135 - Juggling the Past, Present, and Future with Niels Duinker & Captain Frodo

The enduring magic of juggling spans centuries, yet few performers have dedicated themselves to both preserving its rich history and innovating its future quite like Nils Dunke. In this captivating conversation, the Dutch comedy juggler takes us on an unexpected journey through the interconnected worlds of performance, craftsmanship, and historical preservation.

What makes this episode particularly fascinating is Nils' unique intersection of mechanical engineering expertise with artistic passion. He explains how this combination led him to revolutionize traditional juggling equipment through ergonomic designs that enhance performers' capabilities. His collaborations with juggling innovators like Jay Gilligan on the Cuphead Club demonstrate how thoughtful equipment design can unlock entirely new artistic possibilities.

Perhaps most compelling is Nils' dedication to preserving juggling's heritage through publishing significant historical works. His efforts to document the stories of legends like 100-year-old Bobby Jule (inventor of the ping-pong ball on nose trick) ensure these valuable contributions aren't lost to time. When he describes visiting juggling archives and connecting with the remaining practitioners from vaudeville's golden age, we glimpse how passion projects become crucial cultural preservation.

Whether you're fascinated by the performing arts, interested in how innovation happens, or simply appreciate stories of people following unconventional passions, Nils' perspective offers valuable insights on building a meaningful creative life. His philosophy that "if nobody takes risks, nothing gets pushed forward" serves as inspiration for anyone looking to make their mark while honoring those who came before.

Ready to discover how ancient arts evolve in the modern world? Subscribe now and join our exploration of showmanship through the eyes of those who live it daily.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting Nils Dunke, Comedy Juggler
• 10:50 Early Juggling Influences and Street Performing
• 25:31 From Street Shows to Professional Venues
• 40:57 Cruise Ship Career and Prop Design
• 1:08:13 The History of Juggling Equipment
• 1:21:45 Publishing Juggling History and Bobby Jule
• 1:44:09 Innovations in Juggling Props
• 2:00:13 Final Thoughts on Juggling's Future

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Greetings, fellow travelers and welcome to the Way of the Showman, where we view the world through the lens of showmanship. I am Captain Frodo and I will be your host and your guide along the way as we today get to have a little trip along the way with a new voice, a new voice here on the way. This is Niels Dunke. He is a juggler, a professional comedy juggler, from the Netherlands. I'm not going to say you so much about it because this is the first time I actually talk to, certainly on air, but it's actually the second time that I talk to Niels.

Speaker 1: 0:48

We do spend a little bit of time sort of getting to know each other in the podcast, and he first reached out to me just as I had gone to Kristiansand in Norway, and he said I am coming on a cruise ship which is coming to your town, haugesund, which is amazing that he knew. And he said I will be there on this day. And I said, oh, that's such a bummer because I have left just before to go to another town all the way south in Norway. It's called Kristiansand. And he goes I am there two days before. Will you be there then? And I was. So I went down, did the first day of rehears and then went into town and met up with this excellent dude. I knew of him because he had done some projects together with Jay Gilligan, realizing one of Jay's ideas of the Cuphead Club, which we're also going to talk about, a new juggling prop, which is one of the many strings on Nils' bow. So here we go, without further ado, let's meet this prodigy of juggling, nils Dunke.

Speaker 2: 1:56

Alright, yeah, funny, I set up everything. I got some props, I got some books, I got some stuff I can show Excellent.

Speaker 1: 2:07

I mean mean, it's um, it's uh. When I'm trying to think of what to talk to you about, you have what I would think of as like the broad spectrum approach. It's like. That's why I thought we could start at the beginning like how, how you got into becoming a jugg, because I guess you were sort of a juggler first and then you have now expanded out into what sort of every.

Speaker 1: 2:35

What feels to me like it's every aspect of juggling, from equipment manufacturing to which is sort of, in a sense, looking towards the future, creating new possibilities for people into the future, with your collaborations with jay and jay gilligan and whatever, but also, of course, your book publishing, which in a certain sense is about the past, and I'd love to talk to you about some of these old timers. You have the, the past, and of course then your your work with, uh, carl einzitten, who is the foremost scholar of juggling or history, and so then we kind of have the past and the future, but the now I think of as you, nils dunker, juggler probably foremost, but also then as a performer. So just to start, I think that's.

Speaker 2: 3:23

That's a very good angle. That's cool. And also the name of the book that I did is juggling the past and future. Yes, that's right, so it's so.

Speaker 1: 3:30

It's kind of nice to tie it in and this book juggling the past and the future. What an extraordinary uh work. It's such a good looking hard cover book and it is so comprehensive, and I had questions in regards to that too, but I kind of thought that we would sort of meet each other a little bit and then we get towards the books later, because also, of course, I'm interested in I mean, it's almost like we could do a podcast just about this particular book.

Speaker 2: 4:04

It's like a carl heinz zetan's follow-up to the 4 000 years of juggling, because, from the little bits that I have heard from jay and also from my conversations with eric albury, it's a crazy history and, and it's amazing, the book exists might be funny too, just to have all different people that collect works on it, have them on the podcast and cut them all together and then at the end, because carl heinz is so short, that he goes like, yeah, it's a nice book well, that's actually a great idea.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Yeah, that's a probably the way to cover that book, because of course it's a tome of I don't know how many pages, but like 500 pages or something, and, uh, so many questions that comes. How does one, in one book, sum up the past and the future of juggling? But anyway, and as a microcosmos of that, we would like to look at the past and the future of juggling with you, my guest today, nils dunke. So how did you get started along the way to become a juggler?

Speaker 2: 5:10

Yeah, it's actually so funny because I'm right now in the Netherlands, so actually this is my childhood room, but that's where I started juggling, that's where I learned to juggle three, that's where I learned to juggle five. Right now I'm performing all over the world, so I'm actually visiting just for one week here in the Netherlands right now, and then I go back to the United States. We're in Tennessee. There's a tourist town called Pigeon Forge, so I'm doing a lot of shows there and a bunch of cruise ships as well. But yeah, it started all here. It started with, yeah, just, I always loved to play table tennis. And then I was like, what's more I to play table tennis. And then I was like, what's more, I like to hit the ball very precisely on the table and I go god, what's the next step? I was like, if I don't have, I'm not in the game or something. It's like, oh, juggling that's yeah, that's kind of next level. And then I saw the street theater festival in rothendam, because right now I'm in a supper of rothendam and um, yeah, so all the great street performers uh, went there like l miller and, uh, uh, space cowboy. And all the great street performers went there like Elle Miller and Space Cowboy and all the best street performers from all over the world performed there. Lee Hayes booked them every year and it was just a combination of seeing those street performers that my dad took me to see them every year. That was almost like the highlight of the year. It was right after the summer vacation and it was the first week of school, so that was always like a very special weekend. And then all the jugglers from rotterdam came to visit too and it was like kind of like a juggling festival without the the juggling aspect. There's all the street performers.

Speaker 2: 6:33

So I got those two yeah, inputs like I, I like the precision of, yeah, sports, like hitting a ball very precisely, and then juggling was like next level, because instead of one ball, it's like more balls, so it's like, okay, cool, and I can practice that on my own time. So, uh, and then juggling was like next level, because instead of one ball, it's like more balls, so it's like, okay, cool, and I can practice that on my own time. So, uh, and then the inputs from seeing those performers. So those are the two early influences. And then I, uh, there was a little bit of a juggling craze, so there was like some skateboard shops and some uh warehouses were selling juggling equipment. So, uh yeah, I saved up, bought some of that stuff and then, um yeah, then I started practicing. It was so much fun. Every time there's like a new, new trick and one more object you can juggle. So it's almost like the, the analog version to me of a video game yeah, I mean it's really interesting.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Uh, the for one you mentioned, al miller and and the Space Cowboy, shane Holcrum, both friends of mine and influential on me as well. I met Al the first time in 1998 on his first trip to Europe and we got along very well and I have spent a considerable amount of my years or my life hanging out with the Space Cowboy. We toured together kind of solidly for about six years, or my life hanging out with the space cowboy. We toured together kind of solidly for about six years or so, both in the happy side show together and also street performers before that. So it's interesting that you saw those people and that we're sort of connected in that yeah, it's so awesome.

Speaker 2: 7:58

And then those juggling books like there was one book from the library that now the pictures in that book, or like some of the jugglers has written about they're my friends now. Or yeah, I learned from some of the tricks, or like from carl heinz. And then it's so funny how it all comes full circle. And yeah, yeah, juggling and performing variety arts it's. It's small enough that you can make those connections. Yeah, that's still big enough that you can tour the world and have a great career with it.

Speaker 1: 8:24

Yeah, and it's interesting with the, with the juggling as well, like that juggling craze that's even hit around here in Norway, because I had been juggling For a long time when I was doing juggling with my dad Well, I, well, my dad was a magician. But then I wanted to do some juggling and I bought, ordered from America, the complete juggler by Dave Finnegan that's a confidence and I learned how to juggle alone in Norway. I didn't know anyone else that knew how to juggle and learned from reading that book, juggle the scarves that came with it, these crappy quality scarves that came with it and then learned how to juggle balls and whatever. But then, after I had been traveling and that I came home one time and I met all these skateboarders that I knew who in the meantime, while I had been gone, had gotten right into juggling and I think that the film that was released called Caught Clean I think that was a big part of it too, to really introduce it, because there are many similarities between juggling, disparities between juggling I always kind of thought of like three ball juggling or whatever, with the almost infinite amount of possibilities that you have with something which is like the I don't know if you want to call it.

Speaker 1: 9:32

If you take the juggling as being like n hand, n plus one of like, you have one more object than you have hands, that you have the simplest thing, and I think of the skateboard almost as like the simplest. It's just got the four wheels and the trucks and then a plank of wood to stand on, and that you get. You try to find, like these small, simple beginnings, which has infinite possibilities. And there's something similar between juggling and skateboarding in that you can pursue all sorts of styles and all sorts of tricks from a relatively simple beginning. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:10

And also like it's, you're competing almost against yourself. It's not like that. So that's the beautiful thing too you can be friends with the other people. Yeah, and it's just you and gravity, or you are the forces of nature.

Speaker 1: 10:21

Yeah, that's great, that's really good. So, um, you uh, and, and so you saw those people and then you met other. Was there other jugglers in rotterdam that you met? Yeah, I was.

Speaker 2: 10:32

I was 12 years old when I started to juggle. First it was with a diavolo, and then I got some juggling balls. And then one of my friend's dads, like from just from high school, he juggled just a little bit, so he had some real juggling clubs and it's like, oh my god, like there's some real juggling clubs in this town. And then, um, I read an article that the local kid circus circus what you can order in rotterdam. They were doing like a open workshop at the world's harbor festival, which is every year in rotterdam as well, because it's a big port city, and yeah. So then I, I just went there, hang out there for two days and then I said, can I sign up? And he said, yeah, well, maybe just call the office.

Speaker 2: 11:14

And then I had my mom call literally every day until we went past the voicemail and then finally, and he was like, okay, this guy is so persistent, like let's create a spot. So then, okay, it's not gonna hurt that one more dude is gonna be in this, uh, in this group. So then, yeah, then I got in and then every friday evening then, uh, for like two hours you could uh, yeah, I went there and then learned to ride the unicycle, put a little act together just with all the other kids, and then uh, then, with a friend of mine, I started doing street performing in on the weekends, and it was also the same time that's a Dekus and Arco from the organizers from the European juggling convention 2001 in Rotterdam. They were juggling every, every weekend, saturday, sunday, on the square in Rotterdam, so I just I would just went there. So then, though, the juggling world start to open up a little bit between the kids, circus, and then uh, and then those guys and then uh and they have more toys.

Speaker 2: 12:10

so they go, go, yeah, if you want to try the devil, stick like. I have one. Oh, I got like I went to, uh, this juggling festival and I bought renegade clubs, oh my god. And then, yeah, so they shared all that stuff and they were great guys to hang out with and they were my friend from the kids circus.

Speaker 2: 12:24

We started doing street shows and for a while we had figured it out like, uh, if we were performing between like 1, 30 and 2, 45, like at one square, we made enough money just to, uh, you know, get some ice cream and go back to the park and juggle with arco idrikis and uh, yeah, one time I remember too, there was a local skateboarding shop and I was like I want to have bouncing balls but they were like 50 guilders, like 50 euro, and I said, wait, I'm going to go street performing and then save them for me and then I will pick them up by the end of the afternoon.

Speaker 2: 12:59

So I did the show and then the same weekend bought those juggling balls. So just so many cool life lessons there. Like, if you go out and you go for it, yeah, and also you can. And then the same weekend bought those juggling balls. So just so many cool life lessons there, like if you go out and you go for it and also you can make money. You just have to provide value. So there's so many life lessons and when you're 15 years old and you just go for it, it's too scary to fail, and then you get those life lessons at that age it's really good.

Speaker 1: 13:23

It's really good and I think there's something. Get those lifelines at that age, it's it's really good. It's really good and I think there's something because so many people that, uh, that I, that are in the business, uh, doing shows, a lot of them have some sort of relationship with the street, at least in the kind of circles that I go, and there is something, um, really direct. Of course it's about the relationship to the audience and everything. But just to pick up this kind of almost a business aspect of it because I've had the same thing we wanted to go to a juggling festival or circus festival in tasmania. We were living in brisbane and I figured we need to have a thousand dollars to be able to drive solidly down, have all the petrol and whatever we need. So because we it's not always easy to find a pitch when you're in the middle of nowhere, like in Melbourne and Sydney and Brisbane, you can find places, but not so in those 10 hours in between each of those not so easy. So I just went in, did one show and, like you, I had also the lunchtime. That was the good time.

Speaker 1: 14:24

But then I knew that if I just kept doing shows they wouldn't be awesome, but I would make 50, 100 dollars or whatever, and then doing the big ones and then two days later or whatever, then I go okay, we got enough money now for what we've saved and you have it in cash and you, then you, and then you set off on your journey. So there's something about this which to me, because I love juggling first magic and then you set off on your journey. So there's something about this which to me, because I love juggling, first magic and then I sort of grew tired of the response that you have where you're tricking somebody. So if you're just in a social setting showing somebody a magic trick, they will always invariably then ask you well, how is it done or how? And I didn't like this kind of way of relating to people in your everyday setting. But meeting the juggling world, getting into passing, doing three-count passing, right and left-handed patterns which was what I was particularly interested in Then it's like it's a shared thing, the skill is something you can share.

Speaker 1: 15:20

Just like you say, you meet somebody and they go I got a devil's stick. Oh, actually, I can show you this. This is how you do this and this element of it, this is what I loved. But then, when you started doing street shows, you had this strange ability to go and do your tricks and make some money, and you discover this additional, um, additional, uh, way or thing that you need to learn is how do I present these things for audiences so that they like it more and they pay you more, so that becomes a separate game. But then to me, that sort of puts together this thing that it's. It's a life.

Speaker 2: 15:57

It's because you make a life from what you're enthusiastic about but it's also the living that's true, I think, when I was a kid and I went to the street performing festival, I think the purity of it because I was like so awesome, like one day with a unicycle and a suitcase and he goes to a pitch and then he just starts to create some, yeah, action. People stop, they watch, they have a great time. So at the end you feel the smiling faces. There's something that's a structure that was built from nothing. And then at the end you feel the smiling faces. There's something that's a structure that was built from nothing.

Speaker 2: 16:25

And then at the end everybody just pays some money and just goes their own way and I think, just, yeah, when I was eight or nine, I saw just the purity of that. You go, there's nothing evil, there's nothing, there's no downside to this. It's just. And also, yeah, it's just the formation of the props or like there's some theater that everybody goes their own way. So it's so clean, it's so pure. So I think that was one aspect of it why I started liking the performing aspect. And then with the juggling, it's just the skill, you get better at it and it's just like how can you place these objects? It's almost like a sport, like activity, and just then to combine those two, yeah, and just limitless possibilities, and it just feels there's no downside to it.

Speaker 1: 17:14

It's just all that's a great point. I haven't thought of it quite like that, but it's this sort of weird no downside also because you haven't paid up in front so that you can't be let down. If you let down or you don't like it or whatever, you do have the, you can just walk away, like if you didn't think it was worth staying for, then you just walk away and you don't have to pay or whatever. So there's, there's some sort of but if you do like it, then it's, it's an art experience that you didn't expect that has.

Speaker 2: 17:45

Then yeah, it's a great way to put it yeah, it was also like this documentary about the boss character street performing. Like I know l miller is in it. Lee Nelson there was one quote too. Was it Crazy L? I never met him, but I saw him on the documentary. He's like yeah, it's like a hive, it's like drugs. I'm getting this hive, but there's no downside to it, it's just so good yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:10

I mean, that's true, it's like this interruption to everyday life in a very positive way, and you just go away afterwards. That was amazing what happened there, and because, of course, street performing is so very much also about the shaping of the attention of the audience. It's like you start and there is no audience, there's no stage, there's no stage, there's no nothing. So you really you're. You got to start first by grabbing attention and then tuning it into interest so that they want to stay.

Speaker 1: 18:39

First you just can explode a paper bag or put something on fire and people stop, and then you got to tune it into and make it into an actual show that people then want to, yeah, to see, yeah, so very interesting, but, um, moving along, I kind of thought you already sort of um hinted at it a couple of times, because one aspect of what you do then is is shows on a cruise ship, and then I also like to get on to this uh idea with sports juggling, which, of course, in like, in um I don't even know how to say his name staroletsky's book, um, mickle staroletsky, like he's seems like some of these people that you and that you're inspired by are doing very high numbers and stuff, um, and so there's the sort of sport juggling aspect to it which I don't really know much about. But I thought maybe we'd start first with like on going from the street show and now you're on on cruise ships, like getting yeah, I think I think I like, I like growth.

Speaker 2: 19:41

So, uh, I always go like, if I master one market or one aspect, then it's a skill that I have in my bag and I can use. But then I go what's the next thing, how can I make it more exciting? So, for example, the first, yeah, when I was at school, I was just doing the street shows because that's, yeah, I could. And then you can get like, okay, can I get booked by somebody? Somebody wants to pay money up front, can I get a corporate gig or can I get a? So then I went after those and every time you just learn skills along the way. You go like learn how to get a promo photos done, how to make a website, all that kind of stuff. And then I was like, oh my goodness, like at the european juggling convention I met a juggler, valentino, and he was performing the variety shows and he was very nice. He was like come to visit me at the stark loop uh variety theater in kassel, in germany. So the week after I did my last exam, uh, at high school, then he was like yeah, come over, just hang out with me for a week. So I got a little bit of a taste there and I was like, oh, I want to do those kind of venues, but then I never did circus school, so it was very hard for me to get into that market. But then I went to Las Vegas for the first time in 2004 because Jason Garfield at the World Juggling Federation and then all the American jugglers that I met there, they were doing shows on cruise ships and I was like, how does it go? How is it about? And it's like, well, we do a 45-minute show, these are the theaters and we do some comedy. And I was like, oh, this is a better fit for me actually, because I want to do the variety shows in and all you need is like an eight minute act to the music. Then I was like, wow, if I get 45 minutes of stage time and I can use all my experience engaging with a crowd, yeah, but then also get to do a couple of those acts. And the theater itself is just as nice as those variety theaters. But like that's a win, I can just do that. It's a bit, I can get it. And there's like, and that was just the time that our american cruise lines are starting to bring over their. Uh, yeah, it was kind of new now there's cruise ships all over europe, but, like 2005, not so much. So, yeah. So it's like okay if I start preparing.

Speaker 2: 21:40

So it took me five years and in the same time I did mechanical engineering in college, which, uh, first I wanted to do professional juggling right after high school, but my mom was like, well, you can't do it, but then you're on your own, you have to make. So it's like okay, if I was like I don't, like, I don't dislike the idea, it would be kind of cool to learn a little bit more. But then also I was like, well, that will buy me four or five years time that I can just get better with my shows. Yeah, still got, still got. Uh, you know food and housing and stuff that I don't have to worry about, and then I just learn something cool. But then all the other free time I just put into my show. By the time we'll be so much better and we'll be fine and how did you so?

Speaker 1: 22:22

more specifically, like, how did you, um, adapt your street show or whatever? What were the steps that you took towards building a show that would? Because my point is, when you're on the street, you spend a lot of time making the passers-by into an audience and there's a lot of hype and stuff, and that I feel needs to be toned quite down when you come into a theater, because they're already there and they just want to see stuff.

Speaker 2: 22:51

You don't have to always ask them if they want to see it, yeah, so I think I did enough of various markets to understand it and learn the specifics that I needed, but not too much that that became a shtick. So I know how to draw a crowd, but I didn't do so many street shows that that was the only way that I go. Okay, this is the structure of my entire show, because I also did shows at a theater restaurant in Rotterdam, oh yeah, uh, every Friday and Saturday, so that was great. I went to uh, to college and just in the weekends that was my, my gig, and then I didn't have to worry too much about promotion because they were booking me twice, so I got that but just so, in the theater restaurant.

Speaker 1: 23:33

What kind of length or format was your show at that point?

Speaker 2: 23:37

It was very interesting because it was a themed restaurant. The program was like four hours long, oh yeah, but they called it kind of the witch house, so it was. So you had the witch and that was kind of like the host, and then, yeah, they welcomed the people and first they got some soup and so you did like a little bit of animation, strolling stuff at the tables, just atmosphere. So in that sense it was kind of like a lower class palazzo.

Speaker 1: 24:03

Yeah, it's like a dinner show, but with a sort of ghost theme or witchy horror theme.

Speaker 2: 24:09

Yeah, it was very. The mood was very good, everybody had a great time. Yeah, yeah, and it was unlimited beer, so that probably helped. But everybody there was bachelorette parties, people that worked in the harbor and just it wasn't too expensive. It was like 60, 70 bucks or something to have four hours. So there's like a lot of corporate outings.

Speaker 1: 24:32

Yeah, it was both food and entertainment, so it's a whole of, like corporate uh yeah, outings both food and and uh and entertainment, so it's a whole package.

Speaker 2: 24:36

yeah, yeah, well yeah, and then it was like they had a table magician and then a fire eater, so we all did shows at the tables for the people to wait to get to the food, and then, uh, and then we did like a little act, like a couple group numbers in the central area, like the states, and then I just you got your solo number as well. Yeah, but it was. It was very disorganized, but it was very fun. So everybody, the mood was just incredible. Like everybody that worked there still to this day they go like, wow, that was like almost the best time of my life. Yeah, yeah, wow. So I feel like I was very lucky that for five years I got to be part of that. And then, uh, the same kind of moods, the comedy barn theater and pigeon force, which is a variety show yeah, how did you end up there?

Speaker 1: 25:18

because you're that's in tennessee, right yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 25:22

So I was doing um so first did college. From there on I went straight to the cruise ships and then I did that for like seven years and I got a little, uh little, tired of that because you don't get to perform as much but and you travel a lot, so in the beginning it's amazing you get to see all new places. You gotta have all the time the days off on the ship to work in your show. So that grew a lot. But at one point then my show was kind of like, um, almost done. It was as good as it could be for that market. So it's like if I change something I'm not gonna get more bookings. So at one point you go what's the point? And then, um, yeah, david fee used to be the senior cruise director of carnival cruise line and he, um was the founder of the comedy barn theater as well, together with jim hedrick. And um, yeah, he liked so on facebook he started talking. And then, uh, yeah, because the cruise ship connection too. And uh, then I had a couple gigs in the area. Then I met him and he said, oh, let's try it in the show, let's try it out. And he said I was looking for a juggler. On paper it wouldn't work because, like this is very, yeah, republican, southern. So but he said, yeah, it's kind of funny, it works here, with your accent, it shouldn't work here, but it does. It's just, it's just of funny, it works With your accent, it shouldn't work here, but it does. It's just so weird with his high skill. So, yeah, all the people that come to this area, they seem to go for it, although on paper it shouldn't work that a guy from the Netherlands is going to go perform in overalls in this hillbilly show. It's just so out of the wall that it's fair. It's great. You have a contract.

Speaker 2: 26:55

So I worked there for multiple years and, yeah, it was great. It was so much stage time we did like in the summer or half the year we did two shows per day and then the other half is just one show a day. So you really did like 500 shows per year. That for three seasons. So yeah, just between the street shows, the cruise ships, then the theater restaurants, three months in Team Park House in Boston, japan, where you're like four shows a day. So it was really good to get that amount of stage time and it was all different, like in Japan, I had to do a 25, 20-minute stage show without talking. Yeah, yeah, and that got me into the cruise ships for the farewell spots for Royal Caribbean, and then from that shorter spot on board those cruise ships I got into the longer show. So, just like all this, yeah, one venue, one experience helped the other one to kind of almost like fill all the puzzle pieces of the entire puzzle to really understand everything.

Speaker 1: 27:53

Yeah, it's great and I think it's an important part in a well-rounded performer. Like you say, you started at the witch house and you're doing animation and doing stage time and you mentioned that it sort of disorganized the thing, which means that you get this organic thing of the performers needing to organize themselves, but it also allows everybody to to contribute. Sometimes, when you come into a very rigid structure where you go, this is the director, this is the choreographer, this is the lighting designer, this is then everybody. Your contribution as an artist is often just sort of the standard and do your act between this time and this time, but when it is a little bit more disorganized, you either it falls apart or it has this organic approach which teaches you so much about the different aspects of it.

Speaker 2: 28:40

so it sounds like yeah, after half the time the, the general manager, he was just playing uh card games on his computer in the corner and uh and uh and we were just doing our thing. But everybody had a great time and it was too late. Oh, I think LED props would be great for here. Do you mind purchasing it? And I will just do the amount of shows to pay for that thing. He was like, yeah, no problem. So like just that organic stuff. And then those possibilities, because it was super structured, they go no, you cannot afford to, and then those things don't happen. Happen. But they were open to new ideas and uh, and then, yeah, everybody had good times, everybody gave their best and became like a very good show.

Speaker 1: 29:21

So when you, when you're at the, when you because you, because the first time I met you in, uh, in real life you sent a message and going oh, I see, you're in this town and we are coming with a cruise ship to this town. And I say, oh, I'm not actually home, but I am in this other town, also on the coast, are you there? And they go oh, two days before I'm there and then we could meet up. So you're doing cruise ships still and I was just wondering some practical things like when you travel to go with that, how much equipment do you have, like how many suitcases and stuff do you have when you go?

Speaker 2: 29:52

yeah. So like two really is the max you want to travel with. Yeah, like it's they reimburse for excess luggage, but like, of course, the more you have, the less appealing it becomes for them and also just the more pain of it for yourself becomes to travel around with all this stuff. So that's, that's the tough part. Like with the cruise ships. Like they want a lot of time. In the beginning I was doing 25 minutes because they had a farewell spot in the Caribbean where the show always needs to be 45 minutes. But then the cruise director would go like, thanks for cruising with us, it'll be a good time. Here's a recap from the week. And then the dancers they do a little number and then the variety act only needs to do 25 minutes.

Speaker 2: 30:33

Oh, so my agent got me in started with that and it was was really good, because I submitted the tape from uh, japan and uh, the american booker from the cruise ships had to say, oh, these europeans, they don't speak english, so we need something that is more visual. So they go, this guy is great. So yeah, I got a lot of work through that. But then I started to expand a little bit and the crew director did it in mine. So at one point my 25 became 35. And then from that one my agent goes okay, if you want to be that 35, just here. And then Holland America line needed 40 or something. And then from there he said, go ahead, now you can do 40, and then you do one more act. So that grew pretty organically. There was always the balance between which props um, what, yeah, what extra to bring, and also like how big does it play exactly, yeah, and how many minutes can you get out of it?

Speaker 1: 31:23

it's like, as you go, you're bringing, uh, bringing a plate, spinning stack and all of this and on, but if you only have seven minutes with it, it's like maybe you bring your clubs and then you actually, in the different routines you do, they have x amount of more minutes. You want to maximize the material as well that you have, but still also have some spectacular things anyway.

Speaker 2: 31:44

Yeah so how do you balance that? Fascinating to see the background from everybody, because, like some street performers, they go into the cruise ship and then you really see that they want to do the build up and it's just, it just doesn't completely fit. But then you also see some circus people that you see, okay, these are their two bits that they have, yeah, and then they're not used to working with volunteers great. So then they get some volunteers and they try to stall and it just becomes sad. Yeah, yeah, so you can. It's very interesting.

Speaker 2: 32:10

For me it was good that I feel like I have enough background with any of these markets. I did some street, some circus shows too, and I have some junk into the music. But then also I had the experience from that restaurant and stuff to deal with volunteers, like very often just one-on-one, and they were like, yeah, after a couple beers you have to be really good to control them. And if you have to control the crowds on a cruise ship with like really sweet people that are all on vacation and half of them are retired, it's not so difficult because they're very willing to do that.

Speaker 2: 32:42

So, it's about the same like, for example, now I'm working with Dan Holtzman on this new prop.

Speaker 1: 32:49

Oh yeah, describe it because it's an audio thing.

Speaker 2: 32:52

It's an orange tube with two holes in it, so it's almost like a straight tube with a hole in the middle where you can put your fingers in yeah and then of course you have the hole from the tube so a ball could go through.

Speaker 2: 33:04

Yeah, but like yeah. So if you have juggling of tennis balls in a can, um yeah, you can do a lot of those kind of tricks. If you're a juggler, you recognize this. Also, if you have cigar box juggling, if you can use two tubes and a ball in the middle, you can do those kind of tricks too. And you can also use it as a pedestal to balance things with your forehead and something on top.

Speaker 2: 33:26

So, for cruise ships. I was like when Dan Holtzman showed it to me I was like, okay, let's make it a little bit bigger and then you can do three routines with this one prop and all three routines. They're really good on their own because I know from this old juggling books that some jugglers just had this routine with two tubes and a ball and that was their main thing. For some jugglers.

Speaker 1: 33:48

Back in the day. You mean like it's like somebody used this as a prop back in whatever like the 30s or 40s, like uh.

Speaker 1: 33:55

So this is the oh yeah, yeah, yeah, from freddie canton, and he's uh one of my mentors and he gave it to me, but, like it's so it's basically like two, almost like two funnels in in a way, like it's a little bit bigger in each end so that you can use it to balance and and I guess isn't it Francis Brun or whatever he also does these balances with these kinds of sticks. But yours is a more utility prop, because when I look at that wooden stick that you just showed now, that seems a little bit more like it's just for balancing or so, although that one was kind of long enough that it could almost be thrown like a juggling club.

Speaker 2: 34:32

Yeah, as well. So, yeah, I think that's where the mechanical engineering uh comes in place, because then I look like, okay, what do I want to do with it? How can I optimize it for that use? And can I, with a couple design tweaks, can it be something else too that you can do more with it? So, um, yeah, so this is the new thing.

Speaker 2: 34:50

So now I need to do two different 45-minute shows on board the cruise ships, which, yeah, now the one I have super solid, and then I had another like half hour of really good material. But now the market seems to shift that they kind of want two different 45-minute shows, and the benefit was that there's not that many jugglers that can do it. Yeah, yeah. So if you're a, a singer, if you don't have two shows, two 45 minute shows, you're kind of screwed, because the other guys would have it, but with jugglers it's very, still very rare, like it's only maybe, I think, less than 10 jugglers in the world that can do two different 45 minute cruise ship shows.

Speaker 2: 35:26

Yeah, wow, and and I was like, well, I just want to do, um, yeah, I have my show. It's really, I'm already getting all the work I want with this show and a half. But now I think, because I always want to grow the practice that I have there, it almost becomes too easy because everything works after you know, like my first cruise ship was 15 years ago, so I worked out to all the kings. So now it's almost like, yeah, I'm starting to get a little excited about that challenge and also then I go okay, instead of sitting all those nights in my cabin and then only one show night, then get to play it twice, might be not so bad actually.

Speaker 1: 36:04

Yeah, yeah, but it's interesting also like it's a theme in your life and I guess I have it somewhat myself as well. But from the beginning you go, I play ping pong, but I like this. What's the next step? It seems to be a theme through your life that you always sort of move on, that you're not happy sitting with your creation and going, ok, this is my golden gem and I'm going to polish it. Like you say, in the variety theatres there's people out there who had those golden eight minutes and they were famous for doing that and you're sort of always expanding.

Speaker 1: 36:41

And part of what I think is interesting that I know has had an impact on my life is when you are in situations like you are on the ship where you are working and there's a set time when you're working but you need you need to stay there.

Speaker 1: 36:54

So the ship is even more extreme, because I've been doing that.

Speaker 1: 36:57

I did that 12 years with one show with la clique or la soiree that we toured around with um, and then we did eight shows a week, six days over six days. So you're always kind of locked in but you're only working at night, so then you had all this time during the day to develop other ideas or to develop things, but I didn't necessarily get the time to test them out on stage. So I'm thinking, of course you keep tweaking your shows and everything, but I guess it's also in this time where you are not economically nervous about anything and you have, because you're working on a cruise ship and you have this extra time that is this also where you your ideas to go into the other domains, like making juggling equipment for sales and publishing juggling books. That's not something that I think the average person who wants to get rich gets cracking on, because it's more a passion thing, I would imagine yeah, I think I just feel like this urge that this is what I should be doing, and then I go.

Speaker 2: 37:58

Then, if I don't do it, it feels like you're failing yourself. It's just like, okay, I feel this needs to be out there. For example, uh, carl einstein with his book. You know like four thousand years of juggling and uh, when I just started juggling the very first book that I had, had a little juggling history chapter on it and she said, if you want to read more, read this book. And I was like, well, I want to read more. But then this book was nowhere available because it's very rare and that's such a weird history on it. But then I met Carl Hines at a European juggling convention. Then I became friends with him. Then we lost touch for a while. And then Eric Obrey, he reconnected me with Carl Heinz, but I knew the issue of that book and Dubé was going to publish it. That never happened. And yeah, there's like this 20-year weird path until finally the reprint came out.

Speaker 2: 38:50

But it all started with this one book. I was like, oh, if you want to read more, and I was, print came out, but it's all started with this one book. It's like, oh, if you want to read more. And I was like, heck, yeah, I want to read more and I couldn't. I couldn't find it. So for all those years I looked for that book. And then, um, when eric was like, yeah, like he still, he still wants to do that. He still has this pile of paper that actually I typed out, and eric scanned all the pictures and stuff, but like nobody, no, now, now we're at the phase that, no, everybody that promised, yeah, we'll put it together, I will put it out. Um, yeah, like well, but like nobody did it because all those guys feel that he has so much bad luck with that book every step of the way that he tried like let's try three times and every step fails. So it's almost a miracle that it came out. But like, yeah, I was like, oh, he's my friends, I feel like it's good for juggling and I want to read this book. And I was like, okay, then I will publish it. I will just go yeah, give me that stuff. And he's like have you ever published stuff before? And scott hines was very surprised and being like nils, he's gonna do it. What is his track record with it? Is he? What's his interest with us, I said, well, I didn't make.

Speaker 2: 39:49

I think that's the good thing for mechanical engineering that that you don't know something about a topic. But then you know, you dive into it, you learn the situation, you apply your logic and at the end you make something. So that's, I think, the big benefit from mechanical engineering that I learned. It's like, well, how difficult can it be? Like it's not going to be easy, but books are published every single day around the world, so it's not a process that is impossible. So you go. Okay, if other people are doing it, if I follow the steps, then I should be able to do it too. So pictures were there, the text was there and then I was. And then it's just like using your brain, because Daniel Holzman he's a friend of mine, also coaching me with comedy and juggling for for many years, but his wife she's uh, that was her job layout stuff for magazines and books and then, because of uh, I think it was around 2008, because of the recession, then they had to let it go from her job, but she still really loves it.

Speaker 2: 40:46

She also loves juggling, but she never got to be part of it in the sense that she doesn't juggle, but barry and dan were spinning brothers, so this has always been around for so many years. And now it's really cool because she likes to lay out books and she has now done so many juggling books also now for other people in show business and, um, yeah, and now she has her own little corner in juggling history through these books. So she worked very hard. She made it, yeah, really awesome because it's super quality and she knew enough about juggling. And then Dan was overlooking it too. So Karl Heinz was like this book is so awesome, so much better than the layout of the old one, because now when I talk about this juggler, his picture is right next to it and he's like, yeah, it's really thought out well.

Speaker 1: 41:27

Yeah, wow. And so Eric Aubrey, because he's one of the guys who sort of started early on working or trying to make this happen or whatever, or like he made that contact with Carl and then he put you in contact because I mean, he's doing a PhD. I don't know if he had started doing that at that point.

Speaker 2: 41:53

I think he was prepping for it.

Speaker 1: 41:55

Yeah, so he was knowing that he's going to spend so much time on that, because that's the thing with you. You had then free time where you made it, because you already had your gigs and you knew that you had them to the point that you wanted to go what's the next thing? What's the next thing?

Speaker 2: 42:14

So you could also your your passion for this book and getting it out. Yeah, I was like it feels like it has to be out there yeah so, uh, and then money, always you can make it and then you spend it.

Speaker 2: 42:25

So it's like, and I think, if I have more business skills, yeah, yeah you know, like, then if you know how to I mean, I never had to use investors quite yet but like, or if you know how to book a gig, then you go. Okay, if I work on this or if I do a couple gigs and I can pay some people to do some of that stuff, then I go well, altogether. That was a chunk of time in my life I spent on it. But like, if, yeah, if you, if you buy stocks with it, then maybe you lose that one, but this one at least it's out there it's the same almost as you go.

Speaker 1: 43:00

I want these bounce balls. I'm just going to do a couple of street shows and then I buy the bounce balls and now it's also you're doing, you have this passion and there's this book that's so important. Like to get Carl Heinz's book out there in a better way than that. The first one four thousand years of juggling, because I think a lot of people who grew up in the like juggling in the late 80s and or early 90s or whatever, whenever you started doing.

Speaker 1: 43:24

I can't remember when that book come out, but I was reading cascade, the juggling magazine, and um, and I saw that that book existed. But me too it was like this mythical thing. It wasn't until like a few years ago that I actually saw a copy of it that Jay Gilligan had, which I think he had Luke Wilson's book that he used in Reflex. It was the first time I actually could hold it and look at it and look in it, because there's only a very few, like a few hundred copies or something made of it. Isn at it and look in it, because there's only a very few, like a few hundred copies or something made of it. Isn't that so?

Speaker 2: 43:56

even with that. I asked carl heinz and he's like I don't know how many copies have been made, because he got, he got ripped off uh by the publishing company as well. Oh no, but like, uh, he was just like but yeah, this it's very rare, so there's not that many copies around, but like uh, even the thing, because er Eric said like there's so many copies printed, but like Karl Heinz was like I don't know, like it must be an estimate, like most likely threw around that number but we don't know if that's the exact number, because he said the guy was just printing it and I and I never saw money from it and I don't know how many he printed. So it's just like so many unknowns uh about that book.

Speaker 1: 44:33

It's like kind of a ride on its own, but it was an interesting thing, I think, the fact that the book was called four thousand years of juggling already that, to me, was a valuable piece of information in the early days of the internet that I was like, yeah, but it's like four thousand years of juggling, and I had seen those pictures from the tomb of bernie hassan and or whatever it's called, with the women juggling and which is in the beginning of the of this, uh, um, juggling the past and future as well. Of course, it sort of goes um, but anyway, um, so that's that's. That's like. So this book Carl Heinz's Magnus Opus or whatever that was the first book that you published in 2017?.

Speaker 2: 45:23

Actually second, but the first one was very small. It was just a learn-how-to-juggle book Because at the Comedy Barn Theatre, there were so many people coming through and I was like, also for my own reputation, it's like, oh, if I learn how to juggle book, I can sell it. At the Comedy Barn Theater, there were so many people coming through and I was like, also for my own reputation, it's like, oh, if I learn how to juggle book, I can sell it at the show and it will help my. So that was like a quick project that I did pretty quickly, so in 2017, that was the first one. Also, it was a good lesson. It's like, okay, this is actually, it is doable.

Speaker 1: 45:54

And how did you do that?

Speaker 2: 45:56

book. I haven't seen that book, but that's also with photographs and stuff. Yeah, it's very small, it's like 80 or 90 pages. Yeah, and it's for the general public.

Speaker 1: 46:02

It's like yeah, and it's how to, and it's the simple patterns.

Speaker 2: 46:06

It's a little bit about me. It's about learning how to juggle. So everybody that saw the show and then you go go, okay, 10 bucks for that book, like it's uh, so actually, uh, my, uh, the car that I bought in the united states, uh, for that contract I paid with the income from that little book. So that was pretty awesome too. Like, in the beginning it was like maybe a month of work and then, uh, that month of work before the show paid for the expense of, uh, of the car.

Speaker 2: 46:32

Yeah, I was driving there, so that was just cool If you have a good idea and you go after it and you make it professionally and just actually. Yeah, things are possible.

Speaker 1: 46:43

I mean, I love that it becomes this theme. I've been hooked onto that idea. But it's the same of how you do the thing that you love doing the shows and everything and then you get something concrete. Afterwards you go out and you take your suitcase, go out on the street and you do it, or you you're doing the shows and then you make this book and then you sell it and then at the end of it you have something tangible, real, that you can open the door and sit in and drive where you want to go. There's something cool about taking that something that's purely an idea and then you shape it into an object and then it makes real changes to your life yeah, and also like it's fun because my best friend he is uh, he was the number one student at the number one business school in the world.

Speaker 2: 47:25

So he's like very, he's, very, smart. But uh, but I know from, yeah, high school and he was like a consultant for mckinsey and then he was like, uh, reorganization of companies and stuff. But after five years he was like, oh, I want to do something more concrete, because I always come into a situation where there's a lot of crap going on and I make it better, but then when it's better, uh, I have to go to the next project. So, uh, yeah, he was. He's like I want a company that actually makes a concrete product and, uh, I can see it all the way through.

Speaker 2: 47:54

So it's yeah, it's kind of cool that even with juggling, some people go, I just juggle it, but then you go like, yeah, even some high profile guys like that, they go. Actually, what you have, that you can go on on a street corner, or like you can go to a theater, create something awesome and you see the impact from one-on-one it's, it's so valuable that he wanted. Yeah, he went from one company to another because he was lacking the, the impact that we get to do when we do a show.

Speaker 1: 48:20

Yeah but when you? So the only question that I thought we were going to have to dive into this it's like when you're talking about the past, then you kind of the people who are still around in photos and who have done important things or whatever, like in the hindsight, like we look at it now and we go, oh well, this was important and Bobby May has to be in it, and Cinco Valle and all like these people of course have to be in it. But then, when it comes to the more contemporary stuff, what was your sort of criteria for making a book, Because it can become endless. Is it just going to be like a dictionary of people who have done some juggling? But what was the criteria for who was to be included in the contemporary stuff?

Speaker 2: 49:07

For me it was like luckily I didn't have to write the book, karl Heinz wrote the book, but of course at the end you have to maybe guide a little bit. But first it was like okay, let's call Heinz's opinion about juggling history. So that was also a couple of times when some more modern jugglers were upset. They were not in the book or they go well, this is, or like America. They go God, there should be more American jugglers, because we're you know, we have a lot of influence. Some people, some American jugglers, came into discussion. But then too, eric and I were like well, this is Carl Hines' opinion about juggling history, like it's like it's so like he is the number one authority, especially I mean now he's not keeping up so much, but especially before the generation before undoubtedly the number one authority in it. So you go like but still you have to remember it's still his.

Speaker 1: 50:03

it's all filtered through his lens or so of interest and just who he actually has seen or heard about.

Speaker 2: 50:10

Yeah, so, with the answers to it, some uh yeah, comedy jugglers in the us. It's like, if you're going, like it's not, uh, if you're not happy with it, nobody's holding you back of writing a book about, like uh, american juggling history yeah so you can uh do that, but like, yeah, so that was it's all subjective, but that's also like I think, throughout history, any history, like it's if you're friends with this story, and so he knows what you're up to. But it's also it's.

Speaker 1: 50:41

The book also starts with that because Carl Hines, he also had got started in his interest and his sort of collection of chronicling juggling from another man, I can't remember what his name is, max Koch or something like that, or yeah, max, max Koch, you know, and it's so well, because then Tommy Curtin he's the the man that's with from the bottle clubs that I'm producing now.

Speaker 2: 51:11

Oh yeah, yeah, he lives only an hour and a half away from the comedy barn theater in tennessee, so he came to the show pretty regularly and I'm really good friends with him now as well. But he said like that he was trying when he saw the advert on the ads that you can purchase that collection. Yeah, he did a bid on it as well, but it was too expensive to get that collection from berlin to the united states. So then Karl Heinz got it. But it's just so wild, that's so many years ago. And also like, if he would have gotten it, juggling History would have been so much different than it's now. But then just to get, yeah, in a journey that you get to see the other side too, or hear like, oh, I was bidding on it too.

Speaker 2: 51:49

Like, wow, like it's such an obscure detail yeah, but it's cool to know those little things that otherwise, yes, without those details, you cannot make certain connections. Yeah, how to report history better?

Speaker 2: 52:01

history is told by the winners and in this case, history is told by the winner of that auction yeah, yeah, and he and I think too like Carl Heinz, because he loved juggling and he juggled just a little bit but, like Tommy, was a professional juggler. So I think it's good I went to Carl Heinz because Carl Heinz really made it his life mission to travel all over the world, meet those jugglers and write those books and report it.

Speaker 1: 52:27

It's really interesting. It's almost like when you get to the point with a new field of art or whatever. You need to have people who are academics, like we are getting now, like I mean, eric Aubrey is making his stamp on that, or like his contribution towards academia understanding what the juggling and what and what's greater within circus I mean because juggling is so connected to circus, particularly in europe, but, um, but all of these things. It's like when external factors, when people are reviewing, like because most of the time when people review circus, it's like the arts person and they might know maybe they care most for ballet or they care most for for for concerts, and then all of a sudden, you're sitting there with a contemporary juggling show and I don't know what to make of it.

Speaker 1: 53:20

So, but when you then have a historian which is juggles a little bit, but that is, first and foremost, a historian who is interested in because the study of the history of juggling.

Speaker 1: 53:34

Historian who is interested in because the study of the history of juggling, exactly what we just touched on here, who gets included and who don't get included in, because because the history will always be different depending on who tells them, which is why in 2020, four or five, it's still coming out books about the second world War or about the Napoleonic Wars or whatever like, because a new person will see another thing and each one of those books might be completely true, even if they don't overlap. But from the point of view of the people who are in the trenches, this was what the war was like, and from the point of view of the people who are in houses in England when, during the Blitz, this is also true. But all of those truths were going on at the same time. So, of course, you want more people to write histories of juggling, because each one is just a facet of the whole truth or whatever.

Speaker 2: 54:28

Yeah, probably time is the filter too, because if you have maybe the Soleno ring now, everybody's doing that trick again. Okay, then here's invention.

Speaker 1: 54:36

So the Zolano ring is the ring with the glass inside.

Speaker 2: 54:40

No, you have the ring. It's like, for example, two juggling rings and they're a little, maybe two inches apart, and then a ball can roll in the inside that one.

Speaker 1: 54:49

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like that on your forehead and you just bounce your knees up and down. That motion will make the ball run through the. It's like a head bounce, but uh, but with a kind of cute to cool apparatus or whatever.

Speaker 2: 55:04

So like now that trick becomes popular again, so then also I think we kind of did too, like if you saw people still nowadays still do those tricks, then they go. Okay, this juggler creator, salerno, is an important figure in juggling history because people are still doing his stuff. So I think that's true. He looks what the impact was from before yeah and then uh report out.

Speaker 2: 55:27

But he, yeah, he loved it so much that I think he's foremost juggling enthusiast. But then he reported it. But he reported it in his way because he never but, yeah, academic notations and stuff, he doesn't have that in his works and then also sometimes it's funny too.

Speaker 1: 55:44

It's like a folk history, kind of almost like an oral history, like it's. He tells it and this is the way that this was, and I know because I was there.

Speaker 2: 55:53

Kind of. It's funny too, because I had a couple discussions with some people too. They go well, his books are not so accurate because there's no citations in it and I go hold on, he was sitting with the guy that did it or he saw it firsthand. So how can you cite that? Because he was there, he was an eyewitness. And then, if you go like whatever in um engineering something, he was closest to the source, all the other stuff is just, you know, a summary, like it's almost like that you're rounded off the numbers within the calculation. That's what you're doing. You guys are now citing his work. So now your work has a citation. So academically, uh, it's now more sound, but actually it's less sound because you're quoting the source that you said doesn't have citations. So there's something weird going on.

Speaker 1: 56:39

But it's always like that, isn't it? It's like this with citation, it's the same thing. That they go. They ask you well, I want to do this job. Well, where have you worked before? Well, nowhere yet. Well then you can't start working. We only hire people who have already worked before. Well, no way yet. Well then you can't start working. We only hire people who have already worked and you go. Well, if that's what the business does, how does anyone ever get to do anything At some point? At some point it starts and it's. It can't be cited. It's. It's just the, it's the beginning, and he is like because juggling is, as something to be studied, is a relatively new thing, and he really was on like on the forefront where he's his. There's no one else really to cite.

Speaker 2: 57:17

Yeah, yeah, and then it's funny to his company.

Speaker 1: 57:20

It's like if you're the leader, like Steve Jobs, didn't have a college degree and all this stuff, and then they are the ones that's got to hire all the people that need to follow those rules, but then trailblazer doesn't have to follow those rules, he just goes for the pic, picks himself and he starts but I think that's uh, it's the difference between the people who come into any field but we just talk about circus from our point of view or whatever that a lot of people come out and they just look for some, some company to join, and other people come out, and come out because they have something inside themselves that they go well, I'm doing this, so, so, and then sometimes that ends up with like you, you hire somebody to help you as an editor or as a designer or whatever, like that. You then then that's like a I mean, I guess you don't have full-time employees, but uh, but it's, it's the same principle yeah, it's mostly partnerships and freelancers.

Speaker 1: 58:12

But like, uh, yeah, for another project getting close to that one, but yeah, not yet but, um, let's uh so just before we move on to the future or whatever like, because you have uh got personal relationships with different uh jugglers from the past. So like for, for instance, the book that I the Barry Thorson book Unbalanced and my Life as a Juggler by Bobby Jewell and I think I saw you recently saw this guy, bobby Jewell, is that how it's?

Speaker 2: 58:45

said, yeah, it's so cool because he is 100 years old now 100 years old and he's still very sharp and he lives in Pittsburgh. And then because of some shows in the United States, he got to be in the area a couple of times, but it was during COVID. Everything stopped. And then David Kane's Juggling Collection. It's only five hours from the place where I was performing and there was nothing going on. So I was like, oh, david, you probably have a lot of stuff to be done, like scanning your pictures and all that kind of stuff. So I just spent there two, almost three weeks just scanning stuff at his collection. It was really good because then also I saw a bunch of Carl Heinz collection, then a bunch of David Cain's collection, so it just helps me in multiple ways. So I was like, okay, if I need new acts, hang. I was like okay, if I need to do new acts.

Speaker 1: 59:33

Hang on just like yeah. So then if you look at new acts, you can get inspiration from there. But just before we go, so what was this juggling archive? I don't know about this. The juggling collection, I mean.

Speaker 2: 59:45

So David Cain he was actually Jay Gilligan, lawrence Club Passing and a bunch of stuff, because they're in the same area as David and Scott Kane and they're two brothers in Ohio and David has a big passion for juggling history. So he asks, like a lot of like historical figures in juggling, if he can reach out to them or their family. Hey, can I have the props from your uncle, can I have your old props? So now he has almost all the props from all the most significant figures in juggling history. Wow, and it's all in his house. So it's a massive collection. And then he bought a photo collection from yeah, so he bought some collections and he collected a lot, but they're all in folders and not digital.

Speaker 2: 1:00:31

And he's writing a lot of articles for the international drug association yeah so I was like, well, I have all this time those things need to be scanned, so I just scan them for you. And um kills, I have a place to go during covid, like I'm learning uh more, because then I've seen so much from carl heinz's uh collection. Then I seen all your pictures. Then if I need to work on the second cruise ship show or whatever, then I know what all has to be done, because then I go okay, maybe for the cruise ship show I want some toss, juggling, some balancing trick. The show still needs to be versatile, but I don't want it to be drawn out and be boring. So I go how can I? If I've seen everything that's out there, I can just pick the types of tricks to create a really good, strong running order for my show. It helps juggling history because then that stuff is scanned. So it's like it's almost like a triple win.

Speaker 2: 1:01:23

Yeah, my time there, instead of just staying at the house, uh, watching netflix and hope that shows are gonna open again. So that's what I, what we did. We just hung out for like, uh, yeah, over two weeks, uh, working on that stuff, when the entire world was uh shut down, yeah, and um, yeah, so that's uh. I don't know where I was going with that, but like uh oh yeah, no, because you were talking about.

Speaker 1: 1:01:46

Yeah well, you're sort of back to where you were at, where how you went there, and you have three different things that you can get from going to this collection, and I kind of stopped you in your tracks because I I didn't know about it. What's his name? Kang david david kane kane, okay so, and he's kind of then bought all the collections and stuff. I guess that's how it kind of is, that you amass it and it becomes bigger yeah, so he a lot of.

Speaker 2: 1:02:12

He collected one-on-one and then he bought, like paul paul bachman was his name, like, so he bought the collection from paul bachman and then he reached out over the years to a lot of like, uh, historical older jugglers. Yeah, yeah, starting this juggling museum and, um, yeah, now he has like his full house is full of juggling stuff from, yeah, edward, from Wig, from the first juggling clubs to, yeah, to modern props. A lot of Jay's stuff is there too, like he just like a lot of like older and newer historical juggling props.

Speaker 1: 1:02:44

Amazing Karl.

Speaker 2: 1:02:45

Heinz was never interested that much in props, he just clocked up his apartment. So he wanted Karl Heinz wanted the stories and the pictures. Yeah, and David Payne, he likes the props and then learns about the stories afterwards but it's, it's really good because the same like now with uh albert lucas, his uh, his dad was in the acrobatics group with uh anthony gato's dad and they, those guys, those guys trio. They work with all the great jugglers from the past, from Serge Flash to Francis Braun, bobby May, and they always asked like why do you use this kind of juggling club? Why is your ring this size? Why do you warm up that way? So they learned they were okay jugglers themselves, but not like world-class, but they were world-class acrobats, got to work with the world-class jugglers and they just loved juggling. So they just asked all those questions, accumulating all that knowledge about how to practice juggling, and then they use that knowledge to train their sons.

Speaker 2: 1:03:44

So Anthony Gatto, incredible Lucas, it was the first guy to do 12 rings and then he did 13 and 14 as well. Then his older brother, he was like the guinea pig, he juggles. He juggled 10 rings. His younger brother can do 12 rings. So from that group like pretty much like half the jugglers that have done 12 rings come out of that little pool. Um, but then the good thing too, like they asked, like, uh, so when I was a kid they always went to stew reynolds and then it's like I want, albert is now this tall, we need this kind of juggling clubs. Okay, he just grew so much, we need bigger juggling clubs. And then the old timers they knew the methods and then he learned Stu Reynolds learned from Harry Lentz also the methods like how you can measure juggling clubs, the same like tennis records or golf clubs are measured for the individual, with juggling not so much done. So yeah then, learning that from Albert, but then getting to test to go okay, show me the club from this juggler.

Speaker 1: 1:04:47

And then David has it.

Speaker 2: 1:04:48

Yeah, wow, and then I can just measure. It's like, okay, that's why it's been so good or that's why the club is horrible. And then Albert showed me the knowledge why. And now that comes in handy for the juggling props. So it's also almost the same why I wanted to do juggling the past and future book, because Isaac needs to be preserved, but also now understanding this, because sometimes at a juggling convention there's a, there's a juggler and he juggles like seven clubs and he go, everybody go like oh my god, he is so good I could never do that and then you go.

Speaker 2: 1:05:21

No, you could do it too, I think you were just unlucky. That's those clubs. They fit that juggler almost like certain body types. When you go to a suit store, that suit that you buy fits you like a custom made suit. But if you're maybe heavier or lighter then that suit would not fit you like a custom suit yeah so, and that's what I feel with juggling equipment.

Speaker 2: 1:05:44

But most jugglers don't know that. And then I go how good would it be if you can make the juggling props better and optimize them so that people that only get to practice a couple times a week, or even also professional jugglers, then just have a better equipment so they get more out of their training time. So it's almost like you don't have to beat your head against the wall during every training session for so long, and then those guys will land those tricks because the material is not working against them. So that's what sort of like yeah, then when I start to know that and then it's like okay, I'm a mechanical engineer, I should be able to figure out to make one part or like a juggling prop, because my other friends are in manufacturing or doing stuff with I was like I should be able to figure that out too. Shouldn't be too hard, boss, to do it.

Speaker 1: 1:06:35

And then uh, and I was, uh, just turning on a video recording. I'm recording it on the. I'm recording it on a separate device, but I just thought I will just. I don't actually use the video, but sorry about that okay, yeah so, um, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:06:51

So if you have the knowledge and then just figure it out, it's fun because it's almost like trading a solving a real life puzzle, and then otherwise, otherwise, I have this knowledge and then you're holding it back, but I go Okay, if you make it into a product, it helps me, it helps the other people and it's just like it's all over older Again.

Speaker 1: 1:07:12

There's like very little downside to it, but there's a big plus but it's an interesting thing as well, like uh, because the general clubs that you get in the store, it's like if you're only doing three clubs and stuff like that I guess there's you can compensate more because the tricks aren't quite as difficult. But when you get into the more difficult things, whether it is rings or or clubs when you're doing seven clubs are because I understand you're actually working on 12 rings as well that you're then almost at what can be called like the edge of what's possible, or like you're going into really where it's so difficult that now I would imagine that it really makes a big difference.

Speaker 2: 1:07:57

If your juggling rings are too thick and too heavy, then doing 12, even catching six in one hand if they are, you know, four millimeters thick instead of three millimeters thick, it's just the way you have to grip and hold the reins in your hand. Yeah, it makes a big difference the way. And then the way too, if they're heavier, they will. It's going to be more difficult to make that force. That six ring comes in your hand. Yeah, very quickly it will knock out the other five. But like, if it's, if it's lighter, it would would help.

Speaker 2: 1:08:25

Yeah, and it's the same with, yeah, with the juggling clubs. But then it's the same, like if you have shoes, you put them on the wrong fit. In the beginning it feels weird, but if you walk around with that for like maybe a day, you just start, you sometimes notice it anymore. Yeah, so I feel that's with juggling clubs too, like a lot of people don't realize that they don't like their clubs because that's all they do and they got used to it so this is something that your engineering background could potentially put into.

Speaker 1: 1:08:51

I mean, I'm sure, like because you've you've made some equipment and you've got plans for doing having a, actually like because is it Foot Locker or some of these stores anyway, where they sell shoes, where they sort of measure your foot and checks where your step is and then they go? Well, these are the type of shoes that you should have. Have you got dreams of making an online place where you can decide the length of the body of the club and the handle?

Speaker 2: 1:09:18

and yeah, it would be, would be great. First, we need to get the system up that you can make this club pretty, yeah, the wide range of weights, lengths, all that kind of stuff. And then, because the old timers already had, the method that you can go like, okay, these are the lengths of certain parts of your body and just connects to those, and then what, what do you want to do? So the formula is already there, it's just right now. The molds are not cheap and then also inventory, so it's, um, so coming out with a juggling club. So that's going to be the first model that will fit into this system. But then we need, yeah, to invest in like five more molds. But, and then also you have minimum order quantity of plastic. So the first club they needed to.

Speaker 1: 1:10:04

We're gonna release them in six different colors, but every part need minimum order quantity was two thousand, so that's gonna be twelve thousand um and that takes space, like money to buy it, but then you need money to store it as well, because there probably isn't uh, there isn't a market for like, if there's six colors and two thousand of each, it's like you're gonna end up with twelve thousand clubs. That's gonna sell. That's gonna take a while, doesn't it? I don't know what yeah, so luckily, like.

Speaker 2: 1:10:34

That's why it's so funny how everything comes back together, because, like max, like Max Oddballs, he founded JugglingWholesalecom and they're the biggest distributor for juggling equipment. Basically all the juggling shops in the world run on his wholesale company and so that's partly in Lithuania, partly in the UK, but then also Max was friends with Carl Heinz. Like he helped distribute the juggling arts. Yeah, like one of his, the silver book from carl heinz yeah he helped.

Speaker 2: 1:11:05

So, like you know, it goes back 40 years and they were, they were friends. It's like it's funny how then all the, all the projects kind of weave into each other. But like his son um, yeah, I'm not friends with him as well and they are the backbone of the distribution network of my uh jogging craft. So the bottle clubs and the cuphead clubs. So they're now going through them and then they have all the the network with the jogging shops yeah so, um yeah, so I'm using their infrastructure.

Speaker 2: 1:11:32

And then, um yeah, so they they do the ordering and the storing of the stuff and I do the design, and then we just co-develop them. And, um yeah, so they they do the ordering and the storing of the stuff and I do the design, and then we just co-develop them. And um yeah, so we're just working together on that. What?

Speaker 1: 1:11:41

kind of numbers like I have no idea of. Uh, what, what kind of numbers how many, how many juggling clubs are are sold, like what?

Speaker 2: 1:11:52

like I'm learning about it now too. It it's just fascinating because, like on most days, these guys have like 140,000 juggling balls in their warehouse.

Speaker 1: 1:12:02

Yeah, and how many is sold, because that gives you quite a direct metric on what's going on in the juggling community. If they're sitting there as a distributor and they got 140 000 balls and they go, okay, we just got six new orders from the uk. Like, what's going on there? Why? Why is there being sold 2 000 juggling balls there in in this time when it normally is only sold 500 or whatever? Like what? Have have you got any numbers on how many juggling balls or clubs or rings are being sold every year or every?

Speaker 2: 1:12:41

month. I do know that they were beginning of the year. They were very low on stock. Then they reordered everything and now again they're very low on stock again because of Christmas, all the Christmas presents. And I had one time at a really big juggling workshop for Nike and I needed 8,000 juggling balls on one day. And then on that one model they were like OK, now we're getting close, we need to give you a couple of another model, is that OK? But like I don't know exactly, I just what.

Speaker 2: 1:13:10

I know that the designs that I'm working on that they're better than the other products that I've been using in the past, that they're better than, uh, the other products that I've been using in the past. And then I go okay, if you believe in this product too, then they take it on. And then they place the orders but like uh, same with the cigar boxes. Like uh, minimum order quantity was like 3 000 and uh, the guys had one model and I did it with rotation molding and then it takes longer with that kind of production methods to to make a prop and they were like okay, this is not going to be enough. Like that mold, we are going to have more demand than you can provide with that mold. So let's upgrade, let's go to injection molding. And, um yeah, the first initial they just already ordered 3,000.

Speaker 1: 1:13:56

And tell me a little bit like we seem to have slid into the future, because I think of the juggling equipment as the future Just like you went back and you looked at the archive to look at what were the old timers doing, what was some crazy juggling equipment that no one has used for 100 years or 50 years or whatever, what is not popular now?

Speaker 1: 1:14:20

What can we bring back? So now you're making you make because you've got the cigar boxes, which I know nothing about. But I have a cuphead jug, a cuphead club that you gave me the other day and I was using it when I was juggling, doing eating the apple on a rollerball for an act that I needed to do, and I was juggling it and I ended it by, instead of having to eat the whole apple, I ended it by throwing the apple into the Cuphead Club. So I know kind of what that is, but could you describe, like I thought maybe we'd talk a little bit about Cuphead and what's different than what it affords the jugglers now, and also, how does one update the cigar box, because that's something that stayed the same. So maybe just describe those two pieces of equipment a little bit.

Speaker 2: 1:15:06

That was a huge compliment. Like Bobby Jule, because he's 100 years old. He started in Old Vaudeville and he actually got to see the movie from WC Fields when he was like 10 years old in the cinema when it came out Like the old fashioned way 1934. It was just mind boggling. So I showed him the box when I was visiting last time and he was like oh my God this is brilliant.

Speaker 2: 1:15:34

Why, in all this time he's been around, has nobody ever made this better? How never think about it. That's pretty awesome to get a compliment from the guy that got to see W Fields movie that kind of really made it more popular.

Speaker 1: 1:15:47

So that's and we're talking about the cigar boxes, and you have them.

Speaker 2: 1:15:52

I take it, it's always like a square box. It's just, and I was like but your hands, when you grab your hands, like when you have to relax, you know that's the space between your fingers and then the space between your. It's almost like a triangle. If you just have your hand down and you just lean, like how you grab a cigar box, it kind of looks like a triangle. So what we did? We dipped the middle in from the cigar box. Yeah, right.

Speaker 2: 1:16:16

So economically it's a lot better, because if it's completely straight and it's quite thick you need to put a lot of pressure on your tendon. But we made it. It's almost like when you have a box you would push real hard in the middle. It curves in. Yes, so that's what we did. And then also the benefit is that the middle part where you hold the box is going to be a little thinner and then you can flare out the part where the boxes touch each other. So you're going to have with your grip, you're going to have more surface area when you do the actual tricks, so every move becomes easier to do because you have more surface area to catch, so it's less likely you're going to miss, and the grip feels more natural and your hands it's also more closer to the center of mass of the box. So you feel like, instead of just holding a prop, it feels almost like the prop is an extension of your hand. Yeah, it feels a lot more natural.

Speaker 2: 1:17:12

So through that little tweak which is not a little but like, it became so much better and that's that also came back because, um, albert lucas dad was working with all this great joggers from the past and then he was like talking how can we make this prop better? So this is one idea that, um, they were sort of playing with with spools and um, and Albert and I, we started brainstorming. So we took that concept, that rough concept, from one of the conversations that I think it was yeah, his dad, which was some job he had, like I think Bella Cremo and Bobby May and yeah, and then the mechanic engineer and kind of like almost a revert engineer, what they were talking about.

Speaker 2: 1:17:55

And then we came up with this design so that's also why I put it, uh, the more era name on it as well, because that was elbert morera was his name. He's like okay, it's kind of cool to tip your head. It was like a magic trick. They always tell where the ideas come from, and I suppose too, like if we can incorporate an idea with juggling equipment, that would be kind of cool. If you have the, the tommy curtain bottle club, the morera cigar box, the jay gilligan cuphead club, then it's also instead of just a piece of plastic, yeah, it becomes a prop with a history that's great and so so, um, it's a basically like in, it's an ergonomic version of the cigar box.

Speaker 1: 1:18:35

It's like they got the idea for the cigar box maybe from actually just having three cigar boxes, boxes that used to keep cigars in. And now you're doing, you're stacking them like, like you is the way you juggle with them. But because they're not so easy to hold and you end up often that they're sort of a little bit short, so you end up with them maybe a little bit hands not in an ergonomic position which, just like you talked about, with the length of the handles compared to the length of your arm, can limit you because you reach the end of what one can do with that design of the of the ball. So you're making now like a cigar box 2.0 where, because it is easier to physically hold it, it's more being built as a juggling equipment uh, yeah, before it was just a cigar box.

Speaker 2: 1:19:23

Yeah, more like a stage prop. It had to look like props you could a gentleman would find in a salon yeah, and then it reminds me of, and now let's make it a sports equipment.

Speaker 1: 1:19:34

Yeah, yeah, and it's because it's. It's like reminding me of when they first started making digital photography. That it was. You take it and it's one picture. Once you've taken the digital photo, they were taking it. Basing it on the way that old pictures were used to be taken is one negative and that's how the image is.

Speaker 1: 1:19:51

Whilst nowadays, when they store digital information you can, it stores the info, all the information of how it was when the picture was taking, where the sun came from, where the shadows are, all this sort of stuff. So in the expensive cameras now they have a much wider range of um information in the picture that digitally then you can actually alter where the sun comes from and stuff, because it's storing. It's not storing one frozen image, it's storing all kinds of information when it was taken. That just is when you first make a new digital technology or you make a new technology. It's like it's mimicking the the old thing. So cigar boxes stayed like cigar boxes because that's where they came from, but that didn't mean that they couldn't be improved, but it might have taken a hundred years or so for somebody to think about it and I think a lot of often they go like oh, this is what it is, because this is how it is.

Speaker 2: 1:20:47

And then a lot of the prop manufacturers they're not really jugglers themselves yeah, so that's true and then they just go and they ask some jugglers like what do you, what do you like better? And they don't really know because they're not trained at, uh, as engineers yeah so it's just like this overlap and I think it's.

Speaker 2: 1:21:02

It's good for me now knowing from the engineering, knowing the juggling, then knowing the background from, uh, from albert and carl heinz, and then david kane's input. With that, actually, you get to touch like the old props and then you go, oh, this is a great prop, the balance point is quite right, but it's made out of wood and tape and whatever. And then you go, okay, can we keep the design or the distribution of it, but do it with modern equipment.

Speaker 1: 1:21:31

Yeah, interesting. So just because it's of interest to the listeners of this podcast to hear me and Jay talk a lot, can you talk a little bit about the Cuphead Club, because me and Jay have never actually talked about that here. So what's special about it?

Speaker 2: 1:21:48

It's so cool because, first off, I took Jay's masterclass in 2004. So for me, how I look at it, you have michael motion with big influence. That's also why he's on the cover of juggling past and future. So you go, the car answer, like he's a bridge between the old cell and the new cell. And then I think for me jay gilligan is right behind it, like I go, um, yeah, it's like there's. There wouldn't be jay Ellingham without Michael Motion, but then also there would not be a Wes Beaton without Jake Ellingham. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 1: 1:22:22

I totally agree. And also for just pushing into taking Michael Motion's declaration, or whatever, that juggling is art, that you can't argue. After seeing him with his triangle or with his contact juggling, or how he has gone into all these different techniques, you can't argue anymore that juggling is no, it's not just a novelty, circus thing, it's stepping into whole other domains. And that torch has been passed on to jay who is doing so much exploration and was the first person I knew of who kind of rebelled against the this tyranny of the juggling rings.

Speaker 1: 1:23:03

Come in two sizes or whatever all this sort of stuff or the equipment is like this and that and uh, so I totally agree. But so anyway, let's let's.

Speaker 2: 1:23:12

So I did this. I did the, the the bottle club, because I really wanted to set up bottle clubs myself but like I couldn't find them anywhere. And then because of Tommy Curtin coming to the show and he said, yeah, that's cool, you can do it. And then I managed to buy the molds from Cindy Marvel. Actually, she traded for something else, she was very generous. I got the mold, the original from Stu Reynolds. I was like, okay, if I have the mold and I got the permission from the guy that came up with that shape, then that's as legit as it can get. And then, yeah, so then I used my very first time I used mechanical engineering to get those bottle clubs made and a lot of people are now using them.

Speaker 2: 1:23:52

But then Jay was like, okay, I want this cuphead club. Like Renegades came up with Tom with cutting a fathead juggling club, switching the top head upside down, and that created the original cup head club. But Jay was like, well, the design dynamics are very difficult, they don't allow me to do the tricks that I want, because the ball, the cup, is not deep enough. It just rolls out. There's a place for it to sit, but if I really do the moves, it just flies out quickly. Tricks become unnecessarily difficult because of the design that is imperfect. Um, and he was like well, you did this bottle club and it also has a little dent in the middle. So that's the way I'll make the bottle club better, because the the original bottle club the bottom was just flat. But then I was like well, in stores, all the bottle clubs sorry, all the wine bottles they have a little indentation. And so it's like oh, that's cool, it makes it more real. And then suddenly realized you can also catch a ball there, just for basic stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:24:52

So and that was the first one, not the first one, but like a couple of times you have to go like, okay, tradition, it's always being designed like that, but I need to have the balls now just to change something in the design that makes it better. So you take a risk because you know what's proven, but it's only, the ceiling was set so high by the original design. You go, I think I can raise the roof, but you have to have the guts. So you just go cook. My logic tells it like that, let's now implement it. It's scary. That's why I feel that's for me.

Speaker 2: 1:25:28

That's where artists created. It was like when you create something pre artists an expression of your opinion or your or feeling. So for me, if I create something, then I'm an artist. Thereafter, if that product is done and I'm following the recipe, I'm not really creating art, I'm just delivering a commercial product, and that's also sometimes with shows. That's why I feel like I had to step from the cruise ships to something else, because I was just delivering a commercial product instead of creating art, because I was not creating.

Speaker 2: 1:26:00

So I had the bottle club with that little invitation, and then at the European Juggling Convention oh sorry, the International Jugglers Association Convention, the annual convention Albert Lucas convinced me to drive up all the way to Iowa with him, and then Jay was there too and he was like well, have this, this, this bottle club. I have this dream For this club. It's like Tom renegade came up with the first version of it, of this club. But then when you dive back to history, there's other clubs that have been made with with a cup on it, like a stick, a club. So then it's cool, because David Kane has some versions of that from 1890, but then they were very basic. They only could juggle. Uh, instead of using your hand, use a cup instead of a stick. So, um, but he's like, yeah, I went to mr babash, I went to all these guys and they all turned me down because they didn't see the vision of it and it would not be selling so much.

Speaker 2: 1:26:58

And I was like, well, and then I was like, how much is a mold? Just a couple, it's just a couple thousand. So I was like, okay, and it's never. A project is never going to be a complete failure. So you always like, maybe it's not going to be a big success financially, like, if you're a little different, maybe then financially it's not going to be a huge success. But then if some people are having that act, say, even if it will sell, and you at the end you're, whatever 700 short, then I go, well, how much would I willing to pay for a ticket to see jay gilligan create a really cool piece of art with this new prop? I go, well, I'm willing to do one corporate gig or something Well, like, just, not even like a great gig, just a gig that pays you $700. Good gig, but not the end of the world. You go, yeah, I'm willing to do one like a two hour, three hour strolling gig, as some corporate events as my payment for the thing.

Speaker 2: 1:27:56

I may be short for what's going to be at the end and I go, and then also it's like what a cool opportunity that you can almost say like thank you to jay for pushing, juggling for so much, and you go. Yeah, this even as a if, if, everybody turning down and doesn't see the value of that just that opportunity that you could go. Yeah, this is my thing about for it because you, you put so much into system and then some of the ideas that he has, you go. Now I'm just getting some gigs or I have one routine that inspired by something he did, it's like, and I'm gonna learn something and I'm gonna collaborate with him. So it means I'm probably at the end I'm gonna be better friends with with him. So you go.

Speaker 2: 1:28:39

And that's the same with the past and future book took me a lot of time, but then now I'm better friends with carl heinz after that, like so many other great jugglers that just ask and started conversations. So it was really a process that's, you know, created a lot of new friendships and connections for me that money would not have been able to buy. So that's, you know, created a lot of new friendships and connections for me that money would not have been able to buy. So that's why I think it's good sometimes to just take risks, because then you go like OK, these are all the reasons that are going to be a positive outcome in the end for Jay, for the community and for myself. So it's just a triple win situation.

Speaker 1: 1:29:13

Yeah and yeah, just let's do it, because if nobody's ever taken any risk, nothing gets pushed forward as well that's right, and it's also when you, when you have made the mold, and I mean just, it's always hard to know. But in my, in the magic shop where I buy a lot of stuff that's in denmark, I know some of the people there. They have the cuphead club for sale and I know someone who had bought it that just sort of sent me a picture on. I just bought these ones. So like in terms of distribution or whatever it's like.

Speaker 1: 1:29:43

Well, I guess magic shops is one place where you can frequently find juggling equipment as well, but it's just a random sample or so it doesn't know like one data point of going in the in this shop that I know of in Denmark where I buy a lot of my magic equipment in pagani, they, they have them and they are being sold.

Speaker 1: 1:30:01

So it's like it's those 700 might not have come in in the first day, but then each time and if jay makes a cool piece or whoever bought the those couple of sets up here, then that comes online and and somebody puts up the video or somebody uses that at the IJA competition or somebody does an awesome routine and performs it at the at the European juggling convention and all of a sudden people go oh, it's like this is a whole nother way of of thinking about club juggling, and then maybe it grows and then you get those 700 dollars back later yeah, then yeah, and then yeah, and if you just keep it in your bank account, it's not going to do anything with it and it's out there and it draws something.

Speaker 2: 1:30:46

And it's also kind of cool to be a little rebellious, that you go like, guys, those juggling equipment, you stay the same for so much. Um, look, things are possible. Here's a wake-up call. Let's, let's try some stuff yeah, and it's.

Speaker 1: 1:30:59

This is the interesting thing too where you get people become conservative within the juggling uh world, in part because you invest let's say you invest 500 hours or something in learning something with one equipment. Then it's almost like you get intimidated when someone goes, changes the game and says oh now I spent 200 hours learning that trick with cigar boxes and then somebody who gets a better equipment or whatever learns it in 100 hours or half the time and they're just as good. So then you probably have that, those people who put in those hours who go well, it's cheating to use those easier things or whatever. So there's a natural conservatism with if you've fought very hard for something or or whatever. And also then you you got those skills. So you try a new piece of equipment and you aren't that good, so you become a little bit of a beginner again.

Speaker 1: 1:31:49

So this is what I mean when I say that making juggling equipment. Now that is either non-traditional or or different. It's not just. I mean you talk about making a juggling club that's can be customized for you to make the perfect spin for you and your body, which is, I guess, is like just an optimization of juggling design. But when you go into the cuphead. That's like equipment that has new possibilities and a bottle club or whatever that they have, possibilities that most clubs don't have, and this is how I then see your catering to the future of juggling by having equipment that will most likely the biggest advancements on these new pieces of equipment will be done by people who are coming into the juggling community now that discovers it, and, and for them, there was never a time when cupheads weren't the thing.

Speaker 2: 1:32:49

So yeah, but the old timers goes nah, nah.

Speaker 1: 1:32:52

This is a new thing. Nobody cares, just like we go. Oh, phones, with that you can hold in your hand and do the internet on. It's a new. It's a new thing. But all the people who are coming now they go. This is reality, this is how it is, and they just take it from there and they go. So if that's like you, you're making contributions that are starting now and who knows where it's going to go in the future or whatever, and then the book will be there and it's you know, your equipment will be there. But I want to go back because we didn't sort of finish with it. So you just mentioned that. Bobby Jewell, 100 years old, just in. Was it this year or last?

Speaker 2: 1:33:30

Yeah, it was 100 this year. So it was yeah, it was really cool.

Speaker 1: 1:33:34

He's born in 1924 then. So it was yeah, it was really cool. He was born in 1924 then. And then how did you hook up with him and how did you end up publishing his book?

Speaker 2: 1:33:44

That's where we lost the train of thought with David Cain.

Speaker 2: 1:33:48

Yeah, sorry Because when I was there for two weeks. Also, of course, it looked show me your library, which books do you have? And there was one book and it looked like, yeah, it was almost like a school yearbook the way it looked. But that's because he has written in his career about his career, he has written his biography.

Speaker 2: 1:34:06

But he was always kind of closed off to the juggling community. I think he regrets it now a little bit, but he was always like, okay, people are going to steal my tricks. So when he was on the road, even if he was working in the same town, he very rarely hooked up with the other jugglers. He was only really good friends with Francis Brunn and, yeah, that's almost it. So he was more like, yeah, professional working, but not so much engaged with other jugglers but like friends with all the other people in the program. So, like in Copenhagen, he was the best friends with the orchestra leader from the T-League theme park. So he had really good friends with other showbiz people, not so much with jugglers, but he had written it all out. And then Paul Bachmann was one of his friends. So Paul got one of the 10 copies of that book that he got printed.

Speaker 2: 1:34:56

And then, because David Cain, buying the the collection, he ended up with one copy of that book and I went through it. I was like this is really cool, like it's. I was like if you're not in a circus school, the industry has changed so much. So it's like if you want to know and you don't know the old timers, how are you, how are you going to learn about how your profession was when, like 20 years ago, 50 years ago? There's only a handful of those biographies out there, so this is one it should be out there as a reference for that. And then David Cain is very good friends with Bobby Jewell and then I reached out to him a couple times and said, well, this book is really neat. Look, let me send you a copy of Jogging the Past and Future so you can see the quality of what the book can be. And yeah, he liked that. And he was like, oh, this is so cool. Plus, he was already retired for 20 years. So when you're like 98, nobody's going to see your trick anymore.

Speaker 2: 1:35:54

Or if they do If they do, it's like you're finished.

Speaker 1: 1:35:58

You're finished doing those tricks anyway, so then you can become part of a legacy or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:36:03

So he was like, yeah, that's cool and he's very organized. So he sent me a compact disc with, uh, the text and the pictures and then all those files I forwarded to karen, um, and then she had because dan holtzman is also great friends with Bobby Joe and then, yeah, just those connections that she's like okay, is Dan's wife going to do the layouts and my buddy, david King, can file it for you? Okay, I will give you the permission to do that book. And I was like also like if you don't like it at the end, if you don't like the quality or don't like it, it's fine, then we just don't publish it. But let me get it to the point that you can see how it could be. And then, um, then we did it and um, now all his family, his friends, people in the neighborhoods, they all like got a copy. And he's like so happy now because, yeah, people now know again we is like they knew, but like, definitely the book helped. It's also the last juggling convention and when he was at I was in Pittsburgh. Uh, yeah, everybody just want to take pictures again with him and it got so awesome.

Speaker 2: 1:37:07

And then, uh, yeah, we did for the international jugglers association. We did a, they did a post, and then we challenged him at his 100th birthday party because his good friend Howard McCollum, he was going to attend the party and I was like, okay, david, let's prepare this if we can have a certificate ready and Howard is going to be the adjudicator. Um, just so. Howard brought three juggling balls to him and I was like, bobby, can you? Uh, he still juggled three balls. So he juggled three balls at his own 100thyear-old birthday party and then he got the certificate. And now he's like, how cool is that? He's like at his 100-year birthday party he performed, you know, indirectly, for his own people, set a world record at his 100th birthday party and yeah, so definitely an icon in the in the juggling world but that's great, so he.

Speaker 1: 1:38:00

So when you met him he was only kind of uh, so because he hadn't been within the juggling community, people really didn't know about him, because it's kind of like, the people who are working professionally and you're going places, you might not yeah, you, the, the juggling community might not really know about them so much, or know little about them.

Speaker 2: 1:38:24

So yeah for sure, like he was definitely had ties with other professionals in the juggling world, but he was a little hesitant because of a couple bad experiences, like whatever 80 years ago and uh and um. So it was a little as them. But now he's like, he's like, oh, it's not all bad. And then he trusted a little bit, more and more and he go yeah, these are my, my peers, this is the closest to from what I've been doing. Yeah, uh and um. Yeah, everybody gave him respect and uh, yes, it's cool, like so, uh, josh notch, an illusionist from pittsburgh. I performed in his show and then josh performed in pittsburgh. So we invited him, gave him a nice shout out and then nick the fuzz performed in pittsburgh recently yeah, yeah, I saw that they were gonna meet up as well.

Speaker 2: 1:39:08

So it's just cool that because of this book and stuff, he sees that now a search of new generation performers that are interested in the, in the variety arts, then come to him, go oh my god, you're like the last dude probably around who sold these people, yeah, from real vaudeville and then and you still can talk about it, then you can show us posters and stuff. So it's just really nice because then he has, yeah, how many 100 years old are still relevant to people that are in their 20s and 30s and those guys just seek them out. So, yeah, it's cool for him. His caregivers, uh, love it, their sons love it, he loves it, the juggling community loves it. So it's really valuable person and what so.

Speaker 1: 1:39:50

so it it intrigues me to think about what was it that happened that made him hold a grudge against the jug uh juggling community for 80 years? Did somebody steal his material, or what happened?

Speaker 2: 1:40:04

Yeah, it was like he did some stuff and somebody stole some of his tricks. Also, he is the guy that uh was the came up with the ping pong ball on the nose bit.

Speaker 1: 1:40:12

That was Bobby Jules. Yeah, oh, wow, and that is now what people think of as like a standard hack thing.

Speaker 2: 1:40:20

Yeah, yeah, with some glue, and then, as I said, I used rubber cement. Yeah, and then also, he was also one of the first, one of the few in his time, to do the blindfold with the one I cut out.

Speaker 1: 1:40:38

Which I do. Yeah, I do it in a sword swallowing act.

Speaker 2: 1:40:42

It's a great bit. So, yeah, some of those stuff, the stuff that he put in and, yeah, original at the time. And then whenever he invited the juggler, then within no time those bits were in those guys exact, and he was like so there's no upside for him, there's no. Yeah, no friendship was built, no gigs were being coming his way and all this material was just going to be degraded, became more standard. So it was like there's no upside, there's just downside.

Speaker 1: 1:41:11

So let's not hang in those circles yeah, yeah, yeah, wow, it's interesting, isn't it? It's because in, I mean, that's a whole another discussion of, of, of material and what is generic, and the first person to juggle seven is everybody else copying him, like it's, where is that? But of course it's the more gimmicky it gets, or whatever, and it's like then in Anyway, it's a complicated thing, but so tell me more just about, how did you actually then track down this guy, bobby Jewel?

Speaker 2: 1:41:48

Well, david Cain had the contact information and so had Dan Oldsman, so two of my good friends had this contact information and I explained what I wanted to do and then they introduced the idea to him and then they said, yeah, this is legit, this is good quality. And then I just sent a couple copies of various projects I've done in the past, like the Jumping Fast and Future Carl Heinz's biography, and then he was like, okay, this looks good and I like the idea. So yeah, let's get it out there.

Speaker 1: 1:42:17

Yeah, that's great. So and this other book as well. Unbalanced is that also like? Was that a book that existed that's covering another artist? That?

Speaker 2: 1:42:31

I don't know so much about. Yeah, it's very strange. So in an old juggling magazine, juggler's Bulletin, there was a paragraph that the main character of that book, a real juggler that lived in Australia. He wrote it the day the night before he died Because he committed a crime he was mentally unstable, is what we think and then in an act of desperation, like he was very mad, he shot his wife on the street after they were not together anymore, but like yeah, not officially divorced Like he shot his wife, so of course he got sentenced for that. So in that time in Australia he got the death sentence. So, and the jail where he was kept before he uh got a sentence is a museum now.

Speaker 2: 1:43:22

And um, yeah, so I read that paragraph and it was like, so bizarre. So when I was like 15, I read that and it stuck in my mind. I was like, wow, this, this looks like a movie or a book that should be written. And then, um, yeah, through some juggling collections, I learned a little bit more about it. This is just cool. What we, what I should do, I should find, um, somebody in australia or somebody that is interested and then research. We're going to research the true facts, uh, about his life, and then we're going to do a fiction book. And that also was inspired because Carl Heinz Seaton, when I was visiting him, there was like a kids book based on that premise from like true facts, but like a fictional book on true facts, and it was about Rosselli. It was just a small kids book that I was asked Carl Heinz, what is this? And he explained to me what it was it's just fiction, but like it's still cool. And then I was like hey that's cool.

Speaker 2: 1:44:18

We should do that with um, with that book from that australian juggler, because that guy, he was credited to have written the first learn how to juggle book, but that book was published three years after he died. So there's some really weird stuff. Like you, you go what's going on here? Somebody, something seems off. And then there was this book, oh, this movie about Erdnase in Magic.

Speaker 1: 1:44:47

Erdnase, yeah, that wrote the book Expert at the Card Table.

Speaker 2: 1:44:50

So I think it was Magic Life, and then there was this presentation and I was like, wow, wow, it's almost like some similarities between that very famous book and this juggling book. And look, they made this movie about it. So this documentary is like, yeah, I should just go, I should go for it. So then, yeah, just looked around a little bit and then it was like a, an author, barry torsten, yeah, who's also um, yeah, in theater and stuff. And then we connected through some platform about writers. I was looking for somebody that could write a book because I knew I didn't have the time and I was like, okay, and then the guy was from Australia, he was into theater, performed himself, and he already had written a couple books and he was very, very excited about it. And he was very, very excited about it and I was like, so he flew from Sydney, where he lives, to Adelaide where the story happened, and then he visited all the places and then he met the granddaughter because for some reason I got in touch with the granddaughter from the guy and she had some pictures. And yeah, just weird how it all came together. And then I looked up the files in the state archive from Australia and they scanned all the newspaper articles about him. And then, yeah, just looked around like Mike Cavaney the magician, historian, because he likes to juggle too, and so I asked some of those guys what information do you have about this character? And then we Mike Cavaney the magician, the historian, because he likes to juggle too. So I asked some of those guys what information do you have about this character? And then we had all the information. And then he looked up the jail cell where he was kept and it became more alive for him. And then, with all the facts that we have, we thought like what seems plausible, what could have happened? Because he also went to London to the magic shop. And then I had some other history books from the competitors, like juggling history pamphlets or like not history, like learn how to juggle pamphlets. And then we looked up some rivalry. And then, yeah, the same with Vanishing Ink.

Speaker 2: 1:46:53

I asked Josh and Andy what do you know about it? Because Andy is from the UK and they're very into publishing books with Vanishing Ink. I asked Josh and Andy what do you know about it? Because Andy is from the UK and they're very into publishing books with Vanishing Ink. And, yeah, just tried to piece together all those puzzle pieces. And then I was like, okay, we think that this seems like a logical storyline that could have happened. How those facts tie together. And then he used this skill as an author to make it even better. So when I was reading I was like, yeah, that's amazing and yeah, so I just that's how that came to be. And then Reed Masterson did the cover art. So we looked up the. We had this promo picture from the granddaughter, from the guy, and then the audience most likely not his audience, but that was the audience from the best show, the most prestigious show in his life he ever did, at the Tivoli.

Speaker 1: 1:47:46

Not from when he was on stage, but he was in that show in that venue.

Speaker 2: 1:47:51

The highlight of his career, and we found a picture of the house from that theater. So yeah, at least those were the seats that he would have looked at.

Speaker 1: 1:48:01

It looks enormous like the background of it. It looks like it must seat 1500-2000 people or something.

Speaker 2: 1:48:09

Yeah it was like the main theater, so that's where he saw Paul Cincovalli perform as well.

Speaker 2: 1:48:13

That was the main vaudeville house in LA at the time, but like he wanted to produce his own show there and he wasn't yeah so, but it was so sad because he was so driven, but everything that he tried, every project he touched, kind of fell apart.

Speaker 2: 1:48:27

And just every time you go like, okay, he ended in such a horrible with such a horrible crime, in such a horrible way, but like what you were reading from all the the facts, like when I was a kid he was doing good, but then he fell out of a tree, then he had some kind of brain damage from it, then he so you felt his passion and his ambition, but then just every point of his life he has had bad luck, oh, no and um, so it's almost like very endearing too, although at the end, yeah, crime you cannot talk good about, but like yeah, you just feel bad for it, for the guy, because like if his odds were stacked differently, he probably had like a, yeah, much better life.

Speaker 2: 1:49:07

But every time you go like, yeah, life just shit happens. Yeah, and he never had his breakthrough. And I think that's cool, because in all the other books you read about the guys who made it and were successful. And now also you go, ok, here is how. I'm almost dedicated to all the performers that worked very hard but never had a big breakthrough moment. But, like probably the majority of the people, that were like the working class of variety performers and not the superstars, but just the superstars are being written about in the books and the rest is forgotten.

Speaker 1: 1:49:38

Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? It's almost like there's a publishing bias in science as well, of experiments. That goes right. Well, we expect this to be. And then we do the test and we go, yes, it is, but most, or a lot of experiments also. You go, well, I think this is what happens. And then we do the test and we go, yes, it is, but most, or a lot of experiments also. You go, well, I think this is what happens. And then you test and you go, no, it's not, but that is also valuable information to have. And if you only publish the winners or whatever, then you get this skewed idea of yeah, it's a single person, genius, who just rolled their wave to the gold or to the gold medal all the way, but it's never like that.

Speaker 2: 1:50:20

Almost the history books. They are like the Instagram feeds from people You're not going to talk about, like, oh yeah, you just post the best moment of your day or your week and then you look at it and go, everybody has such an awesome life, but you don't see all the stuff behind it. So that's almost like the history books as you gotta.

Speaker 1: 1:50:38

So you gotta read people's in instagram feeds or read people's books that I am telling you the good stuff. So if, if the good stuff, then you can judge how bad their life is, because this was the peak, yeah, and then they had a normal life, so it had its up and down. So if this was the highest, we have that as the thing. So that means that they must have been somewhere down here on the on an average, because that they chose to write about the day when I won the gold medal or whatever exactly.

Speaker 2: 1:51:07

Yeah, it's like it's hair copper. Uh, one of my magician friends. He passed away now. He was fist and grand prix champion, but he's like, he's like. It's so funny. Nowadays you can see how much everybody's working. You just look at their feeds and most people post about pretty much every gig. Yeah, it's like everything is right in the open.

Speaker 1: 1:51:25

I know it's one of the things that I go because I don't and I post. I'm not such a good user of social media because I got so many other projects. That takes up my time and every now and then I remember I remember I got to do this, so I post, so I completely I work so much more than what I put in the show and also when I'm doing seasons. So if you're doing a, if I'm doing now just working for the last month I've been working in one place, I I don't sort of go on. We did another show and we did another show.

Speaker 1: 1:51:54

Like I've already posted about this, and I think some of it might be also that I've worked sometimes for years doing 10 shows a week and then you I don't sort of continually post because it's kind of like, oh, it's boring, it's I'm doing the same acts or whatever and it looks the same or so. So where my mind is is on other projects or what I'm doing or so. So not so much on the work that you do. It's like when you're a working act, that's just working all the time.

Speaker 2: 1:52:23

Anyway, this is a reflection on my own shortcomings. When you go work in the office, you don't post. I'm going to the office today. Here's my sandwich. Yeah, I think that's the best way. That's also why I love your podcast and all the stuff, because it's set code and goes like it's remarkable, it's worth remarking on. And if it's just an empty post about like people that are kind of desperate and they go like, okay, here I'm doing this other gig in this super, in this mall, or I'm doing this, you go okay, there's not Neil's value, but like you feel like you need to post it because you just want to have content out there. But if you yeah, if you have great value, then the quality trumps the quantity. Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1: 1:53:02

I'm glad to hear that. But it's also like I see it often as well, like where I post. Maybe it's like I see it. You know, I just last episode that I posted now was with Jay, and then Jay shares a little bit and then usually there's a couple of jugglers, maybe each time that sort of finds that that's new and I can tell from my, my feed that it's like all of a sudden someone downloads the current episode with Jay, but then they go back in the history and they go, oh of the podcast and they look at, oh, episode 100 was also about him and episode 110 or whatever. And then you see that. But then you also start to see that somebody goes then back and they go okay, this is this kind of podcast, it's not just current affairs or whatever it's.

Speaker 1: 1:53:47

I think the information on it remains valid, even though it's from last year. The people who like some of the conversations we're not speaking about biographically, so you learn about them. But me, when I'm exploring, currently I have these 30 episodes about play and the play as the origin of showmanship or performance, what we do, and play, of course, is a huge part of what juggling is as well. So, anyway, but yeah, I like to see when I can see that all of a sudden someone after maybe I post some episodes of you and then if you share it to somebody, somebody who knows and is interested in your work, all of a sudden find you here and then they go oh, I'm interested in juggling, oh, here's Jay, and then they go back and they find other aspects of it and you can see that someone from one town has downloaded 20 episodes or whatever. I mean it could be like in the bigger cities, you never know. But it sends a sort of list of going. What sort of who are the new towns? That's been doing it now. So it's going like oh, there's somebody in in in vancouver, or somebody in ireland, or like in somebody in in germany, and you see them.

Speaker 1: 1:54:56

And then the other day I posted one of those pictures, because I've started to do that, posted one of the pictures and it was from like a place in Western Australia, and then a friend of mine, morgan James. Then he sent in going oh, that's me, I was driving through the thing and I must have downloaded the episode on the drive there. So I sometimes think when I look at those stats of where people have gone where you're going. Oh, all of a sudden there's like five episodes from Northern Canada and you go it's probably somebody who's been driving and then they finished listening to one episode and they've gotten on a roll and you know, you binge, listen to five episodes or so and you get their sort of tour route, whether on the way to a gig or something. So I enjoy that.

Speaker 1: 1:55:38

Yeah, anyway, uh, but yeah, so I think, um, we're sort of reaching a a nice uh conclusion here. Maybe there's so much more that we can talk. I'd I'd love to uh, hook up again and talk sort of specifically about juggling the the carl heinz eaten book and and your idea there to talk, to talk to jay and talk sort of specifically about juggling the Karlheinz Zieten book and your idea there to talk to Jay and talk to Eric and talk to you about it and put that together.

Speaker 2: 1:56:07

Yeah, it'll be amazing. It'll be so much fun.

Speaker 1: 1:56:09

It'd be a great way to kind of bring it forth as well, because it's an important book and everybody has their own story with it and will illuminate it from different aspects.

Speaker 2: 1:56:24

so I've never actually it would be awesome to be almost a detective of how it came about. It's such a weird story and also people that are even not jugglers, I think, will enjoy it because how this project came to be over a timeframe of 25 years.

Speaker 1: 1:56:41

And you having published also the Carl Heinz Zieten, the Guru of Juggling book as well, that Alberto Fontanella wrote and you sit on a lot of information about him, and I remember when Jay just drops these crazy bombs of how like, oh yeah, so the only reason why the 4000 Years of Juggling could be published was because it was in an accident and lost one of his legs and he used insurance money to to publish this book which, like it's such a great history of, of a passion for something which at the time, I mean, and still is like, was rather unacknowledged in terms of like there wasn't really proper any sort of like proper history books written about juggling, maybe less so than what is written about magic, because there's been so many more passionate amateurs or also in magic.

Speaker 2: 1:57:34

oh, he's got his first inspiration to some magic book and he was like something like this with juggling should exist. Yeah, oh, there you go. And then he was like I will do it, that's so great. Yeah, and then I'm always like I like to tease people. I go like Karl, you really didn't put that much effort in it Like normally. It costs you an arm and a leg. Now it's only cost you a leg. Now it's only caused you a leg.

Speaker 1: 1:57:57

Yeah Well, that's so great, Nils. I think we should pick it up again there next time.

Speaker 2: 1:58:04

It sounds great, any topics that spark your interest or the readers. That would be cool to dive a little deeper, because I think that's why, from the props to the practicing, to the sport juggling to the shows, juggling is so versatile and I think it's just my vehicle to being a well-rounded person yeah, and we should.

Speaker 1: 1:58:24

We should just chat again, because I also realized that I haven't sort of um, we haven't talked about sports juggling, which is a field that I don't know so much about, and, uh, that could be also be interesting.

Speaker 2: 1:58:34

So we still got lots of stuff that we can yeah that sounds good and actually I need to head out to a meeting with a professor from the University of Amsterdam because he wants to talk about the health benefits of juggling for kids, because the Dutch school system is thinking about making it mandatory to put juggling into every school.

Speaker 1: 1:58:54

So into like physical education as part of.

Speaker 2: 1:58:57

Yeah, well, also like the mental break to uh, to relax, Like, if they do, maybe mathematics and they need to go to language. It's a different side of your brain that you're using.

Speaker 1: 1:59:06

Wow.

Speaker 2: 1:59:06

And juggling is a great way, uh, great activity to get the focus back for people, kids, Absolutely. So that will be great.

Speaker 1: 1:59:14

So on a future episode we can talk about the health benefits of that Awesome man. It's been such a pleasure talking to you and I'm looking forward to the next round.

Speaker 2: 1:59:24

Sounds awesome. All right, man. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

Speaker 1: 1:59:27

You too. Bye-bye, all right, folks. Thanks for following along on this leg of the way. And you know, if you want to support this podcast, the easiest and cheapest way is to just click subscribe follow the podcast, so that the more subscribers I have, the better it is for me. Um, if they get downloaded immediately. I uh, yeah, anyway, I do say this every time, and actually every time I want to say it in the beginning of this, but I'm more interested in thoughts and ideas than I am in trying to sell the podcast. So that's why I'm asking you, I guess Please help me find a new listener, someone you love or somebody you care about, somebody you think might be interested. Point them along. Anyway, it's been excellent, you have been excellent, you continue to be excellent. So until next time, take care of yourself and those you love, and I hope to see you along the way.