University of Waterloo Juggling Festival 2000

Below is a review of the University of Waterloo Juggling Festival originially posted by Greg Phillips to rec.juggling on March 21, 2000. It has been edited slightly.

It’s far too early for a Saturday morning when I pick Arne up and we start the trek from Kingston to the University of Waterloo. Four hours later we arrive at the Student Life Center, each of us containing one indigestible fast-food lunch and several litres of coffee. The first room we look in is definitely not a Juggling Fest—there are people doing push-ups, while others look on and applaud. Some weird cult thing I guess, but where are the jugglers? Oh, there, through the door at the back—shiny things going up and down. Must be it.

The room is spacious, carpeted, well lit, and surrounded by comfy chairs. Heavenly. It’s full of jugglers doing all the things that jugglers do, plus a few kids risking everyone’s life and limb by zooming across the floor on unicycles. At a glance there seems to be sixty people so far, ranging in age from about six through sixty-something. And it’s still early.

At the registration table Kent Walker greets us and says that we appear to have come the farthest. This turns out to be patently false since there is someone there from Michigan, and Franklin Mendivil is up from Atlanta. But it’s flattering anyway. I buy a bottle of water, which turns out to be supercooled: it goes from liquid to microcrystalline slush the instant I open it. “Oh yeah,” says Kent, “it’s been sitting out in my truck all night.”

Don Higgins from True Canadian Balls is set up in the far corner. I make a beeline for his stand while the selection is still good. My lucky day: he has three orange Radical Fish all-fluoros in stock to complement the three I already have, plus lots of other great stuff. I take a total of nine clubs (three for me, three for Shamus, and three for the Queen’s Jugglers); he cuts me a good deal.

Then it’s time for some serious juggling. I stretch out, and start working on a few three-ball tricks to warm up. Off to my right, Cam Fleming, Steve Holditch and Franklin are running seven, then Cam switches to nine, and then to five clubs. Steve switches to continuous behind-the-back catches with five, and Franklin goes to a nice smooth six. Meanwhile Melinda (didn’t catch her last name) is calmly doing the smoothest looking Alberts I’ve ever seen, slow and graceful rather than athletic. It’s hard to decide whether to juggle or just stand there watching. I move up to four balls, then five, which seems to be as shaky as ever. Maybe I’ll get a good run in the endurance competition later. As if.

Time for the club catching competition. I donate nine clubs to the cause, then stand back and watch (short arms are a bit of a handicap). Kent is throwing the clubs in as nice floaty flats, but with a fairly rapid beat. At first it looks like the record is going to be somewhere in the thirties, then someone gets a fifty something. Cam steps up, and fifty-eight clubs later steps down to thunderous applause. A couple of other people give it a go, but no one even comes close. Score one bag of candy for Cam.

I start juggling my new Fish, trying to get backcross doubles to work. As usual, they don’t, and I become a hazard to all in the neighbourhood. Fortunately it’s time for individual beanbag combat, so I set the clubs down before anyone gets hurt. First person to three victories wins the match. Three different people win the first three rounds, so it looks like things could go on a while. But they don’t: Cam runs around the floor stealing like a maniac and shortly the match is his. Score him a second bag of candy.

Franklin is heading off for a late lunch, and offers to let me use his three-inch Fergie Bags while he’s gone. Very pleasant — I don’t think my runs are any smoother, but the bags sure feel nice in the hands. Looking around, I notice that the five best jugglers in the room are all using various sizes of ultra-leather Fergies. Maybe there’s something to this.

Kent calls for the start of the five ball endurance. Franklin’s gonna be pissed — he thought it started later, and now he’s gonna miss it. Well, no help for it: I find myself a nice spot and try to relax. The timer says start, and I get a relatively smooth run that comes to a crashing finish after about ten seconds. This is actually pretty good for me, but hardly competitive. After a minute or so there are only five jugglers left out of an original field of perhaps twenty. Melinda drops, and points out that she would have won the women’s division, had there been one. At three minutes there are only three jugglers left: Bob Cates, Steve “no shirt” Holditch, who is wearing a shirt, and Cam Fleming. At 3:40 Bob drops, and at 5:50 Steve throws an unfortunate collision. Cam keeps going to 7:45 and emerges the victor. Score him a third bag of candy.

Franklin comes back. I was right: he is annoyed at missing the endurance competition. But I don’t think anything gets him too upset. He notices my Fish, and asks if he can try four of them. He normally juggles Henrys, which are much flippier, and he has a bit of trouble finding the right spin. Mike Levy comes up with his checkered Dube’s and asks Franklin if he wants to pass. They play with some cool-looking popcorn triples for a while, then ask if I’d like to join them. “Sure” I say, feeling totally outclassed. We work on some basic feeds and triangles for a while, then Mike suggests a rotating feed. I suggest that they let me practice regular feeding a bit first, since I’m not actually all that good at it. They patiently put up with my ineptitude for ten minutes or so and I really do get much better. But then Mike has to disappear, so we never do get to the rotating feed after all.

While we’re doing this, team combat is going on. I don’t actually watch much of it, but do manage to catch the last few seconds. Surprise, surprise: Cam’s team wins. I hope he’s got a dental plan.

I notice Jonathan Imbert from Guelph on the far side of the room, with his girlfriend Julie. Jonathan had earlier told me that Julie “didn’t juggle”, but it looks to me like she has a pretty solid cascade going with those three Fish of hers. (Yes, most people in the room were juggling “normal” clubs.) I walk over and ask Jonathan if he’d like to pass. Apparently he’s been teaching himself using four clubs, with Julie patiently holding one and throwing it in for him, but he’s never actually passed six with another juggler. Cool—I finally get to teach someone instead of always being the student! We pass for a while (he’s very good, considering) and I attempt to introduce him to the Mystery of the Early Double. He does manage to snag one—and probably would have caught more if I’d been a bit more accurate with my throws.

Then it’s off to supper with Arne, and back just in time for the show. There must be well over a hundred people there, and comfy chairs for all as promised. Joe from Waterloo starts the show with his first performance ever, a nice selection of three, four, and five ball tricks. He’s followed by BiScotty, the fourteen-year-old escape artist, who manages to wriggle out of an undersized straight jacket and fifty feet of metal chain. Then Kent comes on in a natty sky-blue blazer and runs five and six rings, followed by assorted club tricks. He gives us a treatise on Russian circus performers, and how they always drop on their final trick, only to be richly rewarded by the crowd when they finally get it right two tries later. Kent demonstrates with five clubs, and leaves the stage to laughter and wild applause. Then Cam comes on and does some slick hat manipulation, some ring juggling with up to seven including a seven ring pulldown, seven and then nine balls, and three, four, and five clubs. Gary Auerbach does a nice audience-participation bit and shows off some astonishing freestyle frisbee tricks. Then Bob Cates gets up on a freestanding ladder while Ben Burland mounts a nine-foot unicycle — and the two of them pass six clubs without once falling over (or even wobbling much). Finally Bob rounds out the show with a charming cigar box routine choreographed to “The Entertainer”, some four plate juggling and plate spinning with real, cafeteria-style china plates, and a hilarious plate spinning routine building to eighteen plates wobbling away on their poles. Fabulous. In between acts, the raffle is held, with lots of nice prizes donated by Dube and True Canadian Balls, as well as “all the candy Cam didn’t win”.

Then it’s time to say goodbye, and back in the car for the drive home. Well—only three more weeks to RIT!

Greg