Karlsruhe

Let's see. Where was I? Ah yes - Karlsruhe, Germany, near the beginning of August at 4:30a.m. Not the most auspicious start to my trip, but at least I'd reached the hotel and had a bed for the night. What remained of it anyway.

I managed a few hours sleep, fortunately, and the general buzz of excitement managed to propel me through the day without keeling over from lack of sleep. And what a day it was!

The convention was held at an indoor sports center at the edge of the city, adjacent to a large park. Never having been to anything of this sort, I'd little idea of what to expect, and how many people would be there. The answer to that was: lots! Over the course of the week nearly 5 and a half thousand people attended, easily filling the sports arena when I was there. They (we?) made for quite a sight. Jugglers and acrobats of every age, shape, colour, creed and nationality could be found. And every skill level too, fortunately, otherwise I would have felt even more intimidated than I did (you would be too were you to find yourself watching a 10 year old slip of a lad deftly handling five clubs in front of you).

Despite being there for the weekend, I only really had a single day of the convention in front of me. The convention finished early on the Sunday afternoon, and the first part of that was generally spent clearing things up (or trying to find a car ride home for many it seemed - jugglers are a surprisingly intrepid bunch and several people I spoke to had daunting distances to travel home, with no mode of transport arranged).

I checked out the day's activities, noted down a few events that were off interest to me, and set off to explore for a bit. In the rather picturesque park next door, two large big tops had been set up. The larger of two hosting a nightly open stage, where anyone could perform. I didn't get a chance to attend the smaller tent. Nor did I see the medieval village on the other side of the lake. Too much to see, too little time! But I did attend a master class on ball balancing given by a remarkable German performer. Memorably, when it came to teaching elbow balances, he went around the room prodding everyone's arms in order to show them the correct spot on which to balance a ball. When it came to me, much more prodding than with the others seemed to ensue, and eventually he gave me a vexed looked, said "lose weight" and moved on. Whist I've no intention of losing any muscle mass (especially after all that time at the gym!), I could probably stand to reduce my body fat percentage a little. It strikes me as a good reason for a diet - I look forward to telling people I'm losing weight in order than I can better balance a ball on my elbow :)

I managed to spent quite a bit of time in the main arena, observing some achingly talented people perform. I freely admit to tremendous cowardice. Several contact jugglers I was so in awe of I couldn't bring myself to talk to or even approach. Instead I quietly watched them from afar, usually the other side of the stadium. What a tremendous stalker I would make! Several I found truly inspiring to watch.

Hearteningly one of them, a japanese contact juggler with a nice line in multiball variations, came up to talk to me near the end of the day. He even paid me a compliment, which I quickly returned many times over (he also seemed surprised that I'd been watching him as he hadn't seen me near him. Told you - tremendous stalker). He said that my technique was very good. Which I hope is true, but it's also emblematic of one of my big problems - I focus on technique at the expense of improvisation.. It was particularly notable watching other people performing, seeing their improvisations and how they varied their routines as they picked up tips from others. That's not something that comes naturally to me. Instead I tend to focus on learning one thing at a time, repeating it until it feels smooth and polished.

Still I'm not too hard on myself. However slowly, my repertoire of moves has been growing for some time now. I'm on the cusp of getting to grips with a bridge roll, a particularly effective move that I've been lacking for a good while, and I'm committed to learning some 4 ball snake moves before the year is out. All good solid stuff that will look very impressive once I've mastered it.

And however meagre I may consider my skills, I did manage to interact with a few people who seemed impressed by what I could do, teaching a few tricks to those who showed curiosity. One gentleman I gave an impromtu lesson to returned to speak to me after an hour or so, proudly displaying the four shiny new balls I'd advised him to buy if he really wanted to start to learn to contact juggle. I must have done something right.

Righty ho. There's more I could write, but I have cut this short now. I've just found out that the Bristol Juggling convention begins tomorrow (I could have sworn it was past for some reason). There'll likely be no update from me tomorrow as a result, but I'll return with a full and frank account of events before too long I promise!