The World Juggling Federation (WJF) is the world's only

organization An organization or organisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences) is an legal entity, entity—such as ...

devoted to the promotion and advancement of

juggling Juggling is a physical skill, performed by a juggler, involving the manipulation of objects for recreation, entertainment, art or sport. The most recognizable form of juggling is toss juggling. Juggling can be the manipulation of one object o ...

as a

sport Sport is a physical activity or game, often Competition, competitive and organization, organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The numbe ...

( competitive juggling).

History

In 2000, long-time IJA member Jason Garfield founded the WJF. Garfield attracted interest and membership by framing the skills of juggling as a sport. The WJF broadcast its first juggling convention on

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in January 2005 and its second convention on

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

later the same year. In 2021, the WJF was reestablished as a

501(c)(3) organization A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of ...

and announced its goal to create a juggling event at the

Olympics The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competit ...

Competition

The WJF's most well-known event is the WJF convention, which has been broadcast on

. The organization encourages jugglers to compete against each other in order to get better. In WJF-sponsored events, the participants use juggling props, which include: Balls, Rings,

Clubs Club may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Club (magazine), ''Club'' (magazine) * Club, a ''Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' character * Clubs (suit), a suit of playing cards * Club music * "Club", by Kelsea Ballerini from the album ''kelsea'' Brands a ...

Cigar box A cigar box is a box container for cigar packaging. Traditionally, cigar boxes have been made of wood, cardboard or paper. Spanish cedar has been described as the "best" kind of wood for cigar boxes because of its beautiful grain, fine texture ...

es,

Diabolo The diabolo ( ; commonly misspelled ''diablo'') is a juggling or circus skills, circus juggling prop, prop consisting of an axle () and two cone, cups (hourglass/egg timer shaped) or cylinder, discs derived from the Chinese yo-yo. This object i ...

s, and

Devil Sticks The manipulation of the devil stick (also devil-sticks, devilsticks, flower sticks, bâtons fleurs, stunt sticks, gravity sticks, or juggling sticks) is a form of gyroscope, gyroscopic juggling or equilibristics, consisting of manipulating one ...

. WJF competition events sometimes include (pending enough competitors attending): *Club passing *360s (and similar) *Endurance *Isolated Endurance *Freestyle *Extreme Competitions There are "junior"-, "beginner"-, "intermediate"- and "advanced"-level competitors in each of the three main WJF disciplines.

Conventions and championships

Annual WJF conventions are held; and juggling competitions produce annual winners who are named "overall champions". At WJF 5, the top competition event ran alongside the Battle for the WJF Presidency, with Thomas Dietz as the inaugural winner, beating Jason Garfield. However, Dietz resigned from presidency soon after, saying he didn't have time to fulfill his duties as president. At WJF 7 in 2011, Doug Sayers was initially named overall champion, but due to a miscount of the scores this was proved not to be the case, as Vova had scored more points overall.

References

External links

World Juggling Federation official websiteCompetition resultsWJF
on

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Juggling {{sport-org-stub