It reminded me of a post I read on Juggling Talk (Anthony Gatto’s juggling forum) some months ago.  The post was nestled in a long thread of comments on animals in the circus, and was authored by Brazilian juggler  Caio Stevanovich, who was born and bred in the cirucus. In his family, he writes, he “growed [sic] up in different circuses, and was around animals all the time. My family has a long lifetime with animals. They had 5 or 6 elephants, 2 giraffes, a white rhino, a hippo, horses, and lots, lots of others.”

In his post, Stevanovich tells of recent, sweeping legal changes and swings of public opinion — changes which led to the loss of the animals which were in his family’s circus.  In conjunction with tightening legal pressure, Stevanovich writes that “the tv started attacking the circus (which is curious, why just the circus? That’s curious, because, the police works with animals, the zoo, the labs, a lot of companies, there are trips with camels in here, but nobody will move a finger against those shakes, and there is also the rodeo, hn… of course, they are rich, with big farms, so nobody will ever move a finger against it).”

This is the only real mention of classism in Stevanovich’s account, although he does make an earlier reference to feeling as if the circus were a sort of scapegoat for the media.

“The tv enjoyed it, and created a lot of fake infos, showed images from different countries, started doing a bad job. They showed what they wanted to. I’m totally against the bad conditions for the animals, but I’m completelly against the people who doesn’t see the other side.”

With the full realization that anecdotal evidence is troublesome at best, Stevanovich’s “other side” is surprisingly compelling.

He writes that only the largest, most financially viable circuses can afford aniamls, which “need veterinarians, a lot of food, extra care, and a lot of attention.” Following this explanation, Stevanovich expresses a side of the circus animal debate which I found both moving and enlightening.

“If you bring an animal to you, you’ll do everything for him, trust me. If you are a juggler, and your rings are dirty, you will clean them before your act, won’t you? It’s the same with the animals. You’ll feed them, you’ll take care of them, you’ll want to be with them. First of all, that’s a lot of money, to just forget about it. And in second, you create a new family. Those animals are super affectionate, really smart. If you will peform with them, you will want them beautiful, healthy. It’s natural, if you are an artist.”

If that was touching, his conclusion was distressing.

“After that, the circus continued, without the animals. The animals went to different places, different zoos, and they all started having a different style of life. Less care, less food, less attention. In a month, some horses died. At the end of 6 months, a giraffe passed away. After that, the other giraffe passed away too. The elephants have marks in their bodys and are all skinny now. When the IBAMA took them, everybody said that “finally, those monsters won’t hurt the animals anymore”. Ok, but here is my question… who is the monster now? All the animals are having a terrible life now, the most of them already died. But, the tv didn’t showed that … they just showed the police as heroes rescuing animals. Nobody knows that those animals are dead now. Or, if they are not dead, they are in trouble.”

I’m sure there are a lot of sides to the issue, and I wonder how reresentitive Stevanovich and his family really are.  Even so, it’s kind of a heart-breaking story.

I had a short performance with my fellow Neverthriver, Charly the Poi spinner, Saturday at the International Street Performer’s Festival in downtown Athens. We had a short, clean set which the crowd seemed to really enjoy.  Before that, though, Dave Altman, an enormously talented AJA juggler from the  Atlanta area stopped by my house. He brought along a set of 10 Renegade 85mm’s, and we passed for a little over an hour.  It was a great session; Dave did some really exciting stuff!

Dave’s visit also served to fan the fires of lust for my own set of new Renegades, which should actually be arriving tomorrow, just in time for the next Neverthriving meeting!

Sunday, Ben, Allie, and I headed over to Circus McGurcus — a circus-themed event for one of the UGA housing organizations.  I tried a few of Dave’s moves out with Ben, and we had a great time.  A few of the students were able to juggle pretty decently, and I think we built some interest in our club, so it was a successful couple of hours.

My juggling class Sunday evening saw a pretty dismal turnout, sadly.  A new student did show up, though.  She’d never juggled before, but within the first 10 minutes of class she’d managed three catches with three balls.  Five minutes later she’d qualified with a six-plus-catch run!

It’s always inspiring to see that happen.  There is a small percentage of the population who seem to have an innate ability to juggle. For these people, it’s just a matter of having the process explained, and the execution comes naturally. It’s a wonderful thing to see a new juggler come into being so instantaneously!

Six students showed up representing a nice range of skills. Everyone seemed to work quite diligently, and seemed to make good progress.  The practice space at Rubber Soul was quite ideal.  Very high ceilings, good lighting, and even padded floors to ease the mental anguish of drops!

I’m excited about the class and have a few new ideas brewing:

- I definitely need to work on promotion and get some posters and flyers made up.  Business cards would also be a good asset — something I can hand out if I happen to be juggling in public.

- A juggling 101 handout of new students would be good resource. Some tight, clean prose on juggling basics and a 3-5 panel illustration to be used as a reference guide.

- A second handout with basic three-ball tricks would also be good to have. Target this at new jugglers who know only the cascade. Perhaps a second, intermediate, and even possibly a third, advanced, handout to come. It might be a good idea to brainstorm some ideas for 4, 5, 6 object handouts; clubs and rings; siteswap and other advanced-juggling-concepts handouts.

- Make props!  I need to pick a material and make at least one set of bean bags.  Something that is good quality and durable which I could sell to new jugglers at a low cost. The ideal case would be to make at least 7 bags so, in the meantime, I can start attempting to flash 7.

Perhaps the most noteworthy event in the past week is my return to the workforce. I’ve been through my first day of training at Athens Student Business Services, a local transcription service primarily devoted to transcribing case notes for financial planners. I can’t say that it is the most fascinating job I’ve ever had, but it has flexible hours and will provide a bit of income for me, so I am rather pleased with the development.

I’ve also recently returned from a trip to Jesup for my birthday, and while I am glad to be back in Athens, I enjoyed the trip. I had the opportunity to attend a group sit at the Vipassana center, and it was really nice to visit the Dhamma hall again.

It’s been a bit of a struggle for me to keep up my meditation practice. I can’t really say why, either. I’m not sure where my motivation breaks down, but I only manage about an hour a day two out of three days. I think part of it is the miasma of an entirely ungoverned schedule. Hopefully, once I start my job in earnest (Monday), establish some sort of regular schedule for myself and really settle into a more sustainable life here, I will have a bit more of a solid base for my practice.

On the subject of Vipassana, I’ve been meaning to get this bit of thought out of my head for awhile.

On the first day of our 10-day meditation retreat I met a few of my fellow meditators. We had about 3 or 4 hours before our vow of silence, and during that time we all pretty much asked the same questions: “How did you hear about this, why are you here?”

Most of the answers were pretty generic — a friend of a friend, a trail of on-line links — but one stood out. It came from an older member of our group. Like me, like most of us, he was a “new student,” meaning he’d never sat a Vipassana course before. He was as prototypically middle-aged as you can imagine. He was taller than me, wore glasses and was slightly balding. He had the softness of features and body that comes from decades at a desk job.

“I came here,” he explained, “because I’m over 50, I have two children who are grown — over 20 — and I can’t remember any of it. I can’t remember anything. I was so busy living in the future, I missed my whole life.”

I suppose the occasion warrants some note, but quite honestly I’m at a bit of a loss. I feel pretty good about the overall progress of my life at this point. I don’t have any real regrets or unfulfilled desires looming over me, and all things considered I’d have to say I’m pretty happy.

I’ve just moved to a new city, I’ve got my sites set on graduate school and my five-ball juggling is progressing at a very pleasing rate.

I suppose things are still a bit unsettled from the move. Or perhaps I’m just a bit tired today.

So it goes.

Either way, there’s a dinner happening, and things to do. So perhaps I’ll be a bit more creatively predisposed later in the week.

In fact, I might say that the past few weeks have been some of the most productive of my juggling career. When last I wrote, I was feeling a bit lackluster about juggling, and in an attempt to refocus myself I came up with a practice guide. 

It has been more successful than I could have ever imagined. 

Writing it out gave me a wonderful rededication and focus and I have made absolutely wonderful progress. I’ve made a few changes to the guide in practice, but I am not going to go through and make a real revision for a few more weeks. 

The reason for the delay? 

I am learning 4 clubs, and putting in so much time to get past the initial stumbling blocks that I am not following the guide as closely as I hope to once I am more comfortable with 4. 

Well, that sort of lets the cat out of the bag, because 4 clubs is my biggest news. At least to me. I’ve been very happy with my juggling so far, but honestly up to this point I’ve really felt like I haven’t been doing anything that special. 

4 clubs is different. 

I consider running 4 clubs fairly serious juggling, and working on them fills me with a wonderful sense of accomplishment and purpose–which is nice, since other parts of my life aren’t really so hot these days. 

Also something that warrants mentioning, and is directly related to 4 clubs is the Jesup Juggling Jam. I hosted a World Juggling Day event this year and it was a great success. I actually met another juggler in town!

I hope we can arrange some time to juggle at some point. Anyway, it was at the event that I really got the idea that I had 4 balls down pretty solidly. I saw Ian (the other juggler) run 4 and i knew right off that my fountain was much more solid. 

So I thought after a while, “hey I wonder if i could do 3 balls and a club.”

Well, a few hours later I was juggling 3 clubs and one ball, and that night I ordered my fourth and yellowest club. It got here friday and on my third attempt I got 4 catches. 

I went out of town for the weekend, and only practiced a bit while I was gone. I managed to get enough catches for a few nice pictures, but didn’t feel like I made any real progress. 

Once I got back home though, I made a clean qualifying run with a nice collection after about 20 minuets in the yard. Yesterday, after a warmup I went out and got around 10 catches on nearly every try. I had a few long runs, topping out around 30 or so, but it was hard to keep count. 

I feel pretty comfortable with the progress I am making, and it is so very, very exciting even to be working with 4 that I just can’t wait to do another session. 

It is all thanks to the practice guide I made. Since I started doing that my practices are no long just haphazard attempts, they have structure and direction.

I have also made profound progress with 3 ball shower, the box and 4 ball multiplexes. Work with five is also going much faster now. My flashes are much more reliable and I  can actually run a few catches of the chase (505050?) and 50510. I think that if I start flashing from my left hand I will be in good shape by the end of the summer. 

Almost everything I know with 3 is crisper now too. 

I am very pleased with the state of my juggling right now. If i can manage to escape the office, I am going to go do it right now. 

The one really happy thing I’ve got going on at the moment, though, is some nice juggling progress. I learned a very nice new trick in the past week, and I have made some really excellent progress with four. 

I learned a 3-ball carrying trick which I’ve seen called “yo-yo on both sides” or something similar. Carry tricks have a nifty look to them, because instead of letting the balls take a natural trajectory, well you carry them in a pattern of your own choosing. The yo-yo carry I’ve been working on is really fun to juggle, and it has a very dramatic visual component. The carried ball seems to sort of hop along with the pattern while the other balls do what they are supposed to. 

The very same day I figured out this yo-yo carry trick (even though I was able to find some videos of the trick after I’d learned it, I figured it out on my own) I had a big breakthrough with four ball crossing patterns. 

I managed to work two different types of crossing tosses into my 4-ball fountain (an outside and an inside switch). For both of the crosses the throws are fairly similar–a high “5″ throw followed by a low “3″ throw, and back into 4 4 4 4 4 etc.–and the only difference is, one uses regular cascade tosses, and the other uses reverse cascade tosses. 

I think that, with the reverse tosses at least, this is how 4-ball half-showers are juggled. I think for the inside (read: traditional cascade) throws, this is the first step in learning some “siteswapy” patterns. 

I have also been working on a cool little multiplex start for coin juggling. This isn’t exactly the most productive thing in the world, but all the same it is cool. I think it could make a good youtube video. I kind of want to go get some $1 coins from the bank though, quarters are tricky to catch with any reliability. 

I also taught my friend Robert how to juggle using my new methodology, and he was up to 12 catches on day 2. 

Juggling has been a bit more of a mental priority I suppose. It is a comfortable place to send my thoughts when things are stress-filled in real life. Sitting at work today, I came up with a structure for practicing.

I’ve thought about doing this, even tried it once or twice, but with very little success. This list, I have been musing over while juggling for the past week, and I am pretty pleased with it. It seems like the more I’ve read from jugglers such as Anthony Gatto, and Jason Garfield–jugglers who are unquestionably at the top of human achievement–the clearer it is that having focus in practice is the most important thing for improvement. 

Taking a page from Gatto’s practice book, What I plan to do with this practice list is go through each item, spending about 2-5 minutes per line trying to get everything on the line down, in sequence, without any drops.  I have toyed with the idea of imposing a “drop limit” per line–after which I would have to move on to the next trick–but I don’t think I am at that point yet. 

Basically, this list represents what I can do, with a huge variety of proficiency. The ultimate goal here is to get everything clean. There are quite a few 3-ball activities, patterns I would call “prep work for 5″ that I have left off. I think if I add anything It will be 3-ball flashes. For now though, I am going to focus on what I have outlined so far. 

I hope that, within a few months of spending at least 1 hour a day, every day, on this list, I will be able to develop the across-the-board-consistency I am looking for. 

I have also included focus points for each section, just to give myself a reminder of what I am looking for. While there is no strict relationship between them, it should be obvious that things such as fluidity and continuity are necessarily preceded by things like endurance, accuracy etc. 

Here is the list: 

BALLS 

3 ball–focus on: fluidity

cascade, 1-up 2-up–left, right, cross, underarm cross. 

cascade, 423–high, low, high claws.

cascade, claws; mills mess claws. 

cascade, over the top, tennis, reverse cascade, mills mess. 

cascade, fake 1-up 2-up, yo-yo carry, factory

shower, box

4 ball–focus on: continuity 

fountain endurance. 

reverse fountain endurance. 

pistons endurance. 

circles endurance. 

fountain, reverse fountain, pistons, fountain, circles. 

fountain, synch switch, left, right, cross, shower, switch. 

fountain, inside 5-3 swap, outside 5-3 swap. 

5 ball–focus on: accuracy (first 2 throws)

flashes

multiplexes–focus on: precision/endurance

4 ball cascade stacks

5 ball cascade stacks

4 ball cascade split to 4 ball fountain

RINGS

3 rings–focus on: comfort

cascade endurance

cascade, 1-up 2-up, 4 ring prep work

cascade, over the top, reverse cascade

CLUBS

3 clubs–focus on: continuity/accuracy

cascade endurance.

cascade, 1 double, 2 doubles, 3 doubles. 

doubles endurance.

cascade, 1-up 2-up.

half shower endurance.

reverse cascade endurance. 

423 endurance.

mills mess endurance. 

cascade, over the top, tennis, half shower, reverse cascade, mills mess, UA-double to cascade. 

cool down with mixed props 3 and 4 patterns, or juggling on unicycle. 

To be fair, I was coming down with a bit of a cold, so I was probably a bit testy to begin with when I went to the Georgia Renaissance Festival.

I already had my doubts about seeing any really impressive juggling there. My mom is a potter, and at a recent show she had a booth next to a group of people promoting the renaissance festival. Striking up a bit of conversation, she started telling them about me, and how I juggled and how, “wouldn’t it be great for me to come see the jugglers at the festival?”

She told me all of this later, and at one point she said she told them how I’d just started working on five. This is where my misgivings came from. 

According to my mom, the lady seemed really surprised and said, “Wow! If he is doing five then he must be really really good, no one does five.”

This was not a good sign. 

Yes. Five is tricky. Five has given me fits for months now. Not that I have been able to dedicate half as much time as I’d like towards it, but since my first flash of five a few months back, I am only up to 7 catches. 

I, however, have been juggling just over a year. That’s one year. One. Probably I’d peg myself at about 14-15 months at this point. 

I’m no prodigy, I don’t have any special gift–I just like to juggle. 

What I don’t like, though, is juggling for money. And therein lies the difference. 

Not to detract from the performances at the renaissance festival–I mean, after all, balance ladders and rolla-bolla’s are neat, they look cool–but still. To watch a half-hour of something billed as a juggling show and to see non-continouious under-the-leg throws be the most difficult trick performed–wait, make that the only trick performed–was a huge disappointment. It was more than disappointing. It made me angry. 

This was not a juggling show by any stretch of the imagination. I realize that it must get tedious doing the same half-hour show dozens of times in a weekend, week after week. 

But still. 

Go ahead, juggle the can of span, garden weasel and knife; the audience goes for it, include it in your act. 

But don’t you think they would respond to some quality 3-club tricks? I’m not asking for 7-ball siteswap patterns–no one but jugglers like that. 

A few backcrosses though, a good run of Mills mess, a pirouette or two, or even a kick-up to a run with five if your up to it–these tricks could be done in less than five minutes. I can’t fathom that seeing them wouldn’t be exciting for an audience and it would do so much to expand their idea of what can really be done by jugglers. Is it really so important that what you juggle be pointy or gimmicky that you don’t have a single club on stage during a juggling act?

I just don’t understand what would lead a person to call a show with so little juggling a juggling act. 

Other performers at the festival, I am thinking here of the Dexter Tripp Thrill Show (note the lack of juggling in the billing) actually did much more real juggling on stage. 

While the Thrill Show didn’t feature anything too elaborate, and despite having five torches on stage, Tripp only juggled three (I learned later, from his fiance, that he can do a run of continuous back-crosses with five torches) he also didn’t bill himself as a juggling act. 

I actually really enjoyed Tripp’s performance. He did a great act on a loose high-rope, and when he did a nice, clean run with three torches while standing on an audience member’s head, it looked really nice. 

He also threw in a few double tosses, and when he did chops with the torches, I have to admit it looked way, way better than club chops–the trail of fire really made the trick stand out. 

Tripp, too, used some interesting props. He did a run with a knife, an apple and a chainsaw that ended with the apple being cut in half by the saw. He played it up well, and it got a nice reaction. 

While Tripp didn’t do anything juggling wise that I would call exceedingly technically difficult, he didn’t bill himself as a juggler. His was a thrill show, and the focus was on the rope act. His performance there was fantastic. 

His tricks were complex, difficult and technically demanding; and it showed. He was a great talent because he pulled them off. He was a great performer because he made them entertaining. 

The same thing is true for good juggling. Good juggling, done well, is hard. Making it appealing onstage is even harder. 

The irony of all of this is that, of all the performances I saw, the “Juggling Show” not only had the least amount of juggling, but the juggling it had was also the most boring. 

Even the Barely Balanced Acrobatic show had more juggling in it. There were a few runs of simple 3-torch cascades, and some very clean four-count passing. 

I didn’t go to the renaissance festival to see a WJF or IJA routine. But I expected to at least see something that I couldn’t get up on stage and do after scarcely more than a year of casual practice. 

And for a final note, the juggler who tossed the can of spam and the other “dangerous” objects, was celebrating his 21st year on stage at that festival alone.