FROM LINDSAY LESLIE in Scotland

 

It took thirty-one years for a handful of European jugglers to imitate the first IJA get-together in the USA, but what a great weekend it was when eleven enthusiasts met (most for the first time) at Brighton, England, April 15th and 16th. Herman Sagemuller had travelled the furthest and brought with him a marvelous selection of his juggling photographs, proving to those present in the Metropole Hotel Saturday night that there is no limit to the types

of props and variety of ways they can be manipulated. The Whole weekend was well organized by Lynn Thomas, who even brought in a TV crew to video tape practice on Saturday and the public show Sunday so as to make up a one hour tape of the event.

 

The two and one-half hour show also organized by Lynn and compended by Lloyd Timberlake amazed the full house crowd of 200 (part of whom paid to stand in the aisles). The show was backed by a three­piece band, and a comedy escapologist almost brought the house down.

 

All eleven jugglers took part in the show and my fear of us boring the audience with too much juggling was cancelled out when I watched the individuality and routining of each self-contained act. A very wide variety of entertainment was given consisting of magic, acrobatics, stilt walking, unicycling, fire eating, yo-yo manipulation, balancing, comedy, and of course, juggling.

 

The show was completed with the Auld Lang Syne of jugglers, namely, "The Big Toss Up," accompanied by the audience clapping the jugglers into tempo with the band.

 

As we left for home, we all felt it had all come and gone much too quickly, and as you can understand we are looking forward to the next one.

 

But let's all remember one thought - without the IJA it would never have happened, for without the Roster we would never have known of each others' existence. We sincerely thank the IJA for this, and the jugglers back in 1947 who first started the ball bouncing for all of us.

 

 

A FOUR-BALL MOVEMENT

 

I was recently demonstrating a four-ball movement at our weekly juggling clinic when our workshop leader, John Grimaldi, suggested I write it up for the Newsletter. He said he had never seen the movement and advised me to share it.

 

In simple terms, you start with. two balls in each hand, throw them two at a time, but catch them separately. The left hand passes the caught ball to the right hand to complete the cycle. The two balls should be widely spaced in the right hand as they are released to give them different paths. The two balls thrown and caught by the right hand follow a one-hand two-ball circular pattern. The other two balls follow a shower pattern.

 

Frankly, I haven't yet gotten beyond about a dozen successful throws, but someone else might be able to avoid collisions better than I can.

-- George Thatcher, New York City