By Dave Jones

If you've been to any of the last eight IJA conventions, or any recent regional festivals, odds are you've noticed a thin man with a long, braided ponytail and a constant smile on his face working with boxes, spinning balls and a Cabbage-Patch Doll.

Apart from the ponytail and smile, the most noticeable thing about Jeff Daymont is that he is a cigar box monster. His innovative moves draw the attention of fellow jugglers whenever he is around. The workshops he teaches are always well-attended and well­regarded. But most people don't realize that the man behind the boxes is an excellent all-around juggler as well. In addition to the three- and four-box tricks that are the forte of his repertoire, Daymont is an accomplished club passer, five club juggler and ball spinner.

Daymont learned to juggle eight years ago as a high school sophomore in a Chicago suburb. His school had a juggling club, which initially piqued his interest. After that, his social life helped him progress at a rapid pace. "I was pretty much a social outcast, so I practiced a lot," he said.

"Fortunately, I didn't see really good jugglers close up until I was prepared for it," he added. That exposure to "really good" jugglers came at the Spring Fling festival in Lake Forest, III., in 1983 and at the Purchase, N.Y., IJA convention that summer.   Daymont saw and learned a great deal at the Purchase convention, and decided to come back the next year and compete in the Juniors Championships in Las Vegas. He finished next to last. "I knew my routine wasn't that solid, but I had invented some box tricks that were unique, so I thought I'd just go out and have some fun and show off the stuff that might not have been seen before," he said.

Despite the poor finish, he enjoyed the experience. "It was really inspiring, because I  got responses from other jugglers....... A lot of people remembered my whole personality, that I was positive and I didn't get frustrated when I dropped. That was because I knew I wasn't going to win!" He says many people still remember him from that competition.

The next year in Atlanta, he rose to a fourth-place finish. But that was his last competition attempt - until this year. Daymont says he plans to enter the Seniors Championships at the IJA festival in St. Louis this summer. It will be an interesting opportunity for jugglers to see the talent he has developed while performing for a living over the past few years.

He has worked mostly at Renaissance Faires since cutting short his college career after his freshman year. He was attending the University of Kansas in Lawrence when he made the decision to give full time juggling a try. "About halfway through the first semester I figured out I'd rather be juggling full time than be a full time architectural engineer, so I took another semester of theatre classes and stuff that was interesting to me and started performing at Renaissance Faires," he said.

It has proved to be a very good experience, allowing him to make a living and giving him ample time to practice and improve his show. He also likes the set-up of faires, what he describes as a "very sheltered street performance." There are seats for the audience, performers don't have to deal with passers-by or drunks, and spectators want to be entertained.

While the Renaissance circuit has been good to Daymont, he aspires to bigger and better things. "Now that my show has devel­oped a lot more, I want to start spreading it to other places," he said. Last summer he worked at Universal Studios in southern California, and in the future he hopes to street perform in Europe.

He currently performs ring spinning and ball spinning in his act, along with juggling three to seven balls and cigar boxes. Perhaps the most interesting part of his show, though, is that which deals with Sergei, his Russian Cabbage Patch Doll "partner." Sergei does some impressive tricks during the show, including "leaping" up from Daymont's foot to a headstand on the blade of a dagger which Daymont holds in his mouth. Later, during the cigar box routine, Sergei is used as the third box after Daymont drops one. This certainly makes Sergei, who is named after Sergei Ignatov, the most versatile Cabbage Patch Doll performing today.

Despite Sergei's versatility, it is still Daymopt's cigar box work that gets the best response from audiences. His style is more than just tricks in succession. He puts moves together in a flowing, moving manner - a style inspired by Charlie Brown, whom Daymont met at the Las Vegas convention in 1984. "Charlie Brown had just developed his own style of spinning boxes a lot, rather than the static, Kris Kremo style of standing in one place and switching boxes. (Charlie) did rolling tricks that I really admired. I had already developed some things in that direction, and Charlie's work enhanced my own," Daymont said.