33-5,p12

Next he replaces one club with a soccer ball. He bounces that on his forehead while doing four, then goes into a cascade juggle with four clubs and the ball. He tosses away the ball and then does everything you can do with four clubs, including throwing two high and somersaulting to catch them!

He did some three ball rolls on his body, and threw up and caught nine rings. The last part is his incredible three club routine. He finishes lying on his back doing three over his head, throws one up high and jumps to catch it.

He told me he came from a circus family. His two brothers and one sister are in the circus, and his father was also. When he was 15 he began living and training with the circus, and got to perform after five years of practice. Now he is 33 and probably the best in the world. You don't hear much about him outside the Soviet Union , though, because the circus seldom travels outside its borders.

A middle-aged man balanced a drinking straw on his nose. He added an egg, another egg, and a third without any support. Apparently, what we saw in China was a fairly ordinary display of juggling.

China

By Ginny Wilkins Lakewood, CO

If you want to see juggling in China, you should ask about it immediately upon your entry into the country. The government carefully controls all tourism and you will be assigned a national and series of local guides.

Your request will probably be passed along by the guides from city to city, as ours was, until the opportunity to see jugglers presents itself. The Chinese are extremely eager to please, and arranged for us to see two excellent juggling shows. Both, in Tianjin and Shanghai, were combination magic, juggling and acrobatic shows.

Feats of juggling and acrobatics which left us with our jaws dropping and hands aching to applaud seemed to bore the Chinese audience. We tried to refrain from clapping, as lengthy applause is not the custom in China. However, the Chinese people were fascinated with the magic acts.

The Chinese juggle everyday items. We saw vases balanced on heads and parasols on toes. Three men stood across from a fourth and threw tin plates at him. As he picked them out of the air and stacked I them in one hand, they increased the speed of the throws. Total stack, about 36 plates.

An act I could have watched all night was juggling of heavy porcelain vases. To get them on one's head, they had to be swung far back between the legs. Some vases were so large that their manipulators could hardly fit them between widely bowed legs.

But I never saw any jugglers miss a vase catch on their heads. And then... well, all sorts of things, a roll across the chest, across the back of the neck, a flip from one person's neck to another's (a most unusual game of catch!). The bowls were balanced in every way imaginable, even on the very fine edge.

One young man, with the open end facing the audience, turned himself a quarter-tum. Then, going a quarter-turn each move, continued until he faced the audience again. He then proceeded to make two half-turns, and climaxed with a full 360-degree turn. Try that with a book if it sounds simple!

Many knowledgeable jugglers have seen the famous catch-the-cups-on-the-head while-on-aunicycle" act. Too easy for the Chinese we saw... They added a few elements! First, the eight-foot unicycle was placed on a table about five to six feet in diameter without a lip. The performer mounted alone from the table.

After successively catching at least six cups, saucers and spoon and sugar on the head from a toe toss, he caught some rings, placed them on his free leg. Then he added four sticks, on the ends of which triangles had been placed. Each triangle balanced a small container of colored water. When organized, he proceeded to spin the rings, sticks, triangles and water glasses while balancing cups and saucers and riding the unicycle on the table! After dismantling the rings and triangles, he jumped off the unicycle to the floor, still holding the cups, saucers and sugar cubes.