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This Shit Just Got Real (juggling world records)
This shit just got real!
Back in the day, the Guinness Book of World Records did a pretty good job of keeping track of who could juggle the highest number of all kinds of things, but now it just lists 3 chainsaw juggling records. Over the years different websites have tracked various records, but back in 2005 I created a dedicated page on wikipedia to do the job.
In the past month, seven of the records have been broken, including one of my own records (the fuckers).
The best of these is the 11 ball record. Since 2001 it has stood at 15 catches by Bruce Sarafian.
0k3bmMzez1s
Peter Bone, a juggler from the UK, claimed to have made 18 catches, but never got the video evidence needed to make the record official.
Then a young juggler called Alex Baron uploaded a video where he equaled the 15 catches.
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Three days later he broke the record with 17 catches of 11 balls.
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Peter Bone commented "This is just what I needed to get off my ass and work on qualifying 11 again." Sounds like shit-talking of epic proportions!
Except it only took him 3 days to post a new world record with 18 catches, shutting up everyone who didn't believe his earlier claims.
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Then 4 days later (today), Alex Barron posts a new video, and a new record of 19 catches.
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Where next? Once you are at 11 catches with 11 balls, the big milestone (except for getting a new world record) is 22 catches, which means every ball is thrown and caught twice. My money is on Peter Bone getting there first, but it's fucking close!
Okay, go back to discussing comics now.
Back in the day, the Guinness Book of World Records did a pretty good job of keeping track of who could juggle the highest number of all kinds of things, but now it just lists 3 chainsaw juggling records. Over the years different websites have tracked various records, but back in 2005 I created a dedicated page on wikipedia to do the job.
In the past month, seven of the records have been broken, including one of my own records (the fuckers).
The best of these is the 11 ball record. Since 2001 it has stood at 15 catches by Bruce Sarafian.
0k3bmMzez1s
Peter Bone, a juggler from the UK, claimed to have made 18 catches, but never got the video evidence needed to make the record official.
Then a young juggler called Alex Baron uploaded a video where he equaled the 15 catches.
2_nEVVPiDj4
Three days later he broke the record with 17 catches of 11 balls.
aqbtugSVYp8
Peter Bone commented "This is just what I needed to get off my ass and work on qualifying 11 again." Sounds like shit-talking of epic proportions!
Except it only took him 3 days to post a new world record with 18 catches, shutting up everyone who didn't believe his earlier claims.
_WIdWu5LXb4
Then 4 days later (today), Alex Barron posts a new video, and a new record of 19 catches.
9b9405uteA8
Where next? Once you are at 11 catches with 11 balls, the big milestone (except for getting a new world record) is 22 catches, which means every ball is thrown and caught twice. My money is on Peter Bone getting there first, but it's fucking close!
Okay, go back to discussing comics now.
Comments
(I've not seen this video yet, as YouTube isn't working very well by satellite internet.)
The list now stands:
* 18 rings for 18 passes caught by Rojic Levicky and Victor Teslenko in 2008 (video).
* 16 rings for 20 passes caught by Tony Pezzo and Patrik Elmnert in 2010 (video).
* 15 rings for 30 passes caught by Tony Pezzo and Patrik Elmnert in 2010 (video).
* 14 rings for 40 passes caught by Tony Pezzo and Patrik Elmnert in 2010 (video).
* 13 rings for 99 passes caught by Tony Pezzo and Patrik Elmnert in 2010 (video).
* 12 rings for 151 passes caught by Tony Pezzo and Patrik Elmnert in 2010 (video).
* 11 rings for 200 passes caught by Tony Pezzo and Patrik Elmnert in 2010 (video).
This video contains those same fuckers breaking the record Ben and I set in 2002 with 17 balls. Also they matched the record we set in 2008 with 19 ball passing.
You know what? I'm going to take a set of 10 small beanbags and a video camera with me wherever I go, and practice until I get the 10 ball world record. My personal best is only 5 catches off the world record. I bet I could get it.
Anyway, I'll see how it goes.
Alex Barron made 13 catches with 12 balls, which means my best is no long equal to the official best. In regards to juggling records, I've now got shit. I got some places first, but I've pretty much been surpassed. I think my only record now is 19 balls for 19 catches between two people, which has been bettered, but I did it first with Ben.
New 12 ball record:
That said, I DID use that to cheat. Check this out, and read point 4:
From my blog:
In 2003 I made a video of me equaling a current world record, 12 catches with 12 balls. Here is the video:
Awesome, right? Well, it was actually a fake, made for an April Fools Day prank on the world. Here is the post I made about it on rec.juggling, and the fun comments afterward.
In a following post I wrote up how I made the video. Like any successful project, it takes a lot of planning, knowledge, skill and hard work. A bit like juggling itself! In November of 2003 I flashed 12 balls for real, which sort of proves that point.
Luke Burrage’s 10 Step Guide to Juggling Video Forgery.
1. Think of a trick that people may believe you can do, has to be plausible. For me a 12 ball flash was near but the chances of me catching on video slim.
2. Drop a hint you are going to attempt it. The wimpy discussion was perfect for my requirements.
3. Buy a new tape for your camera if you have run out. Monday dinner time was good for me.
4. Remember, when filming anything, “Location, location, location.†Reasons why I chose my back yard and that camera angle:
-likely place for me to juggle in
-the sky behind is high contrast so you can see the balls above my hands
-the wall behind is low contrast so it is difficult to see the balls below my hands
-knowing that any ball on the floor would be stationary and easy to spot, the low angle and the raised edge of the gravel patch where I am standing would hide any dropped balls
5. Practice your reaction. This is very important. I chose that one because:
-throwing the balls to the ground is an accepted celebration but it also makes sure all the balls end up in a roughly the same place, right beside the dropped balls
-running past the camera and out of the shot means that I can get my acting out of the way quickly, leaving an empty screen, not me looking down at the balls that I dropped (for a closer examination see http://lukeburrages.thingonthe.net/juggling/videoreview.html )
6. Shoot yourself attempting the trick until you have a good selection of near misses with suitable celebrations. I was happy at 10 near attempts (8 catches or more with celebration, best was 10 catches but forgot to play the part) which took about 45 minutes.
7. Capture these attempts into your computer and review them until you find the one most suitable for the next stages.
8. Grab the frames in which the balls are dropping past your hands and before they hit fall out of site. Or in my case, the frames in which the balls bounce of my shoulder, off my arms and the one that just bounced off the ground. Frame by frame remove evidence of these balls. The best way to do this is to use the background of where the ball you want removing is from the frame before or after. Do not use smudging or cloning as this leave a visible trail where the ball is. This stage is made much easier if the balls are not easily visible in the first place.
9. Recompile the video, sans the sound. Removing the sounds of balls hitting gravel seemed to tricky to even bother. Grass would be the best surface for this, or maybe have some music playing. I never put sound on
my video clips anyway, so this wasn’t a problem for me anyway.
10. Finally “optimize†for the internet. All I think I need to say here is that low quality mpg can hide a multitude of sins.
Thank you.
Luke Burrage
PS. Does all this sound plausible to you? A lot of work for just a joke?
Well, you are right. The video is real.
The video wasn’t real. I know I’ve probably still got the original files somewhere, so one day I might upload the original, unaltered video clip.
That has to be a world record for one-ball juggling, right?
@Luke, I finally decided to get off my ass and learn a 4 ball mills mess but I absolutely suck at it. Do you have any advice?
Also on a more pedantic note, I suspect that it is technically impossible to juggle just one ball (or goose) by the definition. After the first catch, there would be no object in the air, so the run would end. By one definition, this is juggling, but by another it is only a flash. I'm not familiar enough with the topic to know which definition the Guinness book uses.