Nagoya Juggling Club

Saturday, December 18th, 2010 in: News

One of the advantages of having a ton of crazy talented friends is it makes it easy to meet even more crazy talented people. I met my friend Kazuya through my yo-yo friends, and found out that in addition to yo-yo, he’s been juggling for over a decade. Having recently started getting into it myself, I asked if I could tag along to some juggling practices.

The proper club meets once a month in a big gymnasium somewhere in Nagoya; I would have never found it on my own. Inside is an interesting mix of talents, from juggling various props and contact juggling to diabolo, cigar boxes, poi, and a variety of street performance arts. Hanging out with the club, I’ve started to learn how to ride a unicycle, twirl poi (think fire dancing), play with a trick rope, contact juggle and spin plates on a stick. It doesn’t get any better for a jack of all trades like me.

In this world of skill sets, there seem to be two major categories that people fall into. Kazuya and myself are the self-motivated players; we love to learn and practice these new skills just so we can do them. It’s just fun to do this stuff, and its biggest reward is just being able to pull off a difficult maneuver. Then there are the performers, who want to impress an audience of some kind, be it for competition or performance on a small or large scale. Individual street performers and even circus acts often came to practice with the juggling group, and it’s something else to see them run through their routines, like getting a peek behind the curtain. But for them, it’s more like work than play; far too organized and serious for floaters and dreamers. It takes years of solid practice to make those tricks seem effortless. But that seriousness isn’t just for show, these performers really pour their sweat and blood into these routines for our amusement, and hopefully a little bit of money. One of the biggest annual venues for these performers is the Daidougei World Cup in Shizuoka.

Next up is my first field report from the Daidougei World Cup!

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