JugglingSubculture.com

Is she juggling as a form of meditative prayer? Or just trying to raise a few extra bucks for the orphans?

Either way it’s good to see a nun juggling!

Cute little toy, but we’re not afraid of juggling machines replacing us any time soon!

Dr. Don Rapp has been juggling since 1940. He’s also been an educator for most of his life. Naturally, juggling has become a major part of his teaching repertoire.

Here he is performing one of his classic routines:

This article explains how Dr. Rapp uses juggling to teach kids about the connection between body and mind . . .

. . . but we were more intrigued by his simple, charming routine.

So often, observing the Juggling Subculture on the internet makes us feel inferior. So many great jugglers show off amazing routines with tricks it would take us lifetimes to learn.

Through this video the good doctor reminds us that a juggling routine doesn’t have to be packed with piourettes, or piled with props in order to bring a smile to people’s faces.

Michael Moschen has always propped up the performance-art edge of the juggling subculture. To him, juggling is art. Consequently his performances are less show and more art class.

This was the case at his recent appearance at New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. An article in the Wall Street Journal aptly portrays Moschen’s presentation as half lecture, half demonstration, and fully entertaining and inspiring.

Even though Moschen’s view of juggling can often be dismissed as a bit pretentious–he opened his performance at NYU saying, “Hello . . . I want to make new things.”–you can’t deny that his passion for art has led him to create some of the most innovative performances that have graced the juggling stage.

Click here to read the Wall Street Journal article.

Click below to watch Moschen’s famous triangle routine. This video has been viewed on YouTube almost a half million times.

Here are two performances by Luke Clements on Britain’s Got Talent:

You can tell the judges enjoyed the apple eating, but they issued him a very specific challenge. Here’s what he came up with.

What a missed opportunity. If he could have found any way to get anything close to taking a bite out of that melon he would have moved on to the next level.

Also, the female judge Amanda made a great point that he should have led with his best stuff.

Sad to see yet another juggler “eaten” alive on a “Got Talent” show.

We love the scientific articles that come out saying that somehow our brains are enhanced because we can juggle.

A new study, reported on the Earth Times Web site, shows that juggling not only effects the brains of young people, but also the brains of those over 50 years old.

Unlike young adults, older adults who learned to juggle had increased grey matter in hippocampus and nucleus accumbens compared to controls.

As in young adults, these grey-matter changes were transient, returning to baseline after three months without practice. These results indicate that human brains retain some structural plasticity as they age.

Although the older adults did not learn to juggle as well as younger adults, those who did learn showed similar increases in grey matter in the visual motion area of their brains.

Click here to read the whole article.

Here’s a video of one of those older brains at work:

Even if you didn’t shell out the $10 to buy Wes Peden’s Expectations, you’ll enjoy watching him answer questions about the creative process he went through to create the video. The inisight is priceless; especially for all of us hoping to make creative juggling videos ourselves.

Watch the questions and answer video here.

(You can see Wes’ influence popping up all over the juggling subculture. Tony Pezzo’s latest video–although showing off Tony’s individual style–seems to have some Wes Peden qualities to it. Chick out Tony’s video here.)

If only Chuck Norris juggled!

In the spirit of chucknorrisfacts.com, David Cain started a funny post on the rec.juggling forum with these Chuck Norris juggling facts:

Chuck Norris won the 1983 IJA Numbers Championships Clubs Division by
flashing 3 balls.

Chuck Norris can force bounce 5 cigar boxes.

Chuck Norris attended the first WJF convention dressed as a barefoot
clown and did nothing but poi, using the shrunken heads of two enemies
for the balls. Jason Garfield never said a word.

There are no invalid siteswaps for Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris flashed 13 rings. Albert Lucas was hiding under the
bleachers and video taped it. He then digitally replaced Chuck’s head
with his own. This explains why we’ve never seen it publically.

Chuck Norris created a wormhole through time by rubbing a balloon on
his beard. He then traveled back 4,000 years to Egypt and taught the
women he met how to juggle. Chuck invented juggling.

Why did Rastelli die so early? Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris accidentally invented 5 club backcrosses. His clubs were
so afraid of him that they naturally went behind him in hopes that
Chuck wouldn’t see them and roundhouse kick them.

Juggling Kung Fu Master – Chuck’s idea

To see the other Chuck Norris juggling facts that people came up with visit rec.juggling.

A recent Associated Press story said this:

President Barack Obama is building a White House staff so loaded with big names and overlapping duties that it could collapse into chaos unless managed with a juggler’s skill.

Maybe Obama should learn to juggle. Not only would it sharpen his brain to keep track of all of his new Czars, but it would also help ease the stress of this wacky economy. He likes to play basketball so he must be fairly coordinated. Somebody get out there and teach Obama how to juggle!

Michael Karas recently posted an interesting retrospective about the juggling world in 2008. He also took the opportunity to write these inspiring words for jugglers as we look forward to a new year:

To my fellow jugglers – this is my challenge to you! In 2009, focus on discovering what you individually do best! It is our different minds working together that produces so much amazing juggling. The more you try to conform to someone else’s style, the less variety we’ll have in our art. Your style should be juggling you love, not juggling that someone else loves. What tricks excite you? What pictures do you want to create through manipulation? THINK about your juggling. Make goals. Try a new prop! Invent a new prop! Shoot your first juggling video! Go to your first juggling convention. Perform for the first time! Whatever it is, set some “impossible” goals for yourself this year. I think you’ll find that, if you actually put in the work, the “impossible” becomes graspable.

Click here to read the whole post.