Here’s a short film a friend forwarded to me. Various fire artists, talking about their art, and some performance.

Some are from the San Francisco Bay Area, maybe all.

I just heard that the Berkeley Juggling Festival has moved this year. They will be at

Berkeley High School
1980 Allston Way
Berkeley, CA

It’s a short walk from downtown Berkeley Bart. I don’t know that area well, but parking around there can be a problem, so bart if you can.

The variety show will still be at the old location. Check the festival website, just in case details change, or I’ve read something wrong!

See you there!

The Berkeley and Unicycle Festival is coming up, Friday, September 18th – Sunday, September 20th. The festival and workshops are free, the show is $10.

This amazing event has around 35 different classes over three days, as well as two shows, and other activities. I’m definitely going to this one – my third time. I may try to learn to unicycle.

Contact Juggling/Object Manipulation Workshops:

• Saturday 3:00pm:Beginning Contact Juggling
• Sunday: 10:00am: Advanced Object Manipulation
• Sunday:Noon: Contact Juggling Show and Tell

The Portland Juggling Festival is coming up, and I hope to make it there this year. The usual other things like unicycles, diablo, etc., of course.

http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#/event.php?eid=106645804304

One thing I experienced at the Santa Cruz Juggling Festival was getting burned when doing contact juggling with my acrylic spheres in the sunshine. That’s why you can see me there practicing in the shade. I learn slowly, but I do learn!

But my stings were mild compared to this woman’s problems. She managed to burn down her house with an acryllic sphere. She put it in a window, and it lit her television on fire.

So keep your spheres covered when you are not using them, and don’t put them down (or leave them) where there is direct sunlight.

I was at the 2009 Santa Cruz juggling festival recently, and I had a blast. Only downside was the heat. Bring a hat, bring sunscreen, and bring water. (I’m fond of throwing water bottles in the freezer, and bringing them. After a couple hours, they half melt, and are still wonderfully cold).

There were a range of classes; there was club juggling, contact juggling, hoops and whip cracking. I’ll definitely go next year. I wish they would find a spot with a little more shade, though.

Lots of pics at the link above.

If you are going to juggling dangerous objects like bowling balls (chainsaws, etc.), do it somewhere you have space, and a perimeter around you.

And if you don’t think bowling balls are dangerous, look at this. Warning, will make you wince!

As if juggling right-side up wasn’t hard enough, Erik Kloeker set a new world’s record for upside down juggling. The record now stands at five minutes, breaking his previous record of 4:05.

Here is a video of last year’s 4:05 second record breaker. I haven’t found video of today’s record breaker yet. Comment if you have a link, please.

Ok, it’s only one object in the air at a time, so it might technically be just tossing, not juggling, but it’s got to be a pretty good workout.

The kettle bell juggling blog says that bell weighs 16 kg/35 pounds.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of my reasons for blogging was to give myself a place to track progress. Which also gives other people learning someone to compare themsleves to. I have no idea whether I’m learning fast, or incredibly slowly. (Past experience suggests slowly).

Today, I’ve managed to do a three ball palmspin in both hands, in both directions. It’s not smooth, and I still tend to drop. It’s also very clicky, but I’m working on that.

I can palmspin two balls in either direction touching, in either hand. Both hands at once just worked after I got the individual hands. I can also palm spin two balss both directions, both hands, without letting the balls touch. But I’m nowhere near as good with that. They still click one time out of four, or so. Less if I’m really careful, so I’m trying to be really careful.

I tried a four ball pyramid a few times, but haven’t successfully completed even one step. (One step = 1/3 of a revolution, if the base is three balls).