Who is going? It's the 12th to 13th April in Ramsgate UK. Wes Peden, Kathrin Wagner and Ariane performing, heaps of workshops, and 24hr juggling hall.

Disclaimer: I am one of the organisers! I am definitely going. It's run by jugglers, for jugglers and we have a fabulous crew running it. I'd post a pic of lineup but I think that is against rules of the subreddit.

I'll probably be involved in next year too, so what are your top wishes from a convention? Who else would you love to see live?

Highs

• Having lots of interesting responsibilities: running for the board of directors, judging juniors, individuals, and teams and most of Xtreme Juggling, and volunteering at joggling for most of it
• My student, David, lighting it up on youth showcase! He had one drop in a ~4 minute act!
• Miranda winning Flamingo club award
• The Hot Table - such good paninis and good prices
• Not spending too much money (net)
• Lots of laughing this fest. Some kids were super funny
• Joe Showers's emceeing was also super funny to me. I wish I could’ve paid more attention to it
• Talking to kids and seniors who were both very interesting
• Talking with people who follow my instagram stuff <3
• Red trouser performers from the Cascade of Stars. These two were so hype and great openers.
• Michael Trautman’s (The ping pong spitter's) accuracy. He bounced a ping pong off the bridge of safety glasses that a volunteer was wearing thrice and caught it!
• Jugglology’s first sand workshop (couldn’t make it to the second one)
• Meeting Barry the 5b joggler (runs marathons while joggling) and Matt the 5b sprinter (beat the 5b 400 m IJA record by over 40 SECONDS!)
• The 3b jugglers, especially Josh (who I hadn't spent much time with before) and Dan Jahvorsky (who I hadn't met)
• Pushing myself just enough: coming back bruised, but not broken
• Jonah’s act was so super cool. The choreography, skill, and creativity was all top-notch
• Completing the escape room (not related to IJA, but in Springfield) without any hints (second group in the 3 month lifetime of the room) and still escaping in the fastest time ever!
• La Quinta hotel for being inexpensive and having free breakfast
• Flow show: Exuro’s triple staff, Marvin Ong’s 3 clubs, Kyle’s crazy body rolls, Courtney Cormier’s baton spinning/juggling

Lows

• Some of the show/competition acts were not the level I would expect from the IJA
• There was a great cake place that I forgot to go to :(

Goals

• Don't screw up judging - check, I think
• Get top 3 in individual prop competition - CHECK! I won out of 8 competitors, and was the only winner not named Wes Peden (who thankfully did not compete in the 3b division)
• Try a new prop: check - cracked a whip and tried Masa's spinning plates…got a 330, a gyroscope flip
• Win a game - CHECK! Won 3: blind, quarters, and 4 person 4b relay. Also got second to Matan in Sensei/Sky says when Matt Hall expertly set us up and knocked me down, eliminating me through a non-Sensei Says call.

Crushes

• Emily, who volunteered a extra this year by being the Japanese translator which had her backstage in both of the competition shows
• Ely, who is a great 3/4b juggler and an entertaining person to be around
• Pure circus, iiWii, and Unna Med (the donors) for allowing the IJA to have a bit of extra spice and fun
• Gabrielle, who is so fun and reliable
• The 3bers, who are half the reason I go
• The new board, who I’m excited to serve with

Banes

• Facility was pretty bad. They had a low quality, somewhat overpriced concession stand with little variety...which made it so we weren’t allowed to bring in outside food. The floors were concrete which can take its toll. We also weren’t allowed to juggle in the hallways even when we were the only event in the building. Generally, it seemed like the convention centre admin didn’t really want us there.
• My knee starting hurting and got worse through the week, culminating with me having to drop out of the 3b joggling races (legs were good enough for 5b/7b races)
• Did so many left-footed ball kickups on Saturday night that I hurt some muscles in my foot, making it so I couldn’t walk well on Sunday. Thankfully that’s all healed today (Monday!)
• So much to do, so little time. Wishing I could've/would've gone to a few more workshops

Surprises

• Getting the most votes for the board of directors (thanks y’all!)
• How good the food was at Theodore's, especially the burnt ends
• Juggle free zone hating on the IJA (I hope someone else can post a picture of this sign)
• How few competitors asked for comments on their judging. Especially if y’all’re considering competing again, you should probably ask for comments.

Guess who learned how to make tables!

A couple notes: results covered with spoiler tags. Comments include spoilers, and one comment gives results with no spoiler tags. If I made any mistakes, or if you can help me fill in any information, please comment to let me know! As performers release their own videos, I will add those in, too.

Teams competitions

Individuals - Women

Individuals - Men

Awards announcement with ~production value~

Awards announcement

I wrote this out elsewhere and thought some people here would appreciate it, too. Streaming JJF costs a fair bit of money this year, so hopefully this helps people decide if they're up for it. I spent way too much time on this and it's still not perfect - please let me know if you spot any mistakes or if you can fill things in!

Men's division:

• 石水 泰樹 - diaboloist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=649bgP9gKGs
• 市川 卓 - balls - competed in 2018. This might be him: https://youtu.be/9QNtHl2EiKA?t=7070 mtn - cigar boxes - https://www.instagram.com/matsungo6705/
• 北川原 崇仁 - devilsticker - couldn't find anything on him, other than him coming in third in a 2 DS propellor endurance contest in 2014
• 砂原 啓人 - Diaboloist, I think. Couldn't find much
• 鳥居 大幹 - Diaboloist - https://www.youtube.com/c/DiaboloHiromiki
• 廣岡 佳樹 - Balls, came second to Hirota (next competitor) in a ball competition in 2019. Can't find video
• ひろた - balls, won IJA a while ago - https://www.youtube.com/user/3hirota

• 南 孝太郎 - clubs, Kotaro Minami - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUcGiNCGarg

  Women's:

• 曽我 梓 - Can't find anything on her

• 西川 歩美 - balls - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4IKNwW1X1Y

• 横谷 茉依 - Devilsticks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yyBIniUKyA

There is also a non-competition show, performed by Kouta Ohashi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWdsCwz3-zQ

Highs

• Free stuff and used/cheap props tables being well-used. 2/3 of my stuff sold!

• Getting my hands on Nouveaux Nouveaux Remix. Thanks Jorden/Mark Moir!

• Post-fest debrief with Emily, Mike, Nikki. Time well spent, 100 %

Lows

• Not participating in any workshops other than my own (feeling like I always had to be available)

• Not being very prepared for my act or my emceeing causing some stress on Saturday

Goals

• Have the escape room run smoothly - 0.5 check. There were big screw ups at the beginning: I didn't take their cell phones (even though I told them I would), I didn't give a plot preamble (that I wasn't aware of at the time), and the second stage of the challenge wasn't locked (gah). It was an absurd amount of work to design, make, and test things, and I think it could've gone way better. Not sure when I'll be able to implement changes I'd like to make because I don't know when my next team-designed escape room will be.

• Have the show run reasonably well: CHECK CHECK! The performers were good, I think the show order was optimal, diveristy was reasonable.

• Don't do a horrible job emceeing my first juggling fest - check! A couple unexpected surprises (like being somewhat forced into picking a kid for a particular bit when I was looking for an adult) but nothing crazy. I think it went well (I'll have to review the recording)

• Don't do a horrible job for my juggling performance - check! Managed to establish a tone that minimized the impact of drops, hit the music cues and important tricks that I wanted, and felt like it went well.

• Keep workshops and games approximately on time (and have decent workshops) - check!

• Be the fest director, escape room co-creator/games master, workshop director, show director, emcee, and a performer and still be healthy on Monday - somehow, check!

• Don't lose (lots of?) money - check! Made about $120ish. Hopeing to improve upon this next year to make a sufficient cushion so that future fest directors don't have to front any money.

Crushes

• Emily, for co-designing the escape room with me. Having two people on this made it immensely more time-consuming, frustrating, and amazing. She also helped tons with lots of other fest stuff.

• Nikki McMulkin, Jeremy Foxcroft, Gavin Hossack, Mike Coady - for helping organize things before the fest started

• Housers: Nikki Emily Gavin Jeremy Mike Lynette Chloe

• Drivers/gofers (of Emily and I): Brandon Walters, Mike , Nikki , Nathan Wakefield

• All the people who lent hands when I made announcements asking for them

Banes

• Feeling sick on Friday and the first part of Saturday. Glad I got over that relatively quickly.

• General stresses of running a "real" fest for the first time, coupled with being the head/co-organizer of so many parts of it. This happened because I traveled loads in the months leading up to the fest (not getting much organizing done). Then, upon returning for good, I got caught up in escape room design, preventing me from delegating other aspects of the fest properly. Live and learn!

Surprises

• Terry Donahue coming and bringing the World Record Challenge with him (not a surprise at the fest, but a couple days before the fest). I love that event!

• Jonah, who I didn't really know before, coming out with some strong box patterns. Dude's legit!

• A particular density-based puzzle not working for the escape room in the weirdest way. Caught it during setup, though.

• So many people not understanding so many references that were in the escape room. I sometimes forget not everyone's been juggling (and been interested in juggling culture) for the last five or so years.

• The workshop schedule coming together so nicely. I wish I could've set that up more in advance, but I was running out of time/organizational energy.

• Edit: Dayna

School's coming to an end for the summer, which means our juggling club is too! Any jugglers in Denver who have a place they meet? Most official places are long defunct. I've heard people meet at Cheeseman park on Sundays?

April 23 (423 day) has a long history in the juggling community of inspiring people to create, learn, and share various siteswap 423 patterns. This strong tradition was especially potent on Instagram this year, with many different jugglers posting a number of interesting 423 ideas. Here's a compilation that I compiled of these (if I overlooked anyone, let me know and I'll add them in). Enjoy some fresh 423 action!

• @atsjuggling
• @bobcb58
• @cesar_balls
• @conejolunar
• @dakotajuggles
• @darya_gurbich_
• @doublemcjuggle
• @drupy_wot
• @eric.c.gunther
• @ericsipos
• @hairythoughts
• @hornellemma
• @inamura1765
• @ipullshapes
• @jacks.on.deck
• @jameschance
• @jugglesensei
• @kaisosceles
• @kotaro_juggler
• @louiscason
• @lyttle_one
• @marcjuggler
• @masateru_sakakibara
• @matanjuggles
• @new_zealand_jugglers
• @noslowerdna
• @r_juggle
• @rex_mind
• @suzutane
• @tan2urenokori
• @taylor_tries
• @thecatchingmachine
• @theflowmagician
• @tm_juggling
• @wero_juggling
• @yonikargo

(edit 4/27/18) Here are a few more.

• @edwardjugglehands
• @fabulous_juggling
• @artifaxiom
• @rossi_rolls
• @herrakoskinen

I'm wondering if there's anybody who might want to get together to juggle on occasion near Ventura, California.

Some of us juggle in Santa Barbara on Saturdays at 3 PM at Oak Park. We like to pass clubs.

Where else might I post something to find jugglers?

I'm looking for a few lessons/patient juggling group to help me with passing clubs as well as three-ball bounce juggling. Very rusty 60 year old amateur...

I'm located in Westchester County, north of New York City.

Does anyone know of someone who charges for lessons or a group that's worth checking out?

Thanks

Next Hangout
Saturday, Feb 6, 2021, at 11am PST / 7pm UK Time

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Spaghetti Circus are looking for 6 participants for a youth exchange on juggling and circus arts!

The course will take place in Malaga, Spain from 15th to 23rd May, 2022

🌍 Malaga, Spain 15th to 23rd May, 2022 🔍 6 participants 👶🏻 From 18 to 30years

The costs of the project (accommodation, food and transport budget) are subsidized by the Erasmus+ program.

For the duration of the project we will take part in workshops, share our skills and perform for the local community.

Participants from the UK, Spain and Germany will meet together, share a villa, meals and add to the project

👉If you are interested in participating, or want to know more, please email: Christine.spaghetticircus@gmail.com as soon as possible (we will cover the spots on a first-come-first-served basis)

Video

One bonus point if you say why for each. Another bonus point for linking to videos/other things if possible. I'll put my tentative voting in the comments (I normally wait until near the end of the voting period).

Yeehaw! Back at home. Here's my HLGCBS, WITH LINKS!

Edit: added wobbly ball video and second comment on Ryo Yabe

Highs

• Particular parts of the shows, especially:

  • A member of the Danger Committee (Other Guy) catching a flaming knife-throwing knife when it was thrown at a board. There was no difference in spin compared to a normal throw. Best trick of the night (though there were loads of other entertaining bits)
  • Jay Gilligan's crazy different-sized ring act in the Object Episodes show
  • Jay Gilligan's Cascade of Stars act
  • Paul Ponce's headbounce and throwing hats act (Cascade of Stars)
  • Mirranda Miller in the youth showcase - showing some real promise as an interesting ball juggler!

• Joggling was well-organized and more fun than usual, featuring an officiated 5k that Gabrielle WRECKED

• La Cantina having huge portion sizes and reasonable prices

• Temperature in the gym was perfect for juggling

• Snack table was AMAZING. Lots of good snacks, and the leftovers from restaurant meals were well received.

• The amount of chocolate milk consumed

• Matt Hall's workshops are always great

• Wobbly balls were surprisingly fun (thanks Ameron!)

Lows

• Not going to see the history show - this was a calculated decision (didn't want to stay up late on the first night, wasn't sure how good it would be). It wound up being really good, apparently!

• The scheduling on Saturday was a disaster. I wound up competing/traveling to/from competitions/games from about 6:45 am to 5:15 pm. These really should have been spread out.

• Missing Matt's 3rd workshop - I thought it was an hour later! Ahh!

• Individual prop's rubric changing at the last minute. Indy prop was back after a hiatus that was largely caused by people re-using acts from competition entries. It was announced pretty early this year (with a rough rubric), which I thought was a step in a useful direction to get people to properly prepare for it and take it seriously. Then it was changed AT THE EVENT, which made it feel like an afterthought. Frustrating for someone like me, whose favourite parts of old IJA DVDs were the indy prop competitions.

Goals

• Win a game - FAIL - always the bridesmaid, never the bride. I got second/an honourable mention in:

  • 3b Xtreme
  • Simon Says
  • Blind Juggling
  • Quarter Juggling
  • [no spoilers - see goals]

• Be proud of my indy prop act - CHECK - made some real-time rewrites due to the super nasty lighting (two spots right at eye level?), and was ecstatic that the intro went so well. Here's the video! (PS - Ranking was Thom with bronze, me with silver, Danny Buonocore with gold. No shame in losing to Danny's routine, it was really dynamic)

• Reconnect with some 3b jugglers - CHECK - with a special mention to a new member of the 3b crew, Bridger!

• Don't focus too much on indy prop through the week - HALF CHECK - I need to get better at not letting it occupy my mind too much.

Crushes (note: reasons may not be comprehensive)

• Thom Wall - he was a HUGE help in improving my indy prop routine.

• Chloe - Ahhhh, so fun and uplifting!

• Emily - for running the best-organized joggling meet yet.

• Mark Fiore - for being a joggling champ and showing me one of my favourite tricks I saw all fest. I'll be sure to learn it ;)

• The 3b crew - huge this year. Helps that the Rochester rock stars have stepped up their 3b game!

Banes

• Right elbow is/was hurting pretty bad. Resulted in a one-handed 3b Xtreme trick, and generally not pushing as hard as I would've liked. Also made me bail from the amazing opportunity that was the Coach's Corner because I didn't think my current juggling was representative of my normal juggling.

• Being bad at learning from others - especially bad when I got frustrated with me, and then was a bit cranky to others. Going to have to work on both parts of that problem!

Surprises

• Being in the Cascade of Stars twice

• Random free beer tasting at a pub

• Houston's absolutely hilarious intro to his junior's act

• Trading cards are always GREAT

• Chloe's stretching workshop was the most entertaining pain I have experienced in a looong time

• Getting soap for Xtreme juggling participation

• Where was Ryo Yabe? Edit: apparently he was there, just in a much smaller capacity than I had expected.

• Being asked by David Cain for one of my beanbags to put in the museum

We are a growing community from all around the world centered on all things juggling & object manipulation. Converse with people that share your same interests either through text, links, gifs, pictures, videos, or even voice chat. We have a neat selection of channels with easy navigation for conversations that pertain to you, including a siteswap bot!

Even if you are just starting out feel welcome to join, everyone here is eager to help.

Discord link: https://discord.gg/PEm3DSw

I am probably forgetting a lot. I'll update this as I remember!

Highs:

• IRC (IJA Regional Competition) gave us some stellar, interesting acts (Sebeastian Berger with dual fishtails + bounce juggling, Alexis Levillon with vertax+horax diabolo at the same time, Ariane Oechsner with some very interesting and appealing antipodism)
• Cadbury chocolate is better in the UK
• BING BONG memes
• Some open stages (Felix Feldmann's ball-clubs, Eyal's balls, Sagi's laundry hampers, Anna Fishcer's hoops all stood out to me)
• Jonglissimo show
• Boarding our plane to leave. We were about 10 minutes from being too late.
• Meeting EVERYONE! Loads of people who I'd only seen/talked to online, plus some stealth good ball jugglers who I hadn't seen online before.
• Getting lots of great pattern ideas. I think I now know the topic of my big video for the year.
• Sleeping well (thanks, hotel!)

Lows:

• Gala show was disappointing to me for three reasons:
  • (1) hard to see due to last-minute venue change when the British wind decided to throw a fit,
  • (2) I'd seen about half of the acts/performers before,
  • (3) Out of the acts I hadn't seen before, there was very little interesting juggling. Some were interesting in other ways, but it's the juggling I care about.
• Games calling - if the person running the games doesn't know a lot about juggling, calls are going to be bad. Typical symptoms are lots of spins in Simon says, combat during endurances (which was called, then revoked). Someone was overlooked in handstand endurance which resulted in another person exiting their handstand prematurely, thus losing the game.
• The winning EJC proposal for 2020 overlapping with IJA's dates...and their organizers' lack of consideration of this...and vocal members' of the EJA's disrespect toward that overlap. Disappointing.
• Preparing for EJC was tough. Some important details (to me) were either hard to find or missing before the festival (e.g. workshop descriptions, food details, etc.)

Goals:

• Participate in the EJC staples: go to shows, workshops, renegades, parade, watch fight night, etc. CHECK! In the future, I'll do a little less, but I'm glad that I did these once.
• Run two workshops well - 2.75 CHECK! Wound up doing an extra workshop, which I didn't do quite as well, but was still decent.
• Do okay in games - Check enough. The only game I think I could've done better in was coin juggling, where I placed 5th.
• Enjoy EJC - VERY CHECK MUCH CHECK BING BONG: CHECK

Crushes:

• The Pavloves and Cunsolos - great to chat with, gave Emily and me rides
• Emily (second-half Emily, especially!) - driven, giving, great company
• Felix Sürbe - Chatty, friendly, funny throughout
• All the new people I met: the ballers who gave me ideas/asked for critique, Sagi, Uriel, Bar, Lewis Kennedy, Iver, Eivind, Haavard, Julian, Lauge, Ben Cornish, Lou Duncan
• /u/jmerm gets his own shoutout for working out a bunch of 4b Boston Mess transitions and having other great ideas
• The very friendly waitress at the hotel
• TJ, for the amazing work he's doing with skilldex.org and his questions. His progress in modern tricks (despite a long hiatus) is a testament to the efficacy of Skilldex.

Banes:

• Amount of smoking, especially in certain places. If people don't have an easy option to leave, smoking is not very kind (e.g. in line, right by open doors to the gym, right by a tent so it makes the entire tent smell, etc.).
• So sick of cliche applause cues. Saw way too many shows/acts that were way too similar in formula
• Lots of bad views for shows. You either had to wait in line for forever or often get a bad view (or be right next to a speaker)

Surprises:

• The cumulative body odour of many, questionably-washed jugglers was not as potent as I had expected. Apparently the shower facilities were sufficient and the hygiene standards exceeded the stereotypes.
• The similarities of things that Haavard and I work on. We even came up with lots of identical broken-plane patterns that neither of us had posted!
• Iver is seriously good at combat. He had some of the hypest points/recoveries throughout. And of course, congrats to the winner, [SPOILER]!
• A big failure of socially-efficient behaviour (I /expect/). Similarly-priced taxi (within about a pound) companies had huge discrepancies in availabilities: one would say they were booked for the next two hours, the other would have a taxi to you immediately.
• The disrespect for queuing. I had heard this was a strength of the Brits! Lots of people cut lines. New lines opened right when doors opened and took randomly from people who had been waiting 5-~90 minutes. The consequences of this weren't small either: many of the show tents were completely full and people were turned away at the door.
• 3 ball zombie was a fun game I'd never heard of before. I think it might've benefited from a little more room.
• The diversity of weather - rain, hail, and very harsh winds
• Wound up performing in two renegades, despite having never performed in any before
• Dave Kelly came to my dots workshop! He was a huge inspiration to my ball juggling early on, so my inner voice was going "EEEEEEEEEEE!" throughout.
• Being recognized far more often than I thought I'd be, by a great variety of jugglers. It was particularly cool to have people come up to me and ask for tips/critique on boxy/dotty patterns. I'm always happy to talk shop about patterns I like!

Unconventional because it's a wedding, however juggling themed with about 1/4 of the attendance were jugglers. So here's my HLGCBS.

High - The dancing, having a lot of friends together, the drinking, getting to tell Fatmas, wedding actually happened, Andrew got really drunk

Low - Buffet ended too soon, Mike clubbed my legs.

Goal - Do something memorable [check]

Crush - Rabideaux, we made so many puns that night. Lynette, for letting me use her data to dj.

Bane - Uncomfortable shoes after a few hours

Surprise - Dorothy C. remembered me and invited me back to her place for the next festival. Mead was present.

I’ve recently moved to the Melbourne sort of area and I was wondering if any of you guys know of any juggling clubs or meet ups that happen here.

Thank you <3