 | |
| Abbreviation | WJF |
|---|---|
| Formation | 2000 |
| Type | 501(c)(3) |
| Purpose | Promote sport juggling |
Founder and President | Jason Garfield |
| Website | www.thewjf.com |
The World Juggling Federation (WJF) is the world's only organization devoted to the promotion and advancement of juggling as a sport (competitive juggling). [1]
In 2000, long-time IJA member Jason Garfield founded the WJF. [2] Garfield attracted interest and membership by framing the skills of juggling as a sport. [3] The WJF broadcast its first juggling convention on ESPN2 in January 2005 [4] and its second convention on ESPN later the same year. [5] In 2021, the WJF was reestablished as a 501(c)(3) organization [6] [7] and announced its goal to create a juggling event at the Olympics. [8] [9]
The WJF's most well-known event is the WJF convention, which has been broadcast on ESPN2. The organization encourages jugglers to compete against each other in order to get better. In WJF-sponsored events, the participants use juggling props, which include: Balls, Rings, Clubs, Cigar boxes, Diabolos, and Devil Sticks.
WJF competition events sometimes include (pending enough competitors attending):
There are "junior"-, "beginner"-, "intermediate"- and "advanced"-level competitors in each of the three main WJF disciplines.
Annual WJF conventions are held; and juggling competitions produce annual winners who are named "overall champions". At WJF 5, the top competition event ran alongside the Battle for the WJF Presidency, with Thomas Dietz as the inaugural winner, beating Jason Garfield. However, Dietz resigned from presidency soon after, saying he didn't have time to fulfill his duties as president. At WJF 7 in 2011, Doug Sayers was initially named overall champion, but due to a miscount of the scores this was proved not to be the case, as Vova had scored more points overall.
| Year | Event | Location | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | WJF Convention | Las Vegas, Nevada | |
| 2005 | WJF2 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Thomas Dietz, Overall champion [10] |
| 2006 | WJF3 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Thomas Dietz, Overall champion [11] |
| 2007 | WJF4 | Hartford, Connecticut | Thomas Dietz, Overall champion [12] |
| 2008 | WJF5 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Thomas Dietz, Overall champion. [13] |
| 2010 | WJF6 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Doug Sayers, Overall champion. [14] |
| 2011 | WJF7 | Springfield, Illinois | Vova Galchenko, Overall champion [15] |
| 2012 | WJF8 | Sioux Falls, South Dakota | Doug Sayers, Overall champion |
| 2013 | WJF9 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Jonah Botvinick-Greenhouse, Overall champion |
| 2014 | WJF10 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Doug Sayers, Overall champion |
| 2015 | WJF11 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Jonah Botvinick-Greenhouse, Overall champion |
| 2016 | WJF12 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Delaney Bayles, Overall champion |
| 2017 | WJF13 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Spencer Androli, Overall champion |
| 2018 | WJF14 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Christian Hauschild, Overall champion |
| 2019 | WJF15 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Eivind Dragsjø, Overall champion |
| 2021 | WJF16 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Spencer Androli, Overall champion |
| 2022 | WJF17 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Spencer Androli, Overall champion |
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.
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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.
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Competitive or sport juggling may range from friendly and silly games to competitive sports. Most juggling conventions include friendly games such as endurance and gladiators. Since 1969, the International Jugglers' Association (IJA) has held annual stage championships, judged both on technique and presentation. The stage championships have three categories: Individuals, Teams and Juniors. First, second and third-place winners in the Stage Championships are awarded medals and money prizes. In addition, the Numbers Championships awards Gold medals to those who demonstrate that they can juggle the most balls, clubs or rings for the most catches.
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