Numbers beast Alex Barron recently managed to get this 13 ball flash on video. It’s moments like this when you can’t help but wonder: exactly what are the limits in numbers juggling and how far can one take it? Amazing.

Best Catches is a sifter for the unplugged, the lazy, and the busy. It’s a bi-weekly roundup of the freshest juggling videos, forum topics, and blog posts – in short, it does a lot of work so you don’t have to.

::  Club Motion Juggling awakens The Green Dragon.

::  The WJF has released a video covering their 7 Club Incentive Program from WJF 7.

::  The Davidson Juggling Club shows off a new trick that they recently came up with called the Windshield Wiper.

::  Tanner Alder gets creative in A New Prop is Coming.

::  Team Shreddie Crunch delivers A Small Portion of Shreddies.

::  Josh Turner gets technical as he contemplates db or not db?

::  Ouka has a new ringarts manipulation video out.

::  Pavel Evsukevich has some highlights up from a Cirque du Soleil Jam session with other performers in Moscow.

::  Azo makes some drinks and demonstrates some interesting flair bartending moves that he has been working on.

::  TJ does some multiball work for Contact Juggling Awareness Day 2011.

::  Jason Lu has some fun with mini Gballz.

::  Jorden Moir has released his latest juggling/footbag video, 2Xtreme Hands & Feet.

The trailer for the documentary on the King Charles Unicycle Troupe. The synopsis for the video reads:

The untold story of the greatest American circus act to emerge out of the Bronx, New York. A story of a father’s love for his son and his passion for the unicycle….coming soon!

Best Catches is a sifter for the unplugged, the lazy, and the busy. It’s a bi-weekly roundup of the freshest juggling videos, forum topics, and blog posts – in short, it does a lot of work so you don’t have to.

::  Things get wild as Jason Lu goes into 6 Balls Overkill.

::  Japanese culture gets jugglefied in Japanese Daily Life.

::  The Shoebox Tour has posted a collection of performance clips from their 2011 Iceland tour.

::  Jorden Moir shows off some practice footage and it’s Not Bad for a Footbagger.

::  Mark Watson has finished his trick a day video project.

::  There is buzz that Big Change is Coming to the IJA.

::  Some very good spin variations are demonstrated in the new video 360 juggling.

::  Reuben unleashes some crazy three ball action to “Danse Macabre“.

::  Ori Roth gets psychedelic in GRED.

::  Coming soon to NYC, the Michael Karas and Jen Slaw throw-matic comedy ‘Perfect Catch‘.

::  Lauge Benjaminsen gets down in Dubstep Juggling.

::  A new juggling vlog has just popped up.  This one promises to add a new juggling video every day for a year starting October 12th.

Maintaining a headbounce with a ball is a challenging task. Take away a level ground to stand on and replace it with water, and that’s a whole new realm of difficulty and creativity.

A short, but very visually pleasing routine. Not only is she using five balls, but the sheer number of tricks she is able to do in one take using her hands and feet is astounding.

Best Catches is a sifter for the unplugged, the lazy, and the busy. It’s a bi-weekly roundup of the freshest juggling videos, forum topics, and blog posts – in short, it does a lot of work so you don’t have to.

::  Taylor Glenn has created a monster as she gets Caught in the Dark.

::  Tanner Alder jams with three balls in the backyard.

::  Alexander Brettell, Doreen Großmann, and Yuki Ueda do some interesting Partner Juggling in Berlin.

:: Teku Contact combines contact juggling and RDL props in New Life.

:: Todd Smith has just released version 2.0 of the Assassin Club. The new model is lighter and more balanced than the original.

::  Jarle Bergo, Roar and Sondre do some juggling at the train station.

::  Al ventures Beyond the Car Park in his latest video.

::  Reuben unleashes some wicked three ball moves in his new juggling video.

::  Kendama NYC has released a promotional video.

The 64 International Jugglers’ Association Festival took place in the Mayo Civic Center Rochester, MN this summer.  The festival included special guests such as Stefan Sing, Luke Wilson, Playing by Air, and Look Sharp!  and Francoise Rochais.

Events such as the individual prop competition, XJuggling, and joggling took place at the festival as usual, though there were a few new events this year.  Fire Nights occurred Tuesday and Wednesday night of the festival.  This allowed interested attendees to go outside of the convention center and manipulate fire props (torches, staffs, poi, etc.) or just watch the action take place in an organized and safely monitored environment.  The Gauntlet was another new addition to the festival.  This new piece was an obstacle course built onsite for jugglers to go through while juggling.  Obstacles included a foam pit, and platform jumping.  Many jugglers casually went through it whimsically for fun, though towards the end of the festival there was an organized run for more serious competitors who had clocked in with the fastest times.  There was also the new Busking Competition, where street performers got together to perform their acts outside to both jugglers and passersby alike.  The jugglers voted for their favorite acts with “busking bucks”.

There were many workshops spread throughout the festival.  In fact, so many went on, that many ran concurrent with other workshops, leaving attendees to choose between activities.  Subjects ranged from kendama, numbers juggling, and dance moves.  Stefan Sing had a very strong presence doing workshops throughout the festival.  His closed special workshop was called “Organic Juggling”, where he explored different areas of fully body movement while juggling minimal objects, while also teaching interesting individual moves such as smash pirouettes, and strangulation catches.  Sing also taught several open workshops during the festival regarding his style as well as a team workshop with his partner Christina Casadio. 

The Individual and Teams Championships was a very well attended event.  Showy Motion ended up winning the Teams Championships with a comedic Titanic-love story themed routine.  The Individuals competition saw the majority of the competitors coming from Japan.  Many of the routines included diabolo and ring manipulation.  Interestingly enough, one competitor did a entire routine using only shaker cups, going from 2 – 6 cups on stage.  Ultimately, Tony Pezzo won the individuals with a well polished routine that featured a lot of both creative and technical ring juggling.  In the Juniors competition, David Ferman took first place with a very high skill level toss juggling routine.

With the non-competative shows, Playing by Air performed at both the Benefit Show as well as the Welcome Show.  Their performance seemed to tell a story about a revolving cast of performers exploring different integrations of music and juggling.  They did a lot with cigar boxes and several pieces with glow balls.  Michael Karas did several solo pieces, including his new Tetris Juggling routine.  The Jugheads also performed during the Welcome show, which saw what must have been close to a hundred or more of them taking the stage and juggling in unison.  The Cascade of Stars was a truly amazing show to witness.  Though several previously announced Russian performers were unable to attend, the show did not seem to suffer in terms of talent.  Danger Juggling was very prominent during this performance; Tuey Wilson juggled five rings with a face balance while balancing on an unsupported ladder and The Danger Committee threw knives into a board around one of their troupe members.   Look Sharp! Performed some highly impressive team juggling skills.  Stefan Sing performed twice during the show, once doing his solo act “Pigeon, Why do you Scare Me?” and again towards the end doing a sunning two person manipulation piece with Christianna Casadio.  Francoise Rochais completed the show by doing some mixed object juggling with rings and umbrellas, and finished with a six baton juggle.

Other random highlights throughout the festival included the comfy and well-received Jugglers’ Lounge just outside the practice space, which had couches, air hockey, pinball, and a DVD player set up playing previous IJA festivals and the surprisingly extensive IJA history lounge, which had props used by many of the old greats, and other various historical items.  There were three Renegade Shows.  One of the festival surprises was free pizza at all the Renegade shows (courtesy of iiWii).  Some of the standout Renegade acts included Gypsy Geoff balancing a chair, and broom, and a spinning washtub on his face while everyone in the audience attempted to throw marshmallows into the washtub, Thom Wall performing a stacked glass tower on a mouth stick strip tease, and a full contact boxing/chess match, complete with scantily clad ring girl.

The festival seemed very well attended, and it was evident that many of the new events and supplemented activities caused by the iiWii donation went over very well.  Next year the IJA heads back to Winston-Salem, NC.

Doug Sayers juggling five torches at Fire Nights.

IJA History Lounge.

The Gauntlet.

StreetJuggling is finally running again and looking less messy than ever! So what happened in the last weeks? Due to a string of technical mistakes on my part, a portion of the old site got lost or truncated. Why exactly I haven’t figured out and it so happened that in between, we switched webhost accounts so there’s no history to revert to.

Now that we’re back, the site spots a few new features. You can now read it on mobile without squinting your eyes out. We haven’t tested it on an iPad or tablet yet so if the site’s showing up strangely in any other resolution, please do email us or leave a comment with a screenshot!

In the coming weeks, expect more posts and the return of Best Catches!

Thanks for bearing with us and staying with us!