Even if you don't read the whole thing, you must watch: http://juggling.tv/244
Back in my juggling hey-day, I was practicing with my gang one day and a guy stopped back and said he hadn't juggled for years. Could he try? Of course. After a few tries he had a good run with 7 balls. I couldn't believe that someone would get good enough to juggle 7 balls and then not juggle for a couple of years. The time and commitment 7 balls requires is immense. I didn't believe someone could get that good and then just stop. I thought he must be joking. I made a living juggling for a while. I got good. Not 7-balls good, but I had 60 throws with 6 balls and a four- or five-minute run with 5 balls. I thought juggling would be my life. Now at 46 with several other careers under my belt, I juggle only once or twice a year. I've certainly gone 2 or 3 years without juggling. Why did Anthony Gatto go into the construction business? Because there is more to life than doing one thing. There are other things to be interested in and take joy in. And if you think becoming a concrete specialist is nothing very interesting, then you probably haven't lived enough yet. I get it. Good for you Anthony. Keep looking forward.
You do get it. To drop something that you have put an incredible amount of time into takes a lot of courage, and enough confidence in yourself to know that whatever else you're looking into is worthwhile. I went from bowling 4 times a week, bowling with and against members of Junior Team USA and other nationally known talent to bowling maybe once a year. As you said with juggling, I thought that would be my life. But that's not always the case. Another instance, I know a professor who is more or less a pool shark. Played everyday for years, got incredibly good and won a lot of tournaments. One day he decided he had enough and dropped the game for decades. He picked it back up in his 70s, and is still good enough to beat almost everyone he plays against. What a person is dedicated to and what they're immensely talented at don't necessarily define the person. Would love to hear more about your juggling hey-day sometime.
I read this a few days ago, it's certainly a good read. Watch the Cirque du Soleil performance, it's pretty mind blowing. The world record video is a strange type of performance art. I don't know why but when people who are the best at what they do bow out I feel a great deal of respect for their decision.
What an awesome performance! This article really helped me understand so much more about juggling. The author says it best: Looking at this Cirque video... it really shows just how masterful he is at his craft: Jugglers don’t have to perform difficult tricks to entertain people, because audiences generally don’t know what’s difficult. Juggling five objects is 10 times harder than juggling four, and six objects is 10 times harder than five, but to most people, five objects in the air looks like six, and six looks like five.
But then came a guy who wasn’t interested in lying, who wanted to do stuff that was hard because he could.
yeah-ya - impressive. But honestly, that's nothing.
Oh I always forget that edits don't give notifications. Grrr... Well glad you caught it anyways.
This was amazing, thanks regardless. I thought a lot about this but I'm on my damn phone so I don't want to say it all. One thing -- Grantland has clearly cornered the sports journalism market, and in a sense they've solved it. Notice how a lot of their articles follow exactly the same pattern? (And yes, I know it's not just Grantland, the "non sequitur deep ending" thing is journalism-wide. But they've mastered it.) My favorite part of the article was definitely his reflection on the audience as the barometer of whether something is a sport or not. Incredibly deep thought.