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Back in the ringmaster's trailer, we left GIosman with three important packages, the combined effects of which we hope will have far-reaching effects on the future of juggling.

The first package was from the IJA to Yuri Matveev, director of the Moscow Academy of Circus Arts. It included several back issues of Juggler's World and a letter extending an official invitation for Soviet jugglers to come to the Baltimore convention in July. You don't just invite Ignatov to the U. S. You first ask Ignatov' s boss if you can invite Ignatov!

The second package, also for Matveev, was from Gene Jones, associate editor of

The Guinness Book of World Records. Jones, a past IJA president and the official verifier of juggling records for Guinness, sent a copy of the 1988 edition with an invitation to submit any new records set by Soviet jugglers.

The third package was a more personal gift of glasnost, directly from Lucas to Ignatov, to be passed on to the Soviet star when he returned from Japan. It included a signed Guinness book and a personal letter (translated by our translator, Luba Kevump) expressing the hope that the two of them would finally meet in Baltimore and continue to learn from and inspire each other. It also included 15 new Airflite rings - 14 to equal the number Lucas has been practicing, and one extra. The extra ring was in case Ignatov couldn't come to the convention in July, so that he could autograph it and send it for the auction.

The spirit of sportsmanship extended to show GIosman the special leather holster that Lucas designed and wears for carrying the extra rings when juggling high numbers. Lucas said, "The gift of the rings and sharing the holster were a way of announcing that I am going for the 14 ring record.

If I set it I don't want it to be a hollow record, simply because I had access to better props or had figured out a more efficient way to hold the extras. Ignatov is the only man in the world who has juggled 11 rings and could possibly do 12 or more. So if my records are to be solid, untarnished, it is necessary that my biggest competitor have access to the same props."

Ignatov will find the Airflites to be lighter than any he has used before. We asked Anton, son of the ringmaster, and the top juggler with the Gorky Park show, to estimate the weight of the rings Ignatov now uses. He picked up one, two, three Airflites and held them out "About this much, " he said.

There is no place in the world where the art of juggling is held in such high regard, where top jugglers are national stars, as in the USSR. The Soviet Circus is a state-supported form of entertainment, like the Bolshoi ballet and professional sports, and the top circus stars are as well known as the top ballet, hockey and basketball stars. Ignatov is nationally famous.

We have some pretty good jugglers here. But perhaps the best jugglers in the world are in the USSR, where they achieve levels of skill, fame and public respect that American jugglers can hardly dream of. If one or more Soviet jugglers comes to the convention in July it could bring national attention to the skill of juggling. .Americans could see representatives of a country where juggling is a respected sporting skill, supported by the state and regularly employed. That could bring national attention to juggling and change the public's image of jugglers here.

We left with the impression that the Soviet circus people we met want more communication with Western performers. We hope that our trip will be the beginning of an exchange between cultures that cannot be stopped!

(Scot Morris is "Games" editor of Omni magazine and lives in Del Mar, Calif)