Fritz Grobe

JW: How did the preliminaries go?

FG: Quite well, really. After waiting for my turn I walked out with just two diabolos and my tape and they said, "Those are all your props?" The judges seemed surprised at the routine, which was the idea, but pleased. Steve Mills was neat about it. He said it could be taken seriously, or humorously because I was so intense. I did it drop less in the pre­lims, also, which boosted my confidence a lot. I think you can do just about anything and if it's drop less it's hard to fault. That makes it palatable. That's always been my feeling, it's got to be dropless or as close to that as humanly possible.

 

There's a book called "Iron and Silk" that talks about a Yale grad who goes to China for martial arts training. It talks about "skill that transcends mere surface beauty," and that book has influenced me and the way I think about juggling. You've got to master the skill so thoroughly that it stops being the only thing that's going on. There should be something more going on than just the manipulation. Given another year of work on this routine, I hope it will reach another level of comfort. I don't want to just be waving my arms around, I want that smoothness that lets your character shine through.

 

JW: Lost in the glitter of that gold medal may be the fact that you also won gold medals in the individual and team ball bouncing competition. How did that come together?

FG: Mainly because of Jay Gilligan. I've known Jay for quite a while, and at Eastern Illinois University's fest this year we started passing rings together, then we put up 12 in D.C. with a pulldown, and did 14 with a pulldown the first day in Fargo. That was really neat. Jay is a much better ring juggler than I am. It was 90% him and 10% me, but we got it that first day.

 

On Tuesday we started working for the first time ever on bounce passing balls, since we heard that would be a competition event also. We hadn't planned to do it, but since Jay is such a good juggler I knew he'd be able to pick it up quickly. We gave it a shot and it worked. In the competition we got 50 catches with 13, doing ultimate passing with both hands. We also poked around enough during the week to know that we should be able to get 15 with a little work. The whole week was that way - just trying something and then, "Holy cow!" we won!

 

JW: How did your festival experience change after the competitions?

FG: It was complete relaxation. This enormous weight and tension was all gone. I got to kick back and enjoy the festival. After Seniors I could finally go out to eat, so Jay and I went out in quest of food, but every place was closed. We ended up going back to the room and ordering pizza delivery to the room. We sat down, ate pizza, watched TV and relaxed.

 

It was good to have it done and not have to worry about it anymore. I actually picked up some clubs and did some real juggling with Arthur Lewbel - and got a blister on my thumb after five minutes because  I haven't done anything but diabolo for so long. In the last few weeks before the fest I ignored everything else. It's sort of ridiculous to devote so much attention to five minutes of your life. It was such a relief to have it done.

 

I slept better Friday and Saturday night than I had in a long time! I stayed up really late both nights just having fun. Saturday I saw the rain and stayed indoors. I wanted to put up three diabolos in the gym and spent some time working on that. I got 18 throws, which is a good run for me. I had time to hang out and jam and do diabolos with some people. I had a bunch of people come up and say, "Was that you doing the diabolo last night?" After the makeup and the attitude come off it's hard to recognize me sometimes! I had a chance to talk to Peter Davison for the first time and that was nice. After seeing him in Montreal he's pretty close to God in my book. We headed back on Sunday, stopped to get some gas and bought a lottery ticket that had a juggler on it, and Sandy Amass won $2 with it. We made it back late Monday and that was it.

 

JW: What attracted you to the diabolo?

FG: One diabolo is like three balls, you can be very expressive with it. You can work in a lot of movement, it's one of the more interesting things to watch and do, and as a performer you can make a lot of contact with the audience.

 

I started juggling at Yale pretty conventionally, getting into the numbers race. I had a diabolo for years but couldn't do anything except throw it real high. But when I saw Jeff Mason in Denver in '88 I started doing more with it. I then met him in '89 at Garbo's workshop, and the diabolo became the object of my attention at that point. When Meike Aarden came to his workshop the next year it kept my inspiration going.

 

I found that I not only liked doing it, but seemed reasonably good at it. I have a slow rhythm in performance and am not good at juggling fast. So things like ball bouncing and diabolo that you can do slowly are better for me than faster stuff. At first my diabolo routine was slow, but I got tired of performing to New Age "twinkle-twinkle" music and wanted to do something with energy and bite. I have music running when I practice and I just hit on that song one day, even though I had told myself I'd never perform to a song with lyrics. The routine came out of the song, I just had the feeling it was something I had to try.

 

JW: How many diabolos do you have in your prop bag?

FG: I probably have 15 diabolos, including five from Mr. Babache that I use in performance. They're about 405 years old, but I can't get used to the new ones. I've been working with some Henry's diabolos more now, though, and think I'll switch. I have about 10 different kinds, including wooden ones that whistle and homemade ones. I even found one at a garage sale, a cheap plastic one sold in 1950 as a kid's toy. I almost bought some new diabolos in Fargo, but they didn't have the color I wanted. My other great love is ball bouncing, so between those two I travel light. I also have a mess of clubs. But yes, I can do five clubs and seven balls, so I'm a real juggler also!