The Sounds of Juggling: A Golden Memory!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZiYvQVCFIQ

Before we dive into a chapter from my upcoming book, I want to take a moment to acknowledge a true hero of the juggling community: Alan Plotkin. For years, Alan served as the chief videographer for the International Jugglers' Association (IJA), capturing the magic of the championships on VHS.

Recently, Alan has performed a massive "video dump" on his YouTube channel, digitizing and sharing historic footage that was previously nearly impossible to find. It is a treasure trove of juggling history. I encourage everyone to visit Alan Plotkin’s YouTube Channel to explore the incredible performances and see the legends of the era in action.

As a special treat, you can watch the Team Rootberry (Jonathan Root and myself) competition routine at the World Championships in the Team Division in Reno, Nevada, back in 2003.

Watch Team Rootberry’s 2003 Championship Performance here

Below is a chapter from my third book, releasing later this year, titled "Off Course on Purpose: A Story About Chasing the Impossible." This chapter (Chapter 83) takes you behind the curtain of that very night.

Thursday, July 17, 2003: The Championships.

I’m standing next to the main curtain. Matt Hall is on stage performing. I saw his act so many times when he came to train with us that I know it move for move, and yet, he still found ways to improve it since we saw him last. He is electric, feeding off the crowd, and nailing everything! Then he has a little flub, nails it again, then another miss, but in every way, he accomplishes his routine and brings it home.

When he strikes his final pose, there is thunderous applause, and the audience knows they are seeing something special.

Matt struts off stage ten feet taller than he was when he walked on.

He has a good chance to medal, I think. And after what he’s gone through to be here, what it took for him to do this act, he absolutely deserves it.

As he comes off stage, I grab him in a bear hug and pick him up. He throws his arms in the air and starts shouting, “Five, fu&ing five,” (the number of misses he’d had), but it isn’t a lamentation, it’s a victory cry. For the difficulty, five misses is an A+. Forgetting ourselves, we are way too loud, and a couple of people backstage shush us. This brings us back to the present.

“Oh, yeah,” Matt whispers, “it’s not over.”

The main curtain has closed, so we run out to strip all of his gear from the stage so the next act can set up.

It’s funny, with most of the other competitors I feel a sense of “competition,” a desire to do my best and try to win. But with Matt, I don’t feel any of that. I’m not competing with him; we are competing together. And if what he just did out there wins him the gold medal, so be it. I’ll be just as happy if he wins as if I won myself.

And now, with Matt finished, I can focus, or zen out, or who knows what, because the next thing I remember is a backstage tech saying, “Rootberry? You guys are up next.”

The main stage curtain is closed, so I carry our prop case out to its place. I can hear our friend and MC, Ivan Pecel, filling time while we set up. He says to the crowd, “And now, I present to you the sounds of juggling.”

As I hang our juggling clubs on their display hanger, a soundtrack in the front of house starts. It is in the vein of one of those “Sounds of the rainforest” or “Crashing waves” CDs. But instead of the peaceful sounds of rain or sea birds calling, it is the sounds of different juggling props being dropped on various surfaces. The audience laughs, and I chuckle along with them.

As I busily set up our case, Jonathan directs the placement of some “additional elements” that we’ve added especially for tonight’s performance.

There’s a folding table with three chairs set up on the audience’s right. Rhys Thomas (a brilliant performer), Mary Jane (dear friend), and The Butterfly Man (Robert Nelson of Pier 39), all well-known persons from the juggling world, come out and sit at this table. These three will be playing our “judges.” We figured that since we’d gotten silver the last two times we competed, we’d just bring our own judges.

Once they are set, Jonathan directs the techs to put another table with two chairs centerstage, but toward the back curtain, so we can still use the whole middle area for juggling. Bryson Lang comes over and sits at this table. We’ve always loved his quirky juggling style and sense of humor, so we asked him to be our onstage commentator, kind of like what you’d hear at a sporting event. The second chair is reserved for Ivan, our second commentator. But he’ll come back and join after the act begins since he’s out in front acting as the show’s MC.

Ben Schoenburg, owner of the Serious Juggling prop shop and well-known 5-ball juggling marathon runner, appears. He is wearing black shorts and a black-and-white striped soccer referee’s shirt we’d provided. We shake hands, and to prove he is ready, he shows me a set of yellow and red penalty cards.

Glancing into the wings, I see all the other good souls who’ve agreed to be here, and I can’t help but smile.

Everyone has shown up, and everything is in place.

The presence of this "entourage" was the culmination of a quiet awakening Jonathan and I’d had several months before.

After two years of chasing gold by trying to be like someone else—first the West Coast rock-and-roll archetype, then the rigid gymnastic clones of the act who’d beaten us in year two—We realized that we needed to discover “Us.”

One night over dinner, we made a pact: This year, win or lose, we do it our way.

And that "way,” we decided, would be a playful homage to our lives.

We’d both grown up on soccer fields, so we traded our normal costuming for soccer jerseys. And since both of us love extreme sports, we wanted to find a way to bring that wild, reckless energy onto the competition stage.

So in preparation for this night, we’d quietly become the architects of a conspiracy, complete with secret phone calls and the cashing in of all manner of favors. One by one, people agreed to play a role, and this one-of-a-kind play within a juggling act slowly materialized. There were no rehearsals; we never got everyone together to block it out. We just took people aside individually, explained what we envisioned, and trusted that when the time came, everyone would be great.

A technician waved at us and asked, “Are you ready?”

I look at Jonathan, and he nods, so I give the tech the thumbs up.

The technician says something into his headset. And the main curtain begins to open.

Whoa, I think, not yet!

Ivan is still doing his “sounds of juggling” bit, and he hasn’t even introduced us yet.

But it’s too late, the curtain is already half open.

I leap to attention, facing stage right and freeze, right hand over my heart; everyone else on stage does the same. We appear before the crowd, shadowy figures, on an unlit stage.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Ivan standing at the podium, and wonder what he’ll do now that we are fully exposed.

What Ivan knows, but none of us do, is that the “Sounds of Juggling” bit is over 7 minutes long, and there’s no way to shorten it.

So we stand there, in the dimness, at full attention, for the longest four or five minutes that have ever passed upon the earth.

During the wait, Ivan looks over at me and wordlessly whispers, “I’m sooooo sorry!”

I smile and nod slightly, wanting to let him know it’s all good.

Eventually, the music comes to an end, and Ivan is back. “There you have it, folks, ‘the sounds of juggling.’ Available for just $19.95. But if you act now, we’ll throw in ‘The sounds of the diabolo’ for just ten dollars more.” For emphasis, the sound of diabolos hitting the ground plays over the house system.

The crowd laughs nervously at this, enjoying the joke, but also acknowledging that we’ve been standing there for an eternity.

Ivan unhurriedly organizes some papers, acting as if there’s nowhere he needs to be and nothing he needs to be doing, then, as if he’s only just realized we were there, says, “Oh, are our next performers ready?”

This gets a huge laugh. Of course they’re ready, thinks the crowd.

Ivan waits until I physically nod in the affirmative, then says, “Oh, so you guys are ready, ok.” This gets another big laugh.

“Please welcome to the stage, Team, Rootberry!”

The crowd cheers, the stage lights come on full, and the final notes of the US National Anthem blare from the speakers.

When the national anthem ends, the “NFL on FOX” theme song comes on. Jonathan and I greet the crowd, then we shake hands, and the act begins. As I throw rings to Jonathan, Ivan, who’s now joined Bryson at the table on stage, says in his best announcer voice, “Here we have Jonathan Root and one William Berry.”

Bryson responds, “I hear that they met at fat camp years ago.”

The crowd cracks up because Jonathan and I are both rail-thin.

We crack up too because we never saw a script of what they planned to say, so it’s as big a surprise to us as it is to the crowd.

We begin our ultimate 7-ring routine, passing to each other with both our left and right hands, which will earn us additional points for difficulty.

Ivan says, “I heard they met in prison?”

Bryson doesn’t skip a beat, “Well, prison was first, and then fat camp, that was when Bill was a whopping 400 pounds.”

“Bill has always been a bigger individual.” Ivan agrees, “He is a very tall man, he must be at least 5’6” or 5’7” ”

“When he had an afro, he was 6’4” ”

“Yeah, well, he needs a haircut*, really.”

“They use the same shampoo.”

Ivan and Bryson continue this back-and-forth commentary with jokes, at one point even pulling out a box of Cheerios that they’d haphazardly pasted a picture of us onto and announced, “Rootberry Burst Cheerios, soon to be available in your local cereal aisle.”

We finish our ring routine and switch to clubs. Throughout, Ben Schoenburg races back and forth, making a show of looking for violations or rule-breaking; his referee’s whistle swings wildly as he goes.

Halfway through the 6-club passing portion of our act, an adoring fan (Matt Hall) rushes the stage and, holding up one of our promotional headshots, begs for an autograph. Ben is on him immediately, first issuing a yellow card, then, when it has no effect, breaking out the red card. When Matt refuses to vacate the field of play, Ben gives the signal, and two security guards in bright yellow jackets appear. The bigger of the two — at over 400 pounds — our friend, Tim Clancey, strides out ominously. Beside him, in a jacket so oversized it drags on the ground, walks Aidan Bennett, who at a solid 63 pounds, is a force to be reckoned with. Tim grabs Matt and picks him up, while Aidan grabs one of Matt’s ankles.

Together, they carry Matt off stage.

Throughout all of this, various sports tunes, Jock Jams, We Will Rock You, and other songs you’d expect to hear in a stadium play in the background.

Then it is time for a break. After all that hard juggling, we need an intermission.

Two young juggler girls bring out stools and set them for us. Jonathan and I sit in our chairs while they towel us off and give us water. During this halftime break, juggler Aurora Bennett, all decked out in cheerleader garb, does cartwheels across the stage, then jumps onto the judges’ table and does a dance. A second cheerleader, clearly a man dressed in drag, is also doing gymnastics. His sequence culminates in a roundoff back tuck, but the spin is so fast, his wig flies off mid-rotation. He runs off stage in feigned embarrassment, and the audience dies at this confirmation of their suspicions.

Intermission over, we get back to the juggling. We do our 8-club sequence and pull in 8-club singles.

Jonathan gives me a smile. I know what he’s thinking. We’ve tried 8-club singles in every one of our championship routines before, and every time before, we’ve missed it, but this time, we pull it in clean.

Now it is time for nine, and we get in a nice long run.

At CIRCUS, I’ve been doing the bit where I miss a time or two on purpose to build the drama, but in competition, I worry the judges might not realize we are dropping on purpose, and I don’t want to be penalized, so I bring it in clean. As I catch the last club, I quickly turn and place it like a football. Jonathan races across the stage and boots the club high in the air and off into the wings. We wait, watching as if we are waiting to see if it will go through the uprights, then we erupt in victory when it “goes in.”

Ivan and Bryson at the announcers’ table stand up and shout, “It’s good!!!”

An immediate celebration breaks out. Everyone who’s been a part of the act rushes the stage and creates a mosh pit, then people from the audience run up and join the fray.

We don’t even get to take a final bow because the throng picks up Jonathan and carries him off stage in victory, his reward for making the “winning kick.”

Ben Schoenburg, our referee, is left standing in the middle of the stage, where he does a masterful job of acting like he’s just seen sports history made. Then all eyes go to our three on-stage judges. They stand together, each holding up a card with the number 10 printed on it. A perfect score!

The lights fade, and the curtain closes.