Somethin crazy for ya

Jugging Personality: Anthony Gatto

The man, the myth, the legend, Anthony Gatto. Some call him the best juggler in the world, some call him God. He happens to be the guy who was performing in Cirque de Soleil the day I went, and the guy who I give complete credit to for inspiring me to start juggling.

Gatto started performing when he was ten in Las Vegas, and hasn't stopped since. He also happens to hold 12 world records including longest time juggling 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 rings, 6 ,7 and 8 clubs and 7, 8 and 9 balls. Totally not a big deal. When you watch the video below you will understand that this man can not possibly be from this planet.

Anthony Gatto can be compared to Neo from the Matrix. They both have absurd amounts of skill in their field, and Anthony Gatto is most definitely The One in juggling terms. Neo can stop 12 bullets from simultaneously hitting his face, and Gatto can stop 12 balls from doing the same thing. Maybe they are brothers!

Again....Just watch the video and your mind will understand

Juggling History: Combat

Combat is a juggling game, a very very fun juggling game. Combat, in its most typical form, consists of a number of players juggling three clubs each, attempting to interfere with other players' juggling, with the winner being the last to remain juggling three clubs — not necessarily those they started with. It gets very intense and very violent.

When you have 20 jugglers with clubs flailing around and clubs high in the air and clubs everywhere, people get hurt. But it is still fun. The point of the game is to throw one club high enough that you have time to take your other clubs and whack peoples clubs out of their hands. It may sound stupid, but if you watch the video below you will understand.

The idea of the public sphere was invented by Habermas and then reinvented by Aaron Barlow in terms of blogs. Well combat is like a jugglers public sphere, except people get severely injured and don't share any information. Oh, and to make things even more official there is a league MLC, Major League Combat.
Just watch the video...

How to Juggle Three Clubs

Learning how to juggle clubs is like learning how to punch yourself in the face. It hurts 80% of the time. If you can comfortably juggle three balls for over 100 catches, then you are ready for clubs. In her book "Alone Together" Sherry Turkle talks about how High School students feel pressure from Facebook to fit in. Well, if you start juggling clubs, you will be in far too much pain to worry about Facebook, and so that problem will be solved!

My roommate, who I taught how to juggle the first week of school can now juggle three clubs for about 6 or so catches. Six catches with clubs is the equivalent of 50 catches with balls. yes, it is that much harder. Me and clubs have a love hate relationship, they are really fun to juggle, but I have lost the vision in my left eye.

I hope I am not discouraging anyone, I just want you all to be forewarned. Start with one, do it as many times as you can without dropping or hurting yourself, and slowly, very slowly go on to two or three. If you rush any of these steps your face and genitals will never forgive you.

Why Juggling=Good

We all know that juggling and hand-eye coordination have always gone hand in hand. No pun intended. But that is not the only positive affect on your body that you can receive from juggling. It has been proven multiple times that juggling leads to an increase in white matter and grey matter in your brain. White matter is one of the two components of the central nervous system. Not only does white matter increase, but your brain actually expands. A German study in 2004 of 24 non-jugglers showed that the half who juggled everyday for three months, came out with an "increase in gray matter in two areas of the brain involved in visual and motor activity, the mid-temporal area and the posterior intraparietal sulcus" (Medicalnewstoday.com).

Professor Sherry Turkle of MIT would certainly be pro-juggling if she heard that juggling not only gets you off the Internet, but makes your brain bigger. I'm going to go ahead and assume that Facebook does not do anything to help your brain. Probably neither does Google, Youtube, or those other sites that are often frequented online. EVERYONE SHOULD START JUGGLING. Our worries about the new age of technology and the Internet would be greatly diminished.

Juggling can be related to everything. Art's, Sports, Science, you name it and i'll find a way to incorporate juggling. On a side note it helped very greatly in getting me into college, nbd.

I will leave you with a quote from Jason Garfield, the President of the World Juggling Federation and my best friend.
"You call juggling a sport and people laugh, you call juggling an art and people laugh, when you say there is a juggle magazine people laugh a lot, you punch them in the face and they stop laughing"

How to Juggle: Five Balls

Okay, so apparently you are ready to juggle five balls. I highly doubt that, but who am I to judge. Someone out there must be ready so here goes. Five balls are hard. Really hard. If you can juggle five balls there is something wrong with you (that's me). Meaning you spent way too much time on one trick that is probably not worth the effort. And by effort, I mean at least 6 months of at least 2 hours of practice everyday. At least.

The only bright light in the learning of five ball juggling, is the tutorial above. The best juggling tutorial on Youtube by far. If you ask any juggler where they learned five balls, they will tell you "Steve's tutorial." (Steve is quite famous in the juggling community). In his tutorial, he goes over each step and what to do for each step. It is an amazing tutorial. If you do everything in this tutorial, and then add in 6-10 months of rigorous practice everyday, you will be juggling five balls, super easy stuff.

Mark Zuckerberg, the inventor of Facebook, spent many hours developing the social networking site that changed the world. He worked very hard and had to overcome many obstacles in order to achieve his goal. The same can be said for learning five ball juggling. Commitment and hard work can lead to anything you want it to, and both Mark and myself would both agree that it is worth it. 

How to Juggle: Four Balls

Stop reading this blog, and go back and master each of my previous tutorials.

Okay, If you are reading this hopefully you have achieved success with my previous posts, and are ready to learn how to juggle four balls. Four balls are not fun to learn, they are a lot different than three, and one more ball means a hell of a lot more frustration. The above tutorial is pretty good, and it is the same one that I used to learn four balls.

Four balls has one very big, very important difference from three. The balls do not cross. The four ball fountain differs from the three ball cascade, because you are juggling 2 balls in each hand without them ever crossing to the other hands. It is possible to juggle four balls in a crossing pattern, but that is much harder and way down the road. The fountain is the only way to have a symmetrical even pattern with four balls.

The most annoying thing when doing four is that the balls collide ALL THE TIME. The first week or so is going to suck, there will be a collision every 10 throws and it will be very frustrating. But don't give up, four balls are not impossible to learn and a lot easier to get comfortable with than five. If you don't believe me that you can juggle four balls, I will prove it. My roommate Chris, who learned how to  juggle probably around the second week of school has already qualified four balls (8 throws and 8 catches). Yeah he may have the best teacher in the world, but still. You can do it too. If you are reading this, and are someone who is pretty comfortable with three balls but are having trouble with four, I will give you a few exercises. Juggle two balls in one hand, in both hands, until your hands fall off. If you can do that with complete ease, four will not be hard at all.

Robert Putnam, in his book "Bowling Alone" talks about how people have stopped doing social activities that benefit their environment. People don't join organizations, or do community service anymore. They are always on the internet. Juggling is a great way to give back. Nursing homes and hospitals love it when jugglers put on shows for patients, everyone loves juggling and it really puts a smile on peoples faces when you perform for them. So everyone go become a juggler join the Skidmore Juggling Club that I am in the midst of starting, and we can all help the world.


Peace