I’ve always been fond of the shoulder launcher, and recently have been working on multiplex launches. This is video of me using it in a passing pattern with Mark at juggling club yesterday.
I taught Pauly how to do tennis balls and can juggling in 2006. Since then he has been performing it in his shows. This is our first attempt at passing with this prop. It’s a bit messy, but there’s enough time for us to work out some more ideas to perform at the festival.
I’ve flown into Denver before, but I think it was only once. In 1988 the International Jugglers Association held their yearly convention here. I flew up with my friend Angelo and his parents and together we attended our first convention. I’m not really sure what the difference between a convention and a festival is, but I think conventions are larger. It was held on a college campus from what I can remember, and we were still in high school. After registering and getting out badges we were allowed into the gym area. This was simply a large basketball court full of people juggling and doing all kinds of circusy things. People practicing for competitions, which would happen later during the convention. People meeting each other and learning new passing patterns that are only possible when you get a gathering of this many people who can juggle together. Outside there were a few people on the fringes who worked on unicycle. Then there was the Renegade tent. Renegade makes juggling equipment and is based out of Santa Cruz. It wasn’t uncommon for them to setup a whole tent for themselves where they sold their wares and hosted the less conventional convention goers. It was in this tent that I first saw Jeff Naipier juggle. He was passing with a guy in the middle of the tent, throwing things we had never dreamed of. Sometimes he would collect two clubs and then throw them both at the same time. This is called a multiplex. Sometimes he would balance a club on the end of another club and then bounce it up a little and bash it across with the club in his other hand. Sometimes he would throw a club twice as high out of his left hand, followed by one out of his right hand, followed by a triple out of his right, followed by a quadruple in his left. This sequence has been called Star Wars by some people. Even watching him pick up was amazing. If something ended up on the ground he had all kinds of different ways of picking up. One of my favorites that I eventually learned to do was batting the fallen club so that it bounces up a little and then batting it again across to the other person passing. When Angelo and I came home, Jeff’s style had influenced us forever.
In subsequent conventions we went to he was almost always there. Over time I stopped going to conventions and never knew what happened to him. Last week at the Berkeley festival when I walked into the gym I saw him passing with some guy. It was like the old days. He didn’t really look any different. Same beard. Same uncatchable throws. After a while he came up to me and asked if I wanted to pass. I remember I had passed with him once or twice over the years and he always complemented me on my ability to save some of his least stable tricks. This time was no different. This time I think he saw me as more of a peer than he ever had in the past. We chatted and he had apparently taken 10 years away from juggling and only recently started to get back into it. It sounded like a familiar story. I took some time off and hadn’t been as into it as I have this year since I was in college. He invited me to help him teach a couple of his workshops he was giving on club juggling. By the end of the festival, when I juggled with him I started to get a matrix-like perception of the pattern. Everything seemed to slow down and almost everything could be caught if I were willing to reach for it. After all these years I finally stack up to some of the legends I remember seeing at that first festivals.
Below is some video that comes from the Berkeley festival two years later where I ran into Jeff again.