I personally think juggling should be an Olympic sport! What do u guys think? Should juggling be in the Olympics yes or no? And please try and give some sort of explanation , I think is should be because gym jugglers are athletes! They train just as long and hard and put on just as good of a show, even contact juggling is a real sport I think should be included in the Olympics .
Roflcopter - - Parent #
I agree completely. Especially since it's a very global sport. It would increase appreciation for it all.
I do have to disagree with contact juggling though. Although I (as a novice contact juggler) understand that it is very difficult and requires practice, I don't think that the public would really receive it well. I can hear it now.. "he's just holding a ball and moving it around!" Although a really good juggler can portray that floaty illusion, we all know what is happening.
Roflcopter - - Parent #
You all have good points. I think a better thing to say is that it would make me happy if say that summer Olympics 2015 there would be technical juggling. It doesn't have to continue on but it would be extremely entertaining to see the "best" (whether you would agree or not) from each country go for old with the awe of mesmerized crowds. I think it would be nice for at least once. Perhaps though that would be something the WJF would do instead of the Olympics.
Little Paul - - Parent #
"contact juggling is a real sport I think should be included in the Olympics"
It's a girls sport
https://youtu.be/HiWOxcpxVvs
thegoheads - - Parent #
Wow! Awesome video, thanks for sharing.
I think peterbone's comment sums it up better than I could say it, as far as why juggling wouldn't work in the olympics. My personal problem with juggling in the olympics is if juggling became too mainstream I'm afraid it would lose some of it's magic for me. I'm sure there would be benefits too... I guess "hey, you should be in the olympics" sounds better than "hey, you should go on America's got talent!" haha.
Even when the WJF has offered decent prize money, it still doesn't draw in as many people as you would think. WJF10 will be December this year and first place will get $10,000! Plus they are doing a global regional video competition thing this year where people from all over the world can enter for a chance to win a trip here to Vegas to compete. Anyone who really likes to see juggling as a sport, WJF is the best we got. I'm hoping a lot of big names will show up this year, 10 grand would get my attention if I was good enough at the WJF tricks. Err, um.... I mean moves.
Rob van Heijst - - Parent #
Okay this is the second time I see someone calling tricks moves. I'm guessing that Jason has the fear that calling juggling tricks 'tricks' will make it sound less professional. Am I right?
Little Paul - - Parent #
The sports the WJF seek to emulate (gymnastics, diving, american wrestling) call the individual components "moves" so that's what the wtf calls them.
It's just a case of adopting an existing sorting terminology
Little Paul - - Parent #
iphone predictive spelling for the won
Rob van Heijst - - Parent #
In that perspective it makes sense.
I like the WTF lets keep that one in!
Little Paul - - Parent #
It's almost as if it someone should put it on a tshirt...
Cedric Lackpot - - Parent #
> It's a girls sport.Yep. That notorious girl Kati Yla-Hokkala, who has been a fundamental part of The Gandini Juggling Project since its inception, was the Finnish RG champion before she turned to juggling IIRC.Yay for girls!
Little Paul - - Parent #
Indeed, and had she been male she wouldn't have been allowed to compete. My intent was factual, not derogatory.
Ball/Hoop/Ribbon/Club/Rope events are female only floor events, just as Pommel Horse/Still Rings/Vault/Parallel Bars/High Bars are male only events.
Pierre Vdv - - Parent #
I do totally agree with you on both juggling and contact juggling. In my opinion the problem would come from the entry selection, since every country has to choose their champions. The difficulty would be to determine a global basic level and to decide how many participants each country can bring to the olympics.
Scoring could be similar to gymnastics or ice skating (as it's often said), with marks for both the tricks and the beauty of the whole routine. But then the hard part is to name and evaluate the difficulty of every trick on earth (I mean doing it officialy with the olympic commitee). Maybe it would take two separate categories, one for the "big classics" such as huge 7 club 5 up 360 etc. and another one just for creativity, where manipulation and just the creation of totally new patterns would be rewarded. (and I still think that part of juggling is a real sport).
But all in all it would be awesome to have such a beautiful stage for juggling!
Absolutely not. Firstly it's nowhere near popular enough. 99% of the general public wouldn't understand it. There are lots of other non Olympic sports that are a lot more popular, like karate, climbing and rugby. Secondly it would become far too competitive. It would become like gymnastics or trampolining where there are set moves and very little room for innovation - like the WJF but a lot worse. I think that juggling is just too broad an activity for inclusion. It would have to focus a lot more on one particular aspect and that would limit the number of competitors and public interest even more.
By the way, this subject has come up many times in the past on rec.juggling. This one for example.
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.juggling/NGr4knIEMgE/f2DLO4oPcIgJ
Little Paul - - Parent #
Back in 2012, I spent a lot of the summer watching the gymnastics and the diving (for purely sporting reasons, there were no other reasons involved at all. Honest.) then once the Olympics were over I went back and re-watched some of the televised WJF competitions.
The WJF scoring made much more sense having spent all that time immersed in similar scoring methods. This escaped me completely the first time I watched the WJF.
Personally, I think that we're a long way off having the multinational structured competitions and globally recognised organisational body overseeing the sport and unifying competition rulesets etc which would be a prerequisite for it being recognised as an olympic sport - and even if we did it appears that once you get to that stage, you have to persuade the people running that organisational body to dissolve it and cede control to the IOC.
Which seems like more paperwork than any juggler I've ever met could be bothered with.
mike.armstrong - - Parent #
Was the WJF as erm, inspiring, as the diving and the gymnastics? ;o)
Little Paul - - Parent #
nowhere near it.
Although some of the haircuts were amusing.
Scott Seltzer - - Parent #
I came close to being that juggler. About 4.5 years ago I wrote a plan to get juggling into the 2020 Olympics. I did a lot of research and made many many notes on what it would realistically entail. My plan was basically to start with numbers and/or joggling since those are the easiest to judge (and wouldn't really go against Francis Brunn's purported quip: "I don't believe in juggling competitions. It's like seeing who could paint the fastest painting!" [1]), though I did consider eventually having some sort of freestyle event [2].
I shared my idea with only one other juggling activist and did get good response, but I chickened out before sending it to all the potential committee members I had considered.
-Scott
1. https://www.juggling.org/jw/86/1/brunn.html
2. See basically any discussion on juggling as art vs sport.
I think numbers juggling would be the only format that would make sense in the Olympics to a wide enough audience. The point of the Olympics is to answer the basic questions: Who can run the fastest? Who can jump the highest? Who can throw the farthest? For juggling the basic question is who can juggle the most objects?
Joggling while definitely requiring skill & athleticism will never be anything more than a novelty in the eyes of the general public.
I think those jugglers who think juggling can be a sport would like to see a competition based on rhythmic gymnastics & why not? The WJF have shown that juggling can fit that format. But then so could ballet or any other form of dancing. There are purely technical aspects to every performance art that could be measured as a sport. Should they all be Olympic sports too?
I'm not bothered whether juggling gets recognised as a sport or not. I practice my hobbies because I enjoy them, if everyone else on Earth thought that juggling was pointless, I'd still juggle. However, I'd hate to see it get to the point where 'armchair jugglers' came into existence.
I'd hate to see it get to the point where 'armchair jugglers' came into existence.
You are WAY too late on that one.
Little Paul - - Parent #
Been rocking that lifestyle for over a decade
Little Paul - - Parent #
As well as joggling[1] or numbers I think the one which stands a half decent chance (based on widely recognised rule sets and formal competition) is probably volleyclub
Although major league combat seems to be developing some coherent international rules, it's a bit like kabaddi. Although that made it onto uk tv, it's not an Olympic sport. I wish it was though, I used to enjoy watching it on telly. Very entertaining!
[1] I still can't take joggling seriously, no matter how much Albert Lucas wants me to.
Fully agree the first point.
"The ultimate jugglers' sport. The bid for olympic acceptance starts here. "
https://www.capsule39.com/tlmb_volleyClub.php
Brook Roberts - - Parent #
Whilst I play a lot more combat, I agree on volleyclub being better as a sport. I should really get round to playing more often...but having played on sand courts it always looks less exciting when someone has put a net up in a gym at a convention, but you can't throw yourself after wayward clubs.
Brook Roberts - - Parent #
Luke is making a push for Europe wide Combat via http://www.lukeburrage.com/combat/index.php
I think volley club would be great but I'm curious what rule sets these are? I've only played very informally but there are lots of things that seem to me like they could be taken advantage of, it's just unsportsmanlike so few people do...
I actually think MLC is easier to do a formal sport in the olympics as the rules are very clear cut (with the exception of 360 combat which I don't think works well)
If juggling would be allowed as an olympic sport so much other disciplines would have to be allowed as well.
The term olympic sport would lose all meaning.
Why would we even want to become an olympic discipline?
Paperwork? involvement of politics and nationalism?
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
I think plate spinning should be an olympic sport.
No, seriously another thing that should be a reason for juggling NOT to be an olympic sport: There are not enough good jugglers! I think very few jugglers can compare to athletes of other olympic disciplines, the level can raise a lot still! Of course many people train hard, but without any knowledge/research about training methods, no coaches etc... We jugglers still have so much to learn!
Among the few people who are at the top, many of them are not interested in 'sport' juggling...
pumpkineater23 - - Parent #
The five ring Olympic symbol would work rather well I think. Isn't there a flaming club Olympic symbol too?
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