Jones, one of the relatively few professional jugglers to hold office, took over an organization bursting at the seams and applied his business acumen to its future. His was an investment philosophy of spending money to make money, and he pushed the IJA into a more formal, modern, professional direction. Today, the change seems

to have been inevitable, but debate over IJA policy and goals continues.

On the one hand were those who remembered the old conventions of 20 and 30 people. It was hard to reconcile the informal intimacy of the old IJA with the new directions it was taking. Allied with these older veterans were those who believed the IJA should remain small and loose, not out of tradition and memories, but because the ethic of smallness was the right path.

Other members saw bigger as better. Tougher planning meant better results, and more money meant better plans and more fun.

These two sides of the same coin were arguing each other's reflection: 1) Juggling is such a pure delight, it will spread by its own force of rightness. 2) Juggling is such a pure delight, let's package it and deliver it to the home of every child in the world.

While the controversy over principles was as great as the controversy over personalities 20 years before, juggling and the IJA were far too big to be damaged. Instead, the dissension broadened the scope of juggling and the forces settled into a truce. Bigness was inevitable. That was cruel irony for those who sought to stifle it. The very people who wanted a sleeping bag and rice ambience in the IJA swelled the organization into bigness. And those who sought a more formal structure had to accommodate the more relaxed views of others.

In the end, we find ourselves pretty happily situated between late night Club Renegade scenes and nationally covered Las Vegas-style championships. The IJA may have become big-time, but, as Gene Jones pointed out, you'd have to have a pretty jaundiced eye to call the IJA "establishment."

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