Juggling

In its general sense, juggling can refer to all forms of artful or skillful object manipulation. This includes most prop-based circus skills such as diabolo, devil sticks, cigar box manipulation, contact juggling, and hat manipulation.

The growth of juggling as a hobby, 1947 - present

Until the early 1950s, juggling was only practiced by performers. Since then more and more people have begun juggling as a hobby. The International Jugglers' Association began as a club for performing jugglers but soon had non-performers joined up and started attending the annual conventions.

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As more amateurs around the world began to juggle, purely as a hobby, they started meeting together regularly to practice and socialise in local groups. These groups formed into juggling clubs, and currently there are clubs for jugglers in almost every city and large town in the western world.

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When juggling was practiced by professionals only, jugglers were secretive and possesive of their tricks and skills. Over the years the attitude has changed, and juggling has now become a major social activity for hundreds of thousands (or possibly millions) of people all over the world who are more than happy to share their skills and encourage others to join in. This more open approach, and the fact that basic juggling is not that difficult to learn, has made juggling into an activity that almost anyone can participate in. There are many reasons why someone may learn to juggle. These include:

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• It is fun to learn and fun to teach
• It looks impressive even if you aren't very good at it... great for showing off!
• It can help relieve stress
• While it is initially easy to pick up, juggling is challenging and no matter how good you get there is always more to learn
• It can help improve reflexes and hand-eye coordination
• It has been "proven" to increase the size of your brain
• Some jugglers claim it makes them more attractive to the opposite sex
• It can be used to keep fit (often combined with jogging,which is called joggling)
• It can be a great icebreaker at parties

The majority of hobby jugglers can be split into one of two groups. The first are those who learned to juggle at university or college juggling clubs. These people are invariably mathematicians, scientists and computer programmers. They like juggling because it can be very structured and it can be analysed and modeled easily by maths and physics. Juggling has established itself as a very useful model for researchers studying motor skills and learning techniques. The second group are from the counter culture or alternative culture scene. They enjoy juggling because, while it can be very structured, it can also be as free as you want it to be, with a virtually infinite scope for individual personal expression. Fire juggling is a common appeal.

Related Topics:
University - Counter culture - Alternative culture

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Since the 1970s, "Juggling For the Complete Klutz", a book by John Cassidy that is sold with a set of three beanbags attached, has probably introduced juggling to more people than any other single source. Another reason for the increase of people who can juggle is that many businesses and schools have employed professional workshop leaders to teach various circus skills.

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