Jugglers Against Gravity (Strange But True

Strange but true: Damage to Life or Limb

Please Note: Many of these stories are written in the first person. This does NOT imply that they are about the author of this page! They have simply been taken from letters or posts to rec.juggling. Others were based on stories heard from other juggers. Still more have been submitted to me by people who have stumbled across this page.

New stories are added at the end.

A juggler performing at a children’s birthday party, was doing his "razor sharp" knife routine, when one of the knives slipped and struck a little boy in the face. Luckily, the knife was not "razor sharp" and the child only received a nasty bruise. Unluckily, the child’s parents did not share the juggler’s relief. Luckily, the juggler had (plug) "Circus Clown Insurance"!

I was playing with my new diabolo. I tried a high toss, which wasn’t exactly straight. It came down through the branches of a nearby tree, and running to catch it (even though it was hard to see), I got konked on the head.

I was street performing one time - doing a rola-bola on top of a Samsonite suitcase stood on end. Then I had audience members toss me torches, one, two, three. Unfortunately, one of the volunteers was rather young, and walked right up close and then chucked it, hard, at my face, causing me to flinch and fall, landing on the suitcase, breaking its hinges (so much for Samsonites being tough) and putting a nasty gash in my leg. Then, with leg bleeding, I got up and finished the show. I think that was the biggest hat I ever got. (never underestimate the power of pity)

Just three days ago I was practicing a 1 up 4 up pattern with five balls. Pool balls. An unfortunate mid air collision resulted in a very fat lip and an extremely sore front tooth. This incident reminded me of when I was learing the claw with pool balls. I have decided to bring beanbags with me from now on when I venture to my dorm's lobby.

My passing partner once had surgery to remove a cyst on his right pec. Of coure this did not discourage us from passing which resulted in much pain for Josh as I accidentally hit him in the chest with a stray club a time or two.

I was watching a juggler at a street fair on Union St. in San Francisco a few years ago when he had a unique mishap. The juggler was performing on an elevated stage while his golden retriever slept in one corner of the stage. The juggler started to do a trick where he put a board on a cylinder and stood balancing on the board while juggling three flaming clubs. All was well until he dropped one of the clubs. It hit and rolled quickly across the platform and set his dog on fire! The juggler showed his finest moves of the performance getting off that board and putting his dog out! The dog's hair was so long that the fire never got anywhere near to actually burning the dog, so after the fire was out, the guy went back to performing his act looking somewhat shaken. The funniest part of the whole spectacle was the "What did I do?" look on the dog's face when his master suddenly started whacking him. The dog had no idea he was on fire.

A Boston area street performer I will not name once had a flaming torch land in a baby carriage. Really. Fortunately, the carriage did not have a baby in it at the time.

I'm going to have to learn to pass left handed now, as I'm beginning to lose hair from the left side of my head due to passing torches! (as I was catching them the other day, the wind kept blowing the flame towards my head... No serious damage was done, but it did cause some concern! I like my hair... and want to keep it even!)

One time I was practicing in our yard with clubs and was working on running across the lawn while juggling. Unfortunately, at one corner when I turned around and started running again I misjudged the throw and I ended up running into the knob of the club, resulting in a black eye. Now I always wear sunglasses while juggling clubs! :)

The other day I was working with some heavy, hard, rubber juggling balls and I threw one up and did a pirouette, intending to spin around, catch the ball, and keep going. Unfortunately I ended up throwing too far back, and the ball dropped right onto my head, resulting in the loss of the pattern and the growth of a bump.

My wife keeps bugging me to send this one in to America's Funniest Home Videos. See, I was videotaping myself doing a contact & toss juggling sequence. I was dressed in black & looking very serious. The camera was in a close-up of just my face and torso as I played with the crystal balls. What you can't see is that I'm sitting on my bed, with my legs hanging off and feet crossed. Suddenly I drop a crystal, and you can hear an audible "knock" as it smacks my ankle. I wince in agony and fall out of the picture. I think it is the look of shock & pain which cracks up my wife. I still wince when I watch it. See the Video - (419 kb) No sound, but you get the picture. ;)

I was practicing/training with my 5 lb juggling balls. I was sitting down and juggling (I don't know why) and all of a sudden two balls crashed into each other and fell really fast before I could react. One fell... lets just say "south of the border", and I buckled in pain! Now I _really_ hate gravity.

I know someone (ok so it didn't happen to me, but not to worry!) who, whilst learning to juggle clubs managed to... Pull a muscle in his leg! Yes, this was as a direct result of learning to juggle clubs, as he pulled it whilst bending down to pick up a club! He hasn't touched clubs since, deeming them to be "bad luck".

Basically, supposedly by accident, during a string of non-stop tricks (which is basically our whole act) Steve throws up a triple (Or a quad or more. Who cares? Not us...) and somehow loses control of the next throw, it ends up getting away from him, all the while I have my eye on the triple coming in, the out of control club hits the floor, and bounces back up with one of those unheard of bounce back ratios and nails me square in the gonads. Remember this has happened twice. The first time I basically collapsed and didn't move for 20 minutes while unicyclers rode around me like I wasn't there. The second time, the chain of events set off my photographic sense of deja vu and my involuntary reflexes saved me from a direct hit, but when were talking about that area, even a slight nick is more than enough to incapasitate the average guy.
Now when Steve throws something up high, I keep one eye on the high club and the other on whatever Steve is doing. This may sound physiologically impossible, but when you've been juggling for 15 years, 7 or 8 of those years under mild to extreme duress, you evolve to the point where your eyeballs will move independently. Believe it or don't. Thank you Darwin!

I had a near death experience that changed me forever. The other day, I went horseback riding. I was trying to stand up and juggle on the horse's back. Everything was going fine until the horse started bouncing out of control. I tried with all my might to hang on, but was thrown off. Just when things could not possibly get worse, my foot gets caught in the stirrup. When this happened, I fell head first to the ground. My head continued to bounce harder as the horse did not stop or even slow down. Just as I was giving up hope and losing consciousness, the Walmart manager came and unplugged it. Thank goodness for heroes.

My ex-boyfriend was street-performing with another Boston area juggler. The finale was simple knife passing on unicyles. The other juggler whipped one at my boyfriend's face, and he just managed to catch it as it hit his eye, but not in time to prevent the knife from cutting his cornea.

More proof that jugging is not for the light of heart or the thin of skulls. A comprehensive and absolutely true list of all the juggling related injuries I have acquired since my initiation two years ago in chronological order:

One sprained knuckle that still won't go down all the way. While I was learning the three ball cascade the balls kept running away from me so somebody told me to stand in front of a wall. ooch.

Two fairly significant gashes in those flaps of skin between my thumb and index finger before I learned I was catching the rings wrong. ow.

One wapped shin when I was learning to unicycle and my foot slipped and the pedal came around and hit me in the shin.

One busted lip from falling off my rola bola.

Two bruised and calloused hands from learning 3 clubs. fun.

Two bruised forearms when I was learning chops with clubs and I somehow kept hitting myself in the arm with the club. ow.

One fractured rib and a broken wrist when my (deep breath) shoelace got caught in the chain on my girraffe and I tried to break my fall with my hands thrusting my elbow back into my ribs, breaking both my wrist and my ribs in one swift stroke. (whew) Coulda been worse I guess but I can't think of how right now. . .

One shattered ego from learning 5 balls

One second degree burn on my left hand. I caught my torch wrong doing triples (regular unleaded-not too good for learning with)

One black eye from learning 4 clubs and they collided.

A pretty handsome gash just above the ankle when I dropped the juggling knife (Dube's --The edge isn't sharp but the point is.)

Swollen gums from doing the eating-the-apple routine.

Ten thousand smacked thumbnails from passing clubs.
This list does not include all the injuries I obtained raising money to get juggling equipment (two more part time jobs) or any of the psycological damage. I hope I didn't frighten away any of our younger jugglers. I'm an accident prone kinda guy and I just practice way too much. I want my life back.

Yesterday I was busking at our farmer's market. I was juggling plungers and tried to throw one way up to do a pirouette. The wind blew the plunger back towards me, and when I looked up to catch it, the wooden handle nailed me in the eye. It cut off a little piece of skin below my eye, and scared a couple of spectators (I got more money while icing my eye than any other time of the morning!).

My senior year in high school during lunch, I was practicing two ball butterflies (contact juggling), and a friend of mine that I taught to juggle was using one of my 3" acrylic balls. The bell rang and he tossed it to me from across the room. It went a little high and wide, and I missed it. The ball then proceeded to ricochet off the wall, and hit me above my right eye, splitting my eyebrow open. I had to get ten stitches, and I still bear a scar to this day. The irony of it was, the ball barely had a scratch.

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