Good and bad jugglers

Everyone who possesses the ability to juggle is called a juggler. If you practice alone, never talking to anyone else who possesses this ability, then all you care about is the few tricks you can do. That's fine, especially since those kinds of jugglers will never read this post and I can say whatever I want about them, although I believe they would do well to look us up and join the community. If you aren't one of those lone wolf juggler types, then you probably interact with one or more jugglers, most likely not at your exact same skill level. This discrepancy creates two categories. You're either the better juggler or the worse juggler. But is it the case that a better juggler automatically has a better opinion about juggling?

We'll look a bit closer at the situation in this article. If you're reading this, I'm just going to take a long shot and assume you're on the Gatto forums or rec.jug and you are aware of what goes on in the juggling community. You know about how skillful you are compared to other jugglers. You know if you want to be a performer or not. You have an opinion about who's the best. You know what tricks you want to work on and you have a prop preference. All these things are personal, so imposing a right and wrong, or a better and worse on them would be silly. Everyone is different and we can understand that.

So is there a difference between any juggler of mediocre skill (you, me, Andrew) and... Thomas Dietz? His skill is much higher than ours, possibly at an unattainable level given the circumstances like amount of practice time, dedication to juggling, performance schedules and if you do something else with your life. Does that make his a better opinion about how juggling should be viewed? Absolutely not! It's true that he can make a more convincing argument based on the experience he has gained in his 20 or so years of juggling, but there must be more to creating an informed opinion. Theories, presentation styles and practice methods are personal representations of who you are as a juggler. Thomas has certain things that work for him, such as the drills he does in practice. If you're not Thomas Dietz, then using the same exact practice drills would probably be pointless. Take the information you learn from meeting and talking to Thomas and apply it to yourself to craft your own version of how your practice or presentation should go. Don't copy and paste his style and choices to your style and choices. Learn why he does what he does and use that information to figure out what makes you tick.

In this sense, people can't really be "better" or "worse" than one another either. They can only be different. This goes back to the whole three ball vs. numbers argument. Who's to say what's better? There's some amazing 3 ballers who take years to learn the vast variety of tricks they know, but it's the same with numbers. Takes a looooong time to learn how to correctly flash 11 balls. Instant jugglers are in search of some immediate gratification, so they go on quests for nine balls, seven clubs, nine rings and loads of hard tricks so they can call themselves one of the best. If that's what people are really juggling for, I think they've missed the point.

The difference among jugglers isn't measured by how good of a juggler they are, but the quality of their character toward other community members. If they're only concerned about themselves and personal goals, I would say their opinions and methods of dealing with other jugglers aren't as highly thought out or skillful as the people who have been around slightly longer, or have a better disposistion towards the art of juggling. I met a kid at the WJF who had a bad attitude and projected it at Wes, Norbi, the crew I was hanging out with and me. He's a decent juggler, but a bad example of what a juggler should be. Another kid at the WJF was just starting out, had the instant ability of some cool tricks (five balls, four ball Mills Mess... the disco) but he also had a better disposistion toward other jugglers. When communicating, it wasn't about what he could do or how quickly he learned, but it was about the transfer of ideas so that both jugglers could walk away saying "I learned something by talking to that guy." He was only ten or so, but he had the maturity possessed by a 16 year old. I expect him to learn a lot because his conversations aren't two monologues going on at the same time. He listens just as much as he speaks and everything is relevant to the goal of both jugglers bettering themselves.

Lastly, I just hope that when people think of juggling, they think less of balls, rings and clubs, and think more about what belonging to a community means. This way everyone can become more skilled and we suffer less in the social interaction department.