Black Friday - November 29, 2013

Recently people have been beginning to realize the health benefits of juggling. Personally this writer juggles purely for the love of the art but there is no doubt that juggling is exercise. The temperature today in Bryant Park was freezing; not sure of the exact temperature. Heavy coat, gloves, hat, and boots yet still on the walk to the park I said to myself, “yeah maybe 15 minutes than I am out”.

Needless to say my stay at the park was much longer; nearly 2 hours in retrospect. Upon arriving at the park the regular crowd had met up and begun their daily juggles. I saw Seth, Jeff, Josh, Olga, Amanda and many more. Most notable of the day will have to be Seth and Olga for their hats of the day – some stuffed animal things or something – they were cute. Seth was also giving out hugs to the surprise of a few.

Anyway back to the cold and the juggling for exercise. I was freezing as I entered the park today. As normal I started with some ball work and quickly started to warm up. Although the coat and gloves did not come off the hat and scarf certainly did. It takes me about 15 minutes to get my body burning up with energizing heat. It is also an assumption that this is similar for other people. Final assumption is that when my body heats up and I no longer feel the cold I must be burning calories … while having a great fun time!

Very few pictures from today, it is just too cold to take pictures, but I believe the crowd is well represented. Have a great weekend and happy juggling to all from the Bryant Park Jugglers =)

Wednesday - November 27, 2013

Woke up today and looked out the window to see a grey sky and rain falling. I figured stay in bed there is no reason to come to life today. A few minutes passed then my mind started to think about the Bryant Park Day Juggle. A few moments later I found myself waking up and getting ready to head to the city for the day juggle. Yes it is / was cold and rainy but upon arriving at the park the temperature went up and the rain slowed to a slow drizzle.

There was a small crowd of between 6 and 10 jugglers today in the drizzle. In attendance was Alex, Crystal, Amanda, Seth, Olga, Jeff, David, and a few others. We had some toss juggling of balls and clubs. There was also some club passing with 2 – 4 people patterns.

Everyone seems to be working very hard on new patterns as the winter season hits us full steam. David is still working on is 3 ball box patterns; and getting pretty good quickly. Amanda is still striving to hit a 5 ball cascade but for now is stuck on a 5 ball flash and several 4 ball practice patterns. Seth and Olga are also working hard on several club passing patterns. Alex was working clubs and balls mostly just being his normal friendly self; helping anyone that will listen.

Everyone once in a while I find it necessary to thank Bryant Park and Alex for organizing, supporting, and continuing the juggles! So thanks!

Our day and night juggles are open to anyone from a person with no skill at all to a person that is professional. Only rules would be to be friendly and willing to learn! See you soon =)

Friday Nov. 22, 2013 (Day Juggle)

Wow! Where has this weather come from? I walked into the park today wearing a slightly heavy coat and with gloves ready to juggle. After being in the park for no more than 2 minutes the coat came off and I thought it was spring already. A good group of jugglers came out for the afternoon fun; Seth, Jeff, Olga, Copper, Paris, Ann, Amanda, Josh, Alex and a great many more. There was even an appearance of the illusive Jordan today who has been working on a production of RENT at Brooklyn Friends School; he was actually looking quite dapper in his dressed up state =)

The blog has been neglected again and I can only apologize. Personal stuff has gotten in the way of blogging; in the twitterverse we call this an #epicFAIL. Moving on there are some videos and lots of pictures that should be posted in the next few days from the past few weeks.

Special mentions of the day would go to Seth and Olga for some amazing club passing patters and Copper for her gymnast exhibition! Thank you to all the participants for making today yet another great day in Bryant Park!

Edward Marritz joins the 10% (11-22-2013)

At Bryant Park we get a lot of people that walk by taking pictures. Sometimes we get film or photography students that are working on a project. Mostly we get amateur photographers (aka tourists) that love to watch the group juggle. We do try to stop each person that is taking pictures to ask them to submit their pictures to the group for posting for everyone to enjoy.

Alex tells the shooters (photographers) that only 10% of the people that we stop to talk to will actually send us their pictures for us to use. Today we met another photographer Edward Marritz. Edward told us he was going to join the 10% of people that submit pictures to us and sure enough he did!

As an appreciation to the work that people do submit to us I try to give credit as direct as possible. So here goes:

Thank you!!!

C/O Edward Marritz
Cinematography & Photography
http://marritz.com/

Some basic principles from his website—

-Pick up the camera
-Find a shot
-Hold the shot, let the scene play
-Be unreasonably patient
-Be willing to move
-Beware of restlessness
-When expectations are derailed or thwarted, keep going
-Let heart and gut influence choices as much as thoughts

---

 

 

 

November 18, 2013 (pictures)

Another photographer has shared their photos with us - thank you Lenny!

Photographer's contact info::

twitter: @lensepix

Facebook: Lenny Spiro

New York City and Juggling - 11-13-2013

New York City is known for its fast pace and high energy atmosphere. The Bryant Park Jugglers have found the perfect solution to a challenging work environment. Every day from 12 noon to 1 PM the group meets in the park for a day juggle. Many of the jugglers learnt how to juggle at the park on their lunch hours. Some jugglers came to the group as experienced or even professional jugglers. Either way a beginner or a novice all jugglers are welcome and all jugglers confess, to some degree, being advanced by juggling with such a diverse group of object manipulators.
 
The weather has begun to get a little chilly or even cold depending on your comfort level. Today’s juggle was a mix of the normal smiles, laughs, and concentration as jugglers attempted new patterns and generally had a great time. A normal addition to the day juggle was a local photography student taking pictures for an assignment due shortly later. I do hope she emails in some photos for the blog! I also apologize for not having her name to share at the time of this writing.
 
The normal crowd made an appearance; Jordan, Alex, Seth, Olga, Jeff, Crystal, Amanda, Josh, and many more. The juggling club met on “The Green” in Bryant Park; which is basically in the south-western corner behind the Bank of America Winter Village. The spot has two large putting greens which are great for practicing and having fun with juggling. We hope to see you at our juggle event – come and learn, come and watch, come and teach.
 

 

Tuesday 11-12-2013