Juggling is a physical skill, performed by a juggler, involving the manipulation of objects for recreation, entertainment, art or sport. The most recognizable form of juggling is toss juggling. Juggling can be the manipulation of one object or many objects at the same time, most often using one or two hands but other body parts as well, like feet or head. Jugglers often refer to the objects they juggle as props. The most common props are balls, clubs, or rings. Some jugglers use more dramatic objects such as knives, fire torches or chainsaws. The term juggling can also commonly refer to other prop-based manipulation skills, such as diabolo, plate spinning, devil sticks, poi, cigar boxes, contact juggling, hooping, yo-yo, and hat manipulation.
Thomas Dietz is a professional juggler from Regensburg, Germany. He is recognized as one of the greatest technical jugglers in the world. He holds various unofficial juggling records and also the five club juggling world record of 53 minutes and 21 seconds. However, he gained most of his popularity through several juggling videos featuring his highly technical tricks including siteswap variations, pirouettes, and long runs of numbers with clubs, balls, and sometimes rings.
Vladimir, known as Vova, and Olga Galchenko were a brother and sister juggling team originally from Russia, active from approximately 2001 to 2009. They specialized in club juggling, particularly technical solo juggling, technical club passing and numbers club passing.
Plate spinning is a circus manipulation art where a person spins plates, bowls and other flat objects on poles, without them falling off. Plate spinning relies on the gyroscopic effect, in the same way a top stays upright while spinning. Spinning plates are sometimes gimmicked, to help keep the plates on the poles.
Many countries, cities or juggling clubs hold their own annual juggling convention or juggling festivals. These are the backbone of the juggling scene, the events that regularly bring jugglers from a wide area together to socialize. The attendance of a convention can be anything from a few dozen to a few thousand people.
Since the late 1980s, a large juggling culture has developed, revolving around local clubs and organizations, special events, shows, magazines, video sharing websites, Internet forums, juggling competitions and juggling conventions. Populating the scene are many juggling celebrities who are notable for being good or creative jugglers, entertaining performers, convention organizers, experts in their field, having a strong presence online or just for having an interesting personality, character or style.
When you pulled out three balls in 1973, what was going through people's minds was, 'I saw a deformed midget do that once.' But when you pulled out three balls in the '80s, it was, 'a guy in my dorm room used to do that.'
The European Juggling Convention (EJC), is the largest juggling convention in the world, regularly attracting several thousand participants. It is held every year in a different European country. It is organised by changing local organisation committees which are supported by the European Juggling Association (EJA), a non-profit association founded in 1987 in Saintes, France. Like most juggling conventions, it features a mix of workshops for jugglers, a "renegade" performance performed for participants, games, performances and a public show, usually spread out over a period of a week in the European summer. Accommodation is usually in the form of tents provided by participants.
Joggling is a competitive sport that combines juggling with jogging. People who joggle are called jogglers.
Albert Lucas is an American juggler born in 1960 to Albert and Yvonne Moreira. He is notable for juggling while ice skating, setting numbers juggling records, and promoting sport juggling.
Jason Garfield is a juggler and entertainer from Norfolk, Connecticut, United States. He is the founder and president of the World Juggling Federation (WJF).
The World Juggling Federation (WJF) is the world's only organization devoted to the promotion and advancement of juggling as a sport.
The International Jugglers' Association or IJA is the world's oldest and largest nonprofit circus organization, and is open to members worldwide. It was founded in the United States in 1947, with the goal of providing, "an organization for jugglers that would provide meetings at regular intervals in an atmosphere of mutual friendship." Although its focus lies on juggling, its programs also support other circus disciplines.
Twirling is a form of object manipulation where an object is twirled by one or two hands, the fingers or by other parts of the body. Twirling practice manipulates the object in circular or near circular patterns. It can also be done indirectly by the use of another object or objects as in the case of devil stick manipulation where handsticks are used. Twirling is performed as a hobby, sport, exercise or performance.
The Passing Zone is an American comedy-juggling duo comprising Jon Wee and Owen Morse. Wee, originally from Minnesota, and Morse, a California native, met at a juggling convention in northern California in 1986 and decided two years later to team up. Since then, the Passing Zone has won 18 gold medals from the International Jugglers' Association (IJA) and holds five Guinness World Records.
Bruce Sarafian is an American juggler and unicyclist from Florida. He performs in venues such as theme parks, festivals, fairs and also for corporate clients. He began juggling at the age of 10. In 2007 he started and now operates a custom used classic jeep dealership in Central Florida, which has become one of the nation's largest, called EZJeeps.com In 2018 his jeep dealership was renamed EZCustom4x4.com
Dan Bennett is an American comedian and juggler who has been on numerous TV shows as well as in TV commercials in the U.S. He currently resides in Arizona and performs Corporate Entertainment for clients such as McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Novell, Quaker Oats, and Nu Skin. He specializes in a focused mix of physical comedy that is applied to the business terms and problems of his corporate clients. Dan Bennett has a doctorate in Mathematics and was a calculus instructor for a time.
Arthur Lewbel is the inaugural Patrick Roche Professor of Economics at Boston College, and is known in the fields of applied microeconomics and econometrics. He is an editor of Econometric Theory, former co-editor of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, a fellow of the Econometric Society, a fellow of the Journal of Econometrics, holds a Multa Scripsit award, and is ranked number 30 on Coupe's list of top economists in the world by publication. Lewbel's economic research is mainly in the areas of micro econometrics and in consumer demand analysis.
The Israeli Juggling Convention (IJC) takes place each year during the Passover Holiday. The IJC is the second biggest juggling convention in the world with around 2000 participants each year.
The two brothers Christoph and Manuel Mitasch are a world class juggling team from Austria. They are performing under the stage name Jonglissimo.
Thom Wall is an American juggler and variety entertainer from Saint Louis, Missouri, USA. NPR has called him "one of the world's most notable jugglers."
