|
IJA eNewsletter July 2020 Editors: Don Lewis & Martin Frost |
CONTENTS
- A message from the IJA Chair
- Note from an IJA 2020 Online participant wishing to remain anonymous
- Winners in IJA 2020 Online Juggling Championships
- Recipients of 2020 IJA honorary awards
- Thousands watch IJA 2020 Online
- Introduction from recent new Board member Aslynne Howes
- Message from incoming IJA Board member Chris Garcia
- New IJA Operations Officer position filled by Scott Steiskal
- Owen Morse sets hang gliding world record!
- Ron Graham, former IJA President and renowned mathematician, passes away at 84
- Results of the IJA 2020 Online World Joggling Championships
- Latest articles in eJuggle
- Upcoming juggling festivals
A message from the IJA Chair by Mike Moore
What a festival!
This year’s festival was a blast! I was relatively uninvolved with the organization of IJA 2020 Online, so I have no reservations about gushing.
Going online opened the door to exciting international opportunities. My personal favorite was the Battle Night, organized by Unicircolo. It pitted 3-club jugglers against each other in head-to-head matches, all streamed and performed live. The jugglers were fantastic and all had unique styles of juggling, the voting gave the viewers a voice, and the emcees brought the HYPE!! It felt like I was transported to Mexico! You can still see this battle, so I won’t give away the ending.
The panels were diverse, in style and scope. Ranging from different ways of conceptualizing mess patterns to juggling history to discussions of race in juggling to practice methodologies to feminism in the juggling community to ways that juggling has developed in different cultures. This included the story of how diabolo was introduced to Taiwan, and why it’s flourished there. It was no accident! Many of these panels are still available on the IJA YouTube channel.
There was too much good to do it all justice here. Being brief, I also loved the amazing shows from performers all over the world, the workshops (some bilingual!), the number of, “Hi everyone, this is my first IJA!”s, the creative joggling entries, the jams, and the From the Archives movie night.
Finally, HUGE thanks to the festival organizing committee: Amy Wieliczka, Matan Presberg, Aslynne Howes, Eric Shibuya, and Scott Steiskal. Usually the festival director is a paid position, and that is money very well spent. This year that was infeasible. But these amazing people (and everyone else who volunteered/participated!) threw a wonderful IJA. IJA 2020 Online wasn’t a consolation prize for the in-person fest — it was the real deal.
Mike Moore
IJA Chair
Note from an IJA 2020 Online participant wishing to remain anonymous
IJA 2020 online fest
A big heartfelt congratulations and THANK YOU to all of those who made the IJA 2020 possible.
First, a huge THANK YOU to the IJA Board members and planning committee who created the vision for the festival. Thank you for all of your hard work, which included (but is not limited to) the hours that were needed for planning, the steep learning curve needed to accomplish your ideas, and the amount of time spent during the week to implement the activities. Your hard work and dedication really paid off as the festival was well-run and engaging!
Also, THANK YOU to all those who worked behind the scenes and in front of the camera so there could still be high quality shows, thoughtful panel discussions, helpful workshops, a raffle, the championships, and joggling events. Thank you to all of those who volunteered their time to help with the behind the scenes coordinating and organizing these events. Thanks to those who provided tech support and were able troubleshoot any technical issues. Thank you to the sponsors and donors who helped make this event possible. Thank you to all those who contributed in front of the camera. Thank you for your hard work and flexibility as you spent time preparing; modifying performances as necessary; and potentially adapting to different time zones.
Lastly, THANK YOU to the attendees! The positive comments that were written during the shows, thoughtful questions asked during panel discussions, and participation in joggling, voting, workshops, juggle jams, donations, and so on helped to make the festival great! There is no point in having a festival without attendees and it was wonderful to see participation from all over the world!
There was no precedent for this and look what was accomplished! An amazing, memorable event was created! There were so many people involved with making the event successful and if anyone was missed, please include yourself to the list too. Everyone’s hard work and dedication was greatly appreciated! Thank you all!
Winners in IJA 2020 Online Juggling Championships
This year all IJA members were eligible to be judges for the IJA Juggling Championships. Viewing and scoring the competitors was open only to IJA members, and 133 IJA folks participated as both audience and jury. With the forced change to an online competition, there were only five entrants this year — two in Individuals and three in Juniors. For safety, there was no Teams division.
IJA members can still view the competition videos (as many times as they want) at champs.juggle.org. You’ll need to login with your IJA membership username and password to see the videos. Separately, you can see all the scores for this year, as well as for previous years, at www.ijachamps.com.
Congratulations to this year’s winners:
Individuals
- 1st place: Hazel Bock (pictured top right)
- 2nd place: Kohei Itabashi
Juniors
- 1st place: David Pavlove Cunsolo (pictured)
- 2nd place: Zaila Avant-garde
- 3rd place: Thomas Whitaker
Recipients of 2020 IJA honorary awards
The IJA honored several people with awards at IJA 2020 Online.
Congratulations to all of them for these well deserved honors! The IJA website lists all the current and previous IJA honorees.
Gandini Juggling, Sean Gandini and Kati Ylä-Hokkala
- IJA Award of Excellence
- Gandini Juggling (Sean Gandini and Kati Ylä-Hokkala, pictured)
- Historical Achievement Award
- Gypsy Gruss
- IJA Extraordinary Service Award
- Jack Kalvan
- Excellence in Education Award
- Bob Neuman
- IJA Sammie Vance Youth Civic Achievement Award
- Kayla Malmgren and Elizabeth Stockbridge
Thousands watch IJA 2020 Online by Martin Frost
The Welcome Show cosponsored by Bindlestiff opened the fest with a wonderful take on a Paul Simon song as The Passing Zone’s Jon Wee and Owen Morse performed Fifty Ways to Be a Juggler. (Jon and Owen also appeared on Penn & Teller’s TV show Fool Us in July with some complex blindfolded knife throwing.)
The Welcome Show and the Cascade of Stars were live only, but the following videos on YouTube containing various shows, panels and workshops are still viewable for now. Some of these contain multiple events, as listed on the fest schedule:
Tue – https://youtu.be/kP1c9SlsSvQ (5 events, incl. Drop Everything podcast)
Thu – https://youtu.be/7pJXMqp-FZE (3 events, incl. Movie Night)
Fri – https://youtu.be/7FRwKS8jYLQ (intro + Panel: Race in Juggling)
Fri – https://youtu.be/KQe8Gf_yaMs (IRC show)
Fri – https://youtu.be/Eg65LfZDcA0 (Battle Night)
Sat – https://youtu.be/Vc1JncCXm2E (intro+ 3 events)
Also, the Championships routines can still be watched (requires your IJA username and password). And you can still order festival shirts or IJA logo mugs.
The whole online fest was pulled together in only a few months, after the Board decided it had to cancel the 2020 El Paso IJA Festival. A number of platforms were used to allow jugglers worldwide to view shows and panels and participate in workshops. The IJA marketing team got out there and spread the word about the fest, bringing in a far bigger, widespread audience than would have normally been able to attend an IJA fest.
Introduction from recent new Board member Aslynne Howes
Hi everyone!
I’m Aslynne (Princess) Howes and I’ve been on the IJA Board of Directors since May of this year. I’ve been juggling since 2010 in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. I love passing clubs, balls, and yes – even rings! For the past few months, I’ve been working on the IJA 2020 Online Festival and I’m looking forward to continuing to serve the juggling community through the other IJA programs, such as the Youth Juggling Academy. If you see me in the gym (assuming that ever happens again), ask me to pass!
During the IJA 2020 Online Festival, IJA members cast their votes for members of the IJA Board of Directors. Thank you to everyone for voting. We had a strong candidate pool this year. Three Board members were re-elected and one new member was elected, Chris Garcia. The Board has also re-elected Mike Moore as Chair of the Board of Directors. The winning candidates were:
- Chris Garcia
- Matan Presberg
- Mike Moore
- Scott Steiskal
Thank you to all the candidates for your time, and congratulations to all our elected board members! Please see the introduction below from new board member Chris Garcia.
Message from incoming IJA Board member Chris Garcia
Hi Jugglers!
I’m Chris and I wanted to say thanks for choosing me to serve on IJA’s Board of Directors. I’m based in San Jose California and I’ve been practicing juggling since 2003.
I like to practice with a variety of props from contact juggling, toss juggling (balls, clubs), boxes, tops and yoyos, and my all time favorite prop the diabolo. While I started out as a hobbyist juggler, I’ve pursued juggling professionally the past few years. I love performing, and even more so I love teaching people how to juggle.
If you are ever in my area or see me at a festival and would like to learn a trick, I’d be more than happy to help out.
New IJA Operations Officer position filled by Scott Steiskal
Scott Steiskal
The IJA Board has created the new position of Operations Officer to handle certain responsibilities previous taken on by the Board Chair, and the the Board appointed Board member Scott Steiskal to the new office.
Operations Officer (OpsO)
Role:
The Operations Officer is a volunteer responsible for the daily operation of the IJA, including facilitating protocol with officer/board applicants, and converting problems and events to suggestions and solutions.
Responsibilities:
- Liases communication between applicants and the Board of Directors
- Point person for assorted daily tasks
- Presents a monthly report to the board of directors
Whenever there isn’t an appointed Operations Officer, the Chair will handle that office’s duties.
Owen Morse sets hang gliding world record!
In June, Owen Morse of The Passing Zone, flying a hang glider over Owens Valley in California, set an out-and-back world record of 222.22 miles.
In his own account of the flight he says, “For six years I’ve been chasing the … record, and this year, all the pieces of the puzzle finally came together beautifully.”
You can read how Owen got started hang gliding in an eJuggle interview from some years ago.
Follow the full path of his record flight in this 3D animation, which you can set to play the journey at up to 2048 times normal speed allowing you to watch in a few minutes or less what took Owen over 9 1/2 hours.
Ron Graham, former IJA President and renowned mathematician, passes away at 84
by Martin Frost
Former IJA President Ron Graham died on July 6, 2020, at the age of 84. He was a very famous mathematician, especially for combinatorics and discrete mathematics, and he liked to combine mathematics and juggling.
A talk of his that I attended in the Bay Area in 1998, when he was Chief Scientist of AT&T Labs, was advertised this way:
In a certain sense, the art of juggling is a physical realization of many of the principles that mathematicians and computer scientists know and love. These include the search for patterns, the design and analysis of appropriate algorithms, and the prospect of facing problems of unbounded difficulty. In particular, juggling is typically a very discrete activity, and as such, is governed by a rich family of combinatorial constraints. Recently, a new and unexpectedly simple way of describing juggling patterns has been discovered. This has led to a bewildering array of previously unknown patterns, as well as several new combinatorial theorems. In this talk we will describe these developments, and attempt to demonstrate some of these new tricks.
At the end of the talk, Ron invited the jugglers in the audience up on stage to juggle, as the rest of the audience watched the demos or came up to learn how to juggle. You can hear Ron talk about the connections between math and juggling in this Mathematical Moments podcast. I got to juggle with Ron a few times at Stanford University when he was visiting the computer science department there.
He served as president of both the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America. He was IJA President from 1972-73 and was co-director that year of the 1973 IJA Convention in Livingston, NJ. Ron was a life member of the IJA and in fact participated this year in the scoring of the IJA 2020 Online Juggling Championships.
After hearing of Ron’s death, Rick Rubenstein composed the following:
For Ron Graham
A juggler and mathematician
Had a habit that kept him amused:
If his proof used an integer value,
He’d juggle the number he’d used.
But deep in one difficult problem,
He stared at his work with a frown:
“This number’s too large to be juggled —
In fact it’s too big to write down!”
Rick explains: “Besides being a renowned mathematician, Ron was a 6-ball juggler, master trampolinist, and president of the IJA in the early 1970s. While I sadly never had occasion to meet him in person (he stopped being active in the IJA before I joined), from what I’ve heard he was a delightful man. The poem is a reference to Graham’s Number, which for many years held the official Guinness record for the largest number ever used in a serious mathematical proof. ‘Too big to write down’ is an understatement of unfathomable proportions for Graham’s Number.”
A number of people who knew Ron, including juggler/mathematician Joe Buhler, reminisce about him in a Numberphile tribute podcast. You can find out much more about Ron Graham in these articles in The New York Times, eJuggle, and Wikipedia.
Results of the IJA 2020 Online World Joggling Championships
There were two categories in the IJA 2020 Online Joggling Championships:
- Fun Run: No entry fee or requirement for a video.
- Competitive: An entry fee was paid and a continuous video of the juggling pattern had to be submitted, with entrants eligible for awards and official IJA recognition.
To see a good sample of the IJA 2020 joggling, watch this fun joggling compilation video. If you have questions, please email joggling2020@juggle.org.
The final results are shown below. Congratulations to the winners, and thanks go to all our entrants in both categories! Certificates are being emailed, and medalists will be contacted with additional instructions.
Competitive Joggling Results
|
Event |
Placement |
Div. |
Name of Joggler |
Time |
Achievement |
|
3b 100 meter |
Gold |
B12 |
Joshua Black |
19.42 |
|
|
|
Silver |
B12 |
Caleb Black |
20.66 |
|
|
|
Gold |
G17 |
Marla Edgecomb |
21.45 |
|
|
|
Gold |
WM |
JoAnn Ireland |
21.24 |
#4 IJA all time in division |
|
|
Silver |
WM |
Jill Edgecomb |
32.78 |
#10 IJA all time in division |
|
|
Gold |
B17 |
Davld Pavlove Cunsolo |
16.50 |
|
|
|
Gold |
MO |
Sterling Franklin |
13.96 |
|
|
|
Silver |
MO |
Craig Muhlenkamp |
18.20 |
|
|
|
Bronze |
MO |
Christoph Mitasch |
19.87 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3b 400 meter |
Gold |
B12 |
Joshua Black |
2:05 |
|
|
|
Silver |
B12 |
Caleb Black |
2:43 |
|
|
|
Gold |
G17 |
Marla Edgecomb |
2:00.72 |
|
|
|
Gold |
WM |
JoAnn Ireland |
2:02.71 |
#9 IJA all time in division |
|
|
Silver |
WM |
Jill Edgecomb |
2:57.68 |
|
|
|
Gold |
MO |
Sterling Franklin |
1:02.40 |
#10 IJA all time |
|
|
Silver |
MO |
Craig Muhlenkamp |
1:21.63 |
|
|
|
Bronze |
MO |
Christoph Mitasch |
1:28.33 |
|
|
|
Gold |
MM |
Len Ferman |
1:17 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3b 800 meter |
Gold |
B12 |
Caleb Black |
8:45 |
|
|
|
Gold |
G17 |
Marla Edgecomb |
5:02.70 |
|
|
|
Gold |
WM |
JoAnn Ireland |
5:28.43 |
#4 IJA all time in division |
|
|
Silver |
WM |
Jill Edgecomb |
7:09.43 |
#6 IJA all time in division |
|
|
Gold |
MO |
Henry Wellenstein |
2:19.14 |
#3 IJA all time |
|
|
Silver |
MO |
Sterling Franklin |
2:22.34 |
#6 IJA all time |
|
|
Bronze |
MO |
Craig Muhlenkamp |
3:16.47 |
Tie declared since video limited a precise time |
|
|
Bronze |
MO |
Christoph Mitasch |
3:16.67 |
Tie declared since video limited a precise time |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mile times below are first to be reported by the IJA for these divisions (not typical IJA event) |
|
3b Mile |
Gold |
B12 |
Caleb Black |
19:47 |
|
|
|
Gold |
G17 |
Marla Edgecomb |
10:45.43 |
|
|
|
Gold |
MO |
Sterling Franklin |
5:29.97 |
|
|
|
Silver |
MO |
Craig Muhlenkamp |
6:54.20 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3b 5K |
Gold |
MO |
Michael Bergeron |
16:49.67 |
New World Record (video) |
|
|
Silver |
MO |
Sterling Franklin |
19:43 |
|
|
|
Bronze |
MO |
Christoph Mitasch |
23:34 |
|
|
|
|
MO |
Koutaro Kawano |
24:07 |
|
|
|
|
MO |
Craig Muhlenkamp |
26:17 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
5b 100m |
Gold |
B12 |
Joshua Black |
2:11 |
|
|
|
Silver |
B12 |
Caleb Black |
2:13 |
|
|
|
Gold |
WM |
JoAnn Ireland |
1:12.54 |
#2 IJA all time in division |
|
|
Silver |
WM |
Jill Edgecomb |
3:31.79 |
#3 IJA all time in division |
|
|
Gold |
B17 |
Davld Pavlove Cunsolo |
30.20 |
|
|
|
Gold |
MO |
Sterling Franklin |
55.57 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
5b 400m |
Gold |
B12 |
Joshua Black |
6:31 |
|
|
|
Silver |
B12 |
Caleb Black |
6:33 |
|
|
|
Gold |
WM |
JoAnn Ireland |
6:59.52 |
#2 IJA all time in division |
|
|
Gold |
B17 |
Davld Pavlove Cunsolo |
3:03.73 |
#7 IJA all time in division |
|
|
Gold |
MO |
Sterling Franklin |
5:29.76 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
7b 100m |
Gold |
B17 |
Davld Pavlove Cunsolo |
1:37.37 |
#10 IJA all time in division |
Additional Competitive Entries
|
3b200m |
|
|
Sterling Franklin |
29.12 |
#9 IJA all time |
|
3b600m |
|
|
Sterling Franklin |
1:44.90 |
New World Record (beats 2019 inaugural record by 4.07s) |
|
3b3K |
|
|
Sterling Franklin |
11:10.9 |
IJA inaugural record |
|
4b100m |
|
|
Sterling Franklin |
15.78 |
IJA inaugural record |
|
4b200m |
|
|
Sterling Franklin |
40.47 |
IJA inaugural record |
|
4b400m |
|
|
Sterling Franklin |
1:49.36 |
IJA inaugural record |
|
5b200m |
|
|
Sterling Franklin |
2:42.20 |
#8 IJA all time |
|
7b100m |
|
|
Sterling Franklin |
14:13 |
|
|
3b100m contortionist |
|
|
Barry Goldmeier |
2:10.53* |
|
|
3b400m |
|
|
Barry Goldmeier |
3:36.93* |
|
|
3b800m |
|
|
Barry Goldmeier |
6:57.49* |
|
|
3bMile |
|
|
Barry Goldmeier |
14:30.21* |
|
|
3b5K |
|
|
Barry Goldmeier |
51:06* |
|
|
5b100m |
|
|
Barry Goldmeier |
2:42.46* |
|
|
5b400m |
|
|
Barry Goldmeier |
3:34.30* |
|
|
3b400m |
|
|
JoAnn Ireland |
2:00.55* |
|
|
3b800m |
|
|
JoAnn Ireland |
5:05.12* |
|
|
3bMile |
|
|
JoAnn Ireland |
11:52* |
|
|
3b5K |
|
|
JoAnn Ireland |
40:11* |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
*unverifiable from provided video |
Fun Run Honorable Mentions
|
3b100m Shotputs (5 kg each) |
|
|
Chris Fowler |
15.96 |
New World Record (video) (recognized by www.recordholders.org) |
|
3b800m |
|
|
Aaron Scott |
2:35.41 |
|
|
3bMile |
|
|
Aaron Scott |
5:21.87 |
|
|
3b5K |
|
|
Aaron Scott |
17:47 |
|
Latest articles in eJuggle
- 07/31 Eric Zidla – A Career in Photos and Video (by David Cain)
- 07/30 Babylon Circus (by Esteban Velez)
- 07/28 IJA Tricks of the Month by Eric Jackson from USA | Juggling (by IJA Tricks of the Month)
- 07/27 Tribute to Marium Akther (by Esteban Velez)
- 07/22 IJA Tricks of the Month by Jack Denger from USA | Juggling (by IJA Tricks of the Month)
- 07/22 Mixed Prop Variations on 5[21][22] (by David Cain)
- 07/18 The Candombe Dance and “The Escobero” (by Esteban Velez)
- 07/15 IJA Tricks of the Month by Cinthia Giacumbo from Argentina | Juggling (by IJA Tricks of the Month)
- 07/12 Billie Henderson obituary (by Esteban Velez)
- 07/09 Ron Graham Obituary (by David Cain)
- 07/08 IJA Tricks of the Month by Spencer Androli from USA | Juggling (by IJA Tricks of the Month)
- 07/04 Who was the first five club juggler? (by Guest Writer)
- 07/03 Unique Juggling Tricks and Routines: Part 3 (by David Cain)
- 06/28 Albert Lucas on “Drop Everything” podcast with host Dan Holzman (by Daniel Holzman)
- 06/27 Surviving Ethnocide by Juggling (by Esteban Velez)
Upcoming juggling festivals
Note: Virtually all juggling festivals planned for the coming months have been canceled or rescheduled because of the worldwide pandemic, though some will be held online.
To find a juggling fest near you or online, check the fest list at The Juggling Edge. Eventually festivals will return.