It's All Up in the Air
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Roaming the Hill
April 18, 2008 - 12:00amI always thought it was difficult to juggle a bunch of different classes, a part time job and my work here at The Sun. Then I walked into the Noyes multipurpose room a week ago and saw people juggling clubs, balls and rings. That, I discovered, is much harder. You wouldn’t know, though, by looking at the faces of the members of Cornell’s Juggling Club.
“As a club, we’re pretty laid back,” explained club president Gregory Billing ‘08.
According to Billing, the club always welcomes new members or anyone at all interested in what they do every Friday.
“If you want to come and sit and watch us for an hour and a half,” he said with a smile, “you’re more than welcome.
I can attest to how hospitable the members of the Juggling Club are because they were patient with me in my attempts to learn how to juggle three balls (I wasn’t even going to attempt the clubs or rings). Billing had me throw one ball back and forth between my two hands before giving me a second. Then, when I had mastered throwing the second ball while the first was at its peak, a third ball was introduced. (I might have spent more time on my juggling than on my journalistic research, but what my editor doesn’t know can’t hurt her.)
“Buy a set of balls and practice at home,” recommended Dean Fogarasi ’09 for any aspiring jugglers out there.
While the Juggling Club enjoys its Friday night meetings, the highlights of being a juggler are the weekend-long festivals. According to Billing, the Cornell jugglers are regulars at festivals in New York City, Rochester, Philadelphia and sometimes Madison. Juggling festivals are often three-day events with all different types of performances, symposiums, classes and other activities. Of course, the Cornell Juggling Club hosts its own Big Red JuggleFest in the middle of the fall semester each year.
According to Billing, the club got started in the 70s but was on and off until it hit the big time when the festival was established 12 years ago.
“The festival experience is something that defines your experience in the club,” said Fogarasi. “There’s really nothing like it. This year’s JuggleFest included a talk on the mathematics of juggling by a professor in the mathematics department at Berkeley who happened to be on campus.
Billing and Fogarasi also told me about the renegade show that took place at last semester’s JuggleFest. A renegade show is when jugglers just do the craziest things they can on stage — a no holds barred show. This year’s Big Red JuggleFest had people juggling knives at the Big Red Barn. The renegade session went on until 1 a.m.
Juggling is not the type of thing you can just pick up and be good at. Billing explained to me that, contrary to popular belief, juggling is not a natural ability. It takes practice. That’s why Billing and his brother Jon, a junior in the physical education department at SUNY Cortland, teach a juggling class: P ED 227.
Sana Ahmad ’08, who is in both the club and the class, explained how she simply stumbled upon the P ED 227 when she was browsing through the course catalog.
“It turned out to be really random and crazy,” she said.
Not only do juggling students learn technique and practice the physical aspects of the sport, but each lesson starts with presentations from students about the history, culture or other aspects of juggling. Students use PowerPoint, YouTube videos and other presentation formats.
As I sat down in the multipurpose room during one of my breaks from juggling, I noticed how relaxed everyone was and how much they enjoyed simply sharing this hobby with each other. Some members of the club were honing their skills on their own, while others were tossing balls or clubs to each other in a cooperative juggling effort. The club seems like just a fun place for friends to get together, forget about their schoolwork and enjoy a common interest. The Friday-night regulars appeared to be a close group.
Billing told me about a time that a bunch of them were driving back from Syracuse — 12 people and a bunch of juggling equipment — in two cars. When the cops pulled them over, they spent an hour searching the cars and questioning them, because they thought the jugglers were up to something strange. When the cops decided to let them go, the members of the club asked the officers if, after wasting an hour of their time, they could have five minutes of the cops’ time to show them their talents. After some persuading, the cops conceded and members of the Cornell Juggling Club were on the side of the road between Syracuse and Ithaca juggling seven clubs for a couple of cops. Sounds like good times.
While not every experience with the Juggling Club involves the police, Friday night in the Noyes multipurpose room is a great place to relax, hang out with friends and learn how to juggle. The Juggling Club is always willing to teach new jugglers.
Billing had one last important piece of advice for all you readers: “Come and juggle with us.”