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

organization An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...

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 pertains to any form of Competition, competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and Skill, skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to specta ...

( competitive juggling).

History

In 2003, the WJF was created by long-time

International Jugglers' Association The International Jugglers' Association or IJA is the world's oldest and largest nonprofit circus organization, and is open to members worldwide. It was founded in the United States in 1947, with the goal of providing, "an organization for jugg ...

member,

Jason Garfield Jason Garfield (born August 9, 1974) is a juggler and entertainer from Norfolk, Connecticut, United States. He is the founder and president of the World Juggling Federation (WJF). Sport Juggling, TV & Event Production Jason Garfield has been produc ...

. Garfield attracted interest and membership by framing the skills of juggling as a sport. The federation became more widely known in 2005 when the second annual WJF juggling competition was aired on

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

. 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 t ...

.Martin, Stephen A
Determination Letter of Tax Exempt Status
May 27, 2021. ''irs.gov.'' Retrieved January 20, 2023.

Competition

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

ESPN2 ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially fo ...

. 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: 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 websiteWJF
on

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Juggling {{sport-org-stub