you.
I started juggling in the spring of 2005. With a strong desire to learn and nobody to teach me, I managed to teach myself over the course of about a week (over a decade later, I’ve managed to teach a few people how to juggle in a matter of minutes, which shows the value of having a good teacher when learning something new). My first props were 3 tennis balls but I soon received a set of beanbags, rings, and clubs as a gift. Over the next few years, I juggled off and on without much consistent practice or improvement. When I got into high school, my interest in juggling was rekindled and I began to learn more about it in winter of 2008. YouTube showed me that there are many more possibilities in juggling than I had ever considered. I spent many afternoons for the next several years watching tutorials on different patterns, figuring out how to juggle more than 3 objects, and seeing myself get better and better.
In the summer of 2009, I started going to meetings with the Jax Jugglers and learned a lot from them. They taught me how to pass clubs, which quickly became one of my favorite things to do with juggling. Within a few years, I attended my first two juggling festivals: the Groundhog Day Jugglers Festival in Atlanta and the April Fool’s Juggling Festival in Tallahassee. At both of them, I got to see amazing performances, play games, talk to people from all over, learn new things, and have a blast. Things began to get really interesting in 2011, my senior year of high school. A friend from the Jax Jugglers had a paid performance in the fall and needed a partner, so he asked me if I’d be interested. I said yes, juggled my heart out that night, and fell in love with performing. Since then, I’ve had a few dozen paid gigs, though I don’t get them nearly as often as I used to. My other interests and commitments take up a lot of time, plus there just aren’t as many performance opportunities in Jacksonville as there are in some other places. I still get paid gigs every now and then, though, and I always enjoy them.
At the time of writing this, it’s been several years since the Jax Jugglers stopped meeting. Nothing bad happened to drive us apart; things such as work, moving, and other normal life changes just made it impractical to continue meeting. In an effort to help keep the spirit of juggling alive in Jacksonville, I organized an event during the summer on World Juggling Day this year and invited a bunch of friends (including Jax Jugglers and people I know elsewhere who juggle) to join me in the park. We had so much fun that I decided to make it a monthly event and, except for the September event that got rained out, I’ve always had at least one other person meet up with me to juggle and have fun. This was one of the best decisions I made this year and I’m glad I did it.
There have been long periods of time during which I’ve done hardly any juggling. Getting back into it reminded me how much I enjoy it and missed it during those dry periods. The monthly juggling event I organize, the people I see regularly who also juggle or like to talk about it, the occasional paid gig, the coordination and brain benefits it provides, and the good feeling I get from enjoying this hobby help keep me going. At this point, I find that, even when I don’t have a juggling-related activity coming up soon, I’ll still get the urge to grab my props and do a bit of juggling for fun, even if it’s something easy. That’s a good place to be with any hobby, and it’s nice to be back in that mindset. I have some old juggling videos on YouTube if you want to check them out. I haven’t posted anything new since my laptop died a few years ago, but maybe I’ll start posting again if I can figure out how. Thanks for reading to my juggling story. I hope it inspired you to learn how to juggle or revisit a hobby you’d set aside some time ago. Please let me know if it did either of those things for you and I’ll see you in the next post.