Competitive or sport juggling may range from friendly and silly games to competitive sports. Most juggling conventions include friendly games such as endurance and gladiators. Since 1969, the

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 ...

(IJA) has held annual stage championships, judged both on technique and presentation. The stage championships have three categories: Individuals, Teams and Juniors (individuals under 17 years old). First, second and third-place winners in the Stage Championships are awarded medals and money prizes. In addition, the Numbers Championships awards Gold medals to those who demonstrate that they can juggle the most balls, clubs or rings for the most catches. In recent times, there has been a move to more competitive and technical juggling events. The most notable example of this is the annual World Juggling Federation (WJF) Championships. Other competitions include those produced by the International Sport Juggling Federation, and the Atlanta Jugglers Association Groundhog Day competition. One type of competition is called

combat Combat (French for ''fight'') is a purposeful violent conflict meant to physically harm or kill the opposition. Combat may be armed (using weapons) or unarmed ( not using weapons). Combat is sometimes resorted to as a method of self-defense, o ...

, often known as Gladiators in Europe, is a "last man standing" competition, with the participating jugglers agree to maintain a base level of juggling, normally a three club

cascade Cascade, Cascades or Cascading may refer to: Science and technology Science * Cascade waterfalls, or series of waterfalls * Cascade, the CRISPR-associated complex for antiviral defense (a protein complex) * Cascade (grape), a type of fruit * B ...

, within a certain area. Participants who drop a club, or go out of bounds, have lost the round and are expected to remove themselves (and their clubs if necessary) from the competition area. Although participants are not allowed to deliberately come into body to body contact with each other unless previously specified, they are allowed to use their clubs to interfere with other participants' cascades through juggling tricks. Stealing a club out of another participant's cascade, in order to replace one's own dropped or discarded club, is a common tactic. Multiple rounds may be played, with the winner being the first to win a set number of rounds, or the person with the most wins by a set end time.

External links

* Article discussing the merits of juggling competitions:
New Perspectives on Competition
(''Juggler's World'': Vol. 39, No. 2), ''

Juggling.org The Juggling Information Service or JIS is a website with the goal of being, "the primary informational resource on the subject of juggling." Launched in 1994, the free information service is a successor to the FTP juggling archive at Indiana Un ...

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