about me
name: Alan Ward
location: Hatfield, Herts, UK.
most amout of objects juggled: 7 balls, 5 clubs, 5 rings.
Juggling History
I learned how to juggle when I was about 13 years old.
I spent about a year at it, learning lots of 3 and 4 ball tricks,
plus 3 rings and clubs. However, my progress with 5 balls was so
slow though that eventually I grew disillusioned and gave it up
juggling entirely - I recall qualifying it regularly with a best
of about 80 catches.
In Feb '05, while tidying my shed I came across my old juggling equipment. During the following week I spent about half an hour each evening practicing, initially just as an exercise to see how many of the patterns I had learned all those years ago I could still do. To my surprise, by the end of the week my juggling was already back to a similar standard to what I remember it being before. During that week I also downloaded hundreds of juggling videos off the internet and read every article I could find on learning 5 balls. Within just over a month I achieved my first "5 ball target" of 100 catches; my best run is now 1 min 25 secs.
Workshops
Since taking up juggling again I have started attending
two Juggling clubs held in my area (which I found out about on the
internet):
Screwballs
Circus Skills Workshop (of which I am the Treasurer) and
What's
Got 3. The latter I particularly enjoy as several very
competent 5 ball jugglers regularly attend. Just watching them
has really helped me progress with 5 balls; I've also learned
a couple of simple 5 ball tricks like under-the-leg and 1up 4up
from them and am working on a few harder ones such as the
half-shower, 744 and (6x,4)(4,6x) that they have shown me.
Conventions
Crawley 2005
WJFII - December 2005, Las Vegas, NV
BJC 2006 - Kernow, Cornwall
Crawley 2006
Crawley 2008
Targets
My ultimate target in juggling is to be able to juggle 5
clubs; my motivation being that I consider the 5 club cascade to
be the most aesthetically pleasing trick in all of juggling - when
done well.
Lastly, follow the links below for information on and pictures off my juggling equipment, notes from my practice sessions and my current records.