Circus tent and red flower

Juggling...

What is juggling, and what do I want to know about it?

The art of juggling

I like to describe juggling with the following statement: 

Juggling is the art of finding the most difficult way to perform something utterly useless.

Jugglers are always trying to find out, how 

they can modify a trick to make it even more unbelievable and impossible. For instance: After (finally) learning to juggle three clubs you could try to perform this trick while riding a unicycle. Well, and after that works, you probably want to balance an umbrella on your head. After countless hours of practice, you can ride that unicycle with just one leg and use your other leg to rotate a ring around it... Which could make you famous - however not all jugglers would even care, because most of them just want to master the challenges they have set up for themselves.

The culture of juggling

What is so special about the juggling community? 

Tricks are not secret - instead, the community ethics is to share tricks and show others how to learn them. This is also because juggling is "still better than magic" (which is a saying well-known to German jugglers, who say:  Jonglieren ist "immer noch besser als Zaubern")

What does it mean "still better than magic"?

The point is, that a juggler really had to practice very long and very hard for all the tricks he has mastered. For instance for learning to juggle 5 balls stable, a lot of practice is required. Any person with a good talent for juggling needs at least a year for mastery of this one trick. For magicians it's different: there are a number of magic tricks that you just need to buy in a shop. Well, a little practice may be necessary to perform them as well, but it's not comparable to the hard work required to learn a difficult juggling trick. 

The motto is: The tricks are commonly shared in the community - but each juggler will have to do the hard work of practice themself...

Well, my fellow magicians: please don't be annoyed! ...we don't really mean it dead serious with "still better than magic"