As a juggling historian, I’m often asked what I believe the next historic juggling achievement will be. For the last few years, I’ve stated that I thought it would be a qualifying run of 7 club backcrosses. In 2006, Wes Peden became the first juggler to qualify 6 club backcrosses. At least as early as 2012, Anthony Gatto was able to flash 7 club backcrosses back into the pattern, as you can see below.
Quite a number of jugglers have been working on 7 club backcrosses, but the one that had been making the most progress on it was Masahiro Takahashi, whom many, myself included, consider the greatest club juggler in the world. If you’re not aware of his talent, check out this amazing video.
Masahiro had achieved 9 catches of 7 club backcrosses on video, but I had been hearing that he was breaking that record in private. Well, I woke up today to find a video of Masahiro not just qualifying 7 club backcrosses, but getting 19 catches of the trick back into a regular cascade. You can see this below.
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This is truly a remarkable achievement. Congratulations to Masahiro Takahashi.
So, what do I believe is the next great technical achievement in juggling that needs to be conquered? Well, to me, there are two obvious answers to choose from – a qualify of eleven rings and a ten club flash. Daniel Lysenko is only one catch away from qualifying 11 rings, and I’m not aware of anyone else even close to his skill level with 11, so I’m counting on Daniel to break that barrier. It’s interesting to note that while the first 11 ring flash was done in 1963 by Albert Petrowski, no one has doubled that number of catches in the 61 years since. Then again, 105 years passed from when Frank Le Dent flashed 11 balls in 1907 until Alex Barron qualified 11 balls in 2012. If you haven’t seen Daniel getting 21 catches of 11 rings, here is the remarkable video.
There are quite a few candidates for flashing 10 clubs. Five jugglers have qualified 8 clubs, and 9 clubs have been flashed by Emil Dahl, Willy Colombaioni, Eivind Dragsjo, Ben Thompson, Moritz Rosner, and Kaito Tanioka. You can see some of these flashes below.
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Willy Colombaioni came very close to 10 clubs a couple of years ago, as you can see below.
I’ve talked to several of the world’s top club jugglers lately about the ten club flash. None of them seem particularly keen on putting the work into achieving it at the moment, but I hope they change their minds. It would certainly be a way to put your mark on juggling history. As you can see, Willy used a holster, which is a perfectly legitimate way of doing it. No one seems to use numbers clubs anymore, but a thinner and lighter club might also prove advantageous. I do hope someone will step up and try to break the 11 ring qualify or 10 club flash barrier.
David Cain
David Cain is a professional juggler, juggling historian, and the owner of the world's only juggling museum, the Museum of Juggling History. He is a Guinness world record holder and 16 time IJA gold medalist. In addition to his juggling pursuits, David is a successful composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and singer as well as the author of twenty-six books. He and his children live in Middletown, OH (USA).
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Kaito Tanioka has also qualified 8 clubs, as the 5th to do it. Aramis Gonzales has been building up catches with 11 rings too, I definitely hope to see these landmarks in the future. A great article!