Combat Juggling. No, really.
May 31, 2016 6:59 AM   Subscribe

Dan Lewis's Now I Know newsletter brings us the story of Combat Juggling, and I bring it to you just because it's weird.
posted by Etrigan (15 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
I guess I had a few questions

- how much physical contact between jugglers is allowed ? In the animated gif, one juggler blatantly trips the other. In the video , there's very little contact (other than using your pin to club the other guy's pin) except in the semi-final (at 4:50), two guys seem to get roped up.

- Are you "juggling" so long as one pin is in the air ? The strategy seems to be throw one pin waaay high up in the air, and bum-rush the other player, double-fisting your two remaining pins and try to club a pin out of the hand of your opponent, and hopefully catch your one in-the-air pin before it falls back down.
posted by k5.user at 7:08 AM on May 31, 2016


THIS is combat juggling.
posted by delfin at 7:20 AM on May 31, 2016


I was in a juggling club in the mid 90s and we would do this. The way we would play was a) no contact except with clubs and b) one club in the air at all times. I think the claim that Jason Garfield created combat juggling is pretty unlikely, though he may have formalized it in some way.
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 7:20 AM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


Playing "Combat" or "Gladiators" (in Europe) was always a traditional way of ending a juggling club session, although until recently it was always a group game. Everyone would start juggling at once, and the last juggler standing would be the winner. At conventions it's traditional to play this late at night, just round after round after round of it. There are pretty much no rules to this. Here's a better description...

More recently it's become formalised into this two-person thing that definitely does have rules. Here's the European Fight Night league with matches at pretty much all the major European juggling conventions, and here are the official rules.

In other news, they are not pins! They are juggling clubs.
posted by emilyw at 7:32 AM on May 31, 2016


And, although their shape is somewhat reminiscent of those things you knock over when you bowl, they are clubs, not pins. Juggling clubs are hollow plastic (typically around a wooden dowel) and weigh about a half a pound. Getting hit with one isn't fun, but it's not like getting hit with a solid wooden pin.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 7:33 AM on May 31, 2016


First ice-cream wars now this. Everyone take a deep breath and exhale slowly.
posted by Splunge at 7:40 AM on May 31, 2016


Combat Juggling.

Well, it's been completely eliminated at our house.

And if anyone starts that crap at my office, there will be trouble. Take it outside!
 
posted by Herodios at 7:55 AM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


I feel like my preferred tactic would be the same as what I do in the water balloon toss: pretend to play by the rules and then shout "You win!" while hurling my club/water balloon directly at my opponents head
posted by Existential Dread at 8:27 AM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]


Everyone take a deep breath and exhale slowly.

You realize that's exactly what they tell snipers, right?
posted by Etrigan at 8:31 AM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]


First ice-cream wars now this. Everyone take a deep breath and exhale slowly.

and then there's combat astronomy...
posted by ennui.bz at 9:58 AM on May 31, 2016


Definitely not news to me. Look at my nick. Anyone else here from rec.juggling or even the juggling@indycms days?
posted by morspin at 10:14 AM on May 31, 2016


Are you "juggling" so long as one pin is in the air ?

Yup. When juggling three objects, most of the time only one is in the air. And that is the basic tactic in combat: throw one club high and use the others to knock your opponents clubs out of the air (or their hands). It would be bad form to do this without catching your club, but the encounter with an opponent can mess things up. A finesse move is to steal one of their clubs and start juggling with it. Or you can use your body. Backing into someone's pattern is possible, but you can't see where you're going. I knew one guy who would kick his opponents' clubs out of the air (while still juggling) and another who would kick dropped clubs up from the ground into opponents' patterns, though they tended to come in about crotch height.
posted by eruonna at 11:08 AM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh wow this is the best.

I've been working on a TV show pitch and needed a Weird Sport for one episode. I was going to make something up but this is a far better starting point than anything I could come up with.
posted by egypturnash at 12:23 PM on May 31, 2016


Getting hit with one isn't fun, but it's not like getting hit with a solid wooden pin.

Or "knives", or flaming torches. Of the things jugglers juggle, clubs seems pretty low down the combat checklist. But I checked and its about the same in D+D terms, so WTF. Its no bowling ball, just saying.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 3:12 PM on May 31, 2016


This is so cool!
posted by Bugbread at 9:13 PM on June 5, 2016


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