Summary and Update Of David Cain’s Past Articles: Part 1

I’ve now been writing for eJuggle for almost three years. In that time, I’ve managed to research and write 64 articles, including historical pieces, interviews, obituaries, reviews, and anecdotal accounts. In the weeks and months that follow each article I write for eJuggle, I often learn more information about the article’s subject. In January of last year, I wrote an update of past articles I’d written and I now feel it’s time to do this again. In addition, many of my readers miss some of my articles. Therefore, this article is my way of pointing readers back to articles they may have missed and adding new information to those articles for past and new readers alike. I would encourage readers to click on the titles of the articles in order to read them and then come back and read the additional information provided here. I should point out that in some cases, I’ve gone back and added material to the articles after publication. I’ll try to point this out as well. Having the articles online, and thus editable after publication, is one nice advantage over print! Here are the first 30 articles I wrote, in the order they were published.

Juggling Related Injuries And Deaths – Did you know that at least three jugglers have died as a result of the activity?
 
Animal Juggling Acts – Have you ever seen someone juggle while standing on the back of a rhinoceros or a chimp mimicking Enrico Rastelli?
 
Juggling With Boomerangs – Read this article to learn about juggling with actual boomerangs, boomerang hats, and boomerang plates. Since I wrote this article, I’ve learned that Truzzi, Ollie Young, Rawson and June, King Repp, and even Bobby May performed at some point with boomerangs.
 
The Historical Juggling Props Museum – The world’s only museum devoted to juggling has added a huge number of props to its collection since this article. Click here to view the up to date website and watch the video below to see an hour long video tour made in December of 2014.
 
 
Creating A Juggling Combination Trick – This article is both a historical look at combination tricks as well as an instructional look at how to create original combos.
 
Steven Ragatz Interview – Learn more about this popular performer and juggling mentor.
 
Interview With Junming Lin – Watch this amazing numbers juggler from China and learn about his life.
 
William Everhart – The Father Of Hoop Rolling And Hoop Juggling – One interesting new piece of information I’ve recently learned about Everhart is that he appears to be the first juggler to endorse retail juggling props. Edward Van Wyck’s juggling catalogs from the early 1900s offered “The Everhart Rolling Hoops” for sixty cents a piece!
 
A History Of The Plastic Toy Bowling Pin Juggling Club – This was the first of seven articles that I would end up writing on the different types of juggling clubs that have been made. Below is a great set of plastic bowling pin clubs made and used by Bob Whitcomb that I’ve acquired since the original article was written.
 
WhitcombClubs
10 Female Juggling Stars Of The Past – This was one of my most popular articles. It included Trixie Larue, about whom my brother Scott Cain later wrote an incredible piece, including two new videos, which can be seen here. It also included Eva Vida, whom you can watch in a wonderful, newly posted video shown below.
 
 
Giant Juggling Clubs – This is the second article about a unique type of juggling club. Below are several photos of giant clubs I’ve acquired since the article was first published.
 
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Afgan Circus clubs

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Art Jennings – giant clubs on a rola bola

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Art Jennings – giant clubs on a rola bola

The Show Must Go On – Anecdotes Of Mid-Show Mishaps: Part 1 – Enjoy some humorous anecdotes from my 32 year career as a professional juggler.
 
The Show Must Go On – Anecdotes Of Mid-Show Mishaps: Part 2 – Even more personal accounts of performing under some quite dire circumstances.
 
10 Questions With Delaney Bayles – Since this interview with Delaney was published in September of 2013, Delaney won third place in the 2014 IJA Juniors Championships and won a Phil Trophy at the 2014 Groundhog Day competition. Below are a few videos that Delaney has released since the article.
 
 
 
 
Obituary of Kumar Pallana – Learn more about this well known juggler and film actor’s life.
 
Book Review: Jugglers Galore – This wonderful book by Paul Bachman is still available for sale and well worth the purchase.
 
Massimiliano Truzzi: Legendary Juggler – This article features many rare photos and videos of one of the most famous jugglers of all time.
 
Vintage “Learn To Juggle” Sets: 1949-1976 – Since this article was written, I’ve acquired six more of these sets. Two of them are listed in the updates article linked later in this summary. The other four are shown below.
 
FloydBrosKit
This is the only known existing Floyd Brothers Juggling Kit from the late 1940s. It may be the first ever retail juggling set.
 
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This is “The Complete Illustrated Everything You Need To Juggle Kit”. It was made by the Delcon Corporation of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts (USA) and released in 1974. It includes three plastic coated foam balls and instructions.
 
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This is “Le Jongleur” juggling set from 1969. It was made by the Capiepa Corporation of France. It contains two spinning plates and sticks and several gentleman juggler tricks, including two gimmicked tricks.
 
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The “Teach Yourself To Juggle” Kit was released in the early 1970s. This is the only known example of it and has never been opened.
 
Product Review: Three Finger Juggling “Danger Props” – Two new products, shown below, have become available from Three Finger Juggling since this review was published.
 
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The Origins Of Ball Bounce Juggling – I’ve recently discovered that Kara, the originator of Gentleman Juggling, did some ball bounce juggling off of a chair. This makes him, along with L.A. Street and William Everhart, one of the very first bounce jugglers.
 
The Greatest Juggling Tricks Of All Time: Part 1 – This is the first of a very popular series of articles discussing some of juggling’s greatest achievements.
 
The Greatest Juggling Tricks Of All Time: Part 2 – In this article, I mentioned that Konstantin Nikolskij could head three balls. I’ve now acquired a picture of him doing this incredible trick, as seen below.
 
Nikolskij
The Greatest Juggling Tricks Of All Time: Part 3 – In the article I noted that Ty Tojo was close to flashing 9 ball backcrosses. He has now done this amazing feat. You can watch the video of it below.
 
 
I also included the accomplishment of Emil Dahl flashing 9 clubs. Willy Colombiaoni has now matched this trick, although I would surely be chastised if I didn’t mention that Willy used a holster and caught the clubs much less elegantly than Emil.
 
Felix Adanos: Gentleman Juggler –  This article includes video of Adanos put online specifically for this piece. No film of him had been online before hand.
 
Updates Of David Cain’s Past Articles – This was the first attempt to update previous articles, so please check it out to see what I missed in the previous 25 pieces.
 
The Development Of The Juggling Club: Part 1 – This article discussed hollow wooden clubs, such as those made by Edward Van Wyck and Harry Lind, basket clubs, and upholstered clubs. Below is a very rare George Toel hollow wooden club that I recently acquired. It was made in the 1950s and is very similar to a Harry Lind club.
 
ToelClub
 
The Development Of The Juggling Club: Part 2 – This second installment featured skeleton clubs, cork clubs, and hollow plastic clubs. Shown below are some skeleton clubs and cork clubs that I’ve acquired since writing this piece.
 
LinasClub

A painted fabric skeleton club used by the Two Linas in the 1940s

TALClub

A TAL Corporation “Vegas” club – fabric covered skeleton club from the early 1980s

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cork clubs from the 1960s

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cork clubs from the 1960s

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a cork club from the 1960s

The Development Of The Juggling Club: Part 3 – This article discusses plastic toy bowling pin clubs, hollow fiberglass clubs, and multi-piece / composite clubs.
 
The Development Of The Juggling Club: Part 4 – This fourth installment features solid wooden clubs, molded foam clubs, metal frame bodied clubs, and ball end clubs. I recently learned that Truzzi’s four sided solid wooden clubs were made by famous prop maker Stu Raynolds. Below are pictures of Vinicio Chiesa’s metal frame bodied clubs and Gypsy Gruss with her ball end clubs.
ChiesaClubs

Vinicio Chiesa’s metal frame bodied clubs

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Gypsy Gruss

Below are ball end clubs sold by Stu Raynolds.

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Props, including a ball end practice club, from a Stu Raynolds catalog

The Development Of The Juggling Club: Part 5 – This final article in the series discusses lighted clubs, functional clubs, bottle clubs, unique clubs, and novelty clubs. Below is an incredible novelty club used by famous Australian vaudeville comedy juggler Stan Kavanaugh. The trick club would open up and “give birth” to the smaller club during the act. Photo by Erik Aberg of props from the Larry Weeks Collection.
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Stan Kavanaugh novelty clubs from the Larry Weeks Collection. Photo by Erik Aberg.

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As you can see, I do often discover more information about the subject I write about after the articles are published. I hope you’ve been able to discover some articles you may have missed and learned more about some of the subjects you’d already read about. In Part 2, we’ll summarize the more recent articles I’ve written and give updates of them as well.

David Cain is a professional juggler, juggling historian, and the owner of the world's only juggling museum, the Museum of Juggling History. He is a Guinness world record holder and 16 time IJA gold medalist. In addition to his juggling pursuits, David is a successful composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and singer as well as the author of twenty-six books. He and his children live in Middletown, OH (USA).

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