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Ann Arbor Jugglers Going Strong at Age 12

For a dozen years now, jugglers have been a common sight in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This long-time familiarity hit a new peak during the fourth annual Ann Arbor Jugglers Festival the third weekend of August. More than 70 people attended, and many of them juggled until 2 a.m. on an indoor tennis court Saturday night!

The Ann Arbor festival began in the summer of 1981 as a juggling picnic for about 10 people. The next year there were 20. About 35 came in 1983. This year's attendance surpassed the organizers' fondest hopes. It was a highly juggling affair, beginning with a pre-convention party on Friday night at the home of Paul Kyprie. Edward Jackman was there between college shows, treating the party to his fine talent and humor. Those jugglers still on their feet when the party ended at 4 a.m. deserve endurance awards!

Official activities began at noon Saturday. Former IJA president Bob Jackson showed up early and juggled late, "at age 61 knocking people out with his passing, " according to Ann Arbor juggler Paul Kyprie. Bruce Block balanced 40 cigar boxes on his chin and local juggler Al Stanger juggled seven balls. A prop raffle was held to cover the expenses of "free admission" with props donated by Jugglebug, Renegade, The Juggling Arts, Brian Dube, Todd Smith and Ann Arbor's Magic Shoppe.

An evening party at the local racket club occupied a crowd until 2 a.m. Color pictures of activities appeared on the front page of the next day's papers in both Ann Arbor and Detroit.

It all began on the University of Michigan campus with Jim Newton holding informal juggling sessions and giving lessons in the early 1970's. However, the Ann Arbor Juggling Club's only affiliation with the university is that it counts numerous alumni among its members.

When Newton left in the late 1970's, Michael Ferguson became de facto leader, a position he still holds in the loos ely structured group.

Weekly Sunday evening meetings during warm weather are held in a park-like area of the campus called the Diagonal, chosen in part because it is shielded from the wind. During cold weather, meetings are held in a local gymnasium.

The mechanics and sociability of juggling, rather than its performance, holds the group together. Part of this is due to a relatively high turnover rate of university students in the club. About 12-15 of the 35 members gather for the weekly session, while Ferguson and two or three others meet up to four times a week to practice. As Kyprie said, "The bottom line of motor learning is that you have to practice a lot. "

Kyprie, a former state gymnastics champion, explained, "The spirit and focus is on juggling. There's not a whole lot of talking about it at meetings. The spirit here is 'Let's do it!'"

Ferguson is working on five clubs, while he, Stanger and Dan Schlicting are capable of seven ball juggling. Members of the group spend a lot of time passing clubs, working on different numbers of spins, strange tosses and pirouettes. They work on switching three person formations from a triangle to a feed to a line, and occasionally try a six-person "w" formation.

However, all work and no play... So stalwart members often retire to a local pub to continue discussion after the meetings.

It requires a lot of personal attention to new people to keep up membership, Ferguson said. "You can lose a lot of juggling time talking to people, but it's worth it." He feels like great gains can be made by teaching juggling in the community, and plans for the group to spend more time doing that this year.