Weight training for injury prevention by Steven Ragatz

Warming Up by Steven Ragatz

Visualization and Juggling by Steven Ragatz

Numbers Training by Steven Ragatz

Worst shows that I have had... There have been so many I cannot choose. Here are a few of my favorite highlights:

- When I was with "Fire and Ice" ice show a few summers back I was working with cleats on my shoes. I once ran back to my prop stand too fast and was unable to stop. I creamed into it - the stand was designed to fold up so that it would transport easily. It worked quite well - it folded up. Props slid as far as twenty feet away on the ice. Everything was cold and wet and all over the rink. 2000 or so people were watching closely, wondering if this was part of the show...

- An Easter party. I came to the benefit for children in campus housing ready to work when I was greeted at the door by a six foot Easter bunny. The rabbit shook my hand and said, "Welcome to Hell." He wasn't kidding... Imagine working for 100 unsupervised 6 year olds, armed with baskets of eggs, crashing down from an all-day candy high.

- This one is good... I was doing a street show at Busch Gardens in Va. The guy who did the parrot show and I were good friends. He was in the break area on the other side of the fence from where I has started my juggling show. His Hyacinth Macaw, Tina, was with him. Tina's trick in the parrot show was to do a sommersault. Clint, the bird trainer, was not watching and Tina wandered away. She popped out onto my little stage. I had my back to her but the audience saw her and started laughing. (Hyacinth Macaws are 3 feet long and bright cobalt blue!) I thought they were laughing at me - not uncommon. Tina saw all the people and of course, did what she was supposed to do, she started doing sommersaults! The crowd went totally nuts because they knew that I didn't know that she was there. I finally figured it out and Clint ran on stage and retrieved his bird. Upstaged by a smurf... Just great...

- I once got so pissed at missing a box routine in a B.G. street show that after the box routine I pitched the boxes off of the bridge into the river. They float, by the way...

- All the shows I did in Mickey's Birthday Land at Disney World Fla.... They were ALL worst shows...

- And my last, the first. The first show I ever did was at a wine festival. I was 16 and could barely juggle three clubs. I worked with sharp objects to compensate for my poor juggling skills. On this first day I tried a trick that I had practiced a couple of time - the flaming tennis ball. I used alcohol and had done it at night. Looks great! If you throw fast it doesn't hurt. I did it in my first show and what do you know??? You can't see an alcohol flame in daylight! (duh.) I was doing my trick and I thought that the ball had gone out, so I stopped. Yep. It was still burning and it melted to my hand. The handfull of people that were watching were very perplexed at this strange juggler screaming since they could not see the flame either.

On the same day, a drunk grabbed three real sickles out of my hands while I was giving my patter and threatened me with them. Apparently, she did not think my attempts at controlling her heckling were very funny. Two BIG bouncers had to come and tackle her in the middle of my show. She was carried away as was my small audience... Another show that never finished... Come to think of it, none of the shows on the first day ever finished.

- Lastly, my favorite, didn't happen to me but to my ex-Busch Gardens partner, Kent Phillips. Kent did a bit where he swallows the torch and puts it out in his mouth. After a loud "Blegh!" he runs back and takes a swig of mouth wash (Scope). The first day I visited his act at the park he had just run out of Scope. To save money he simply refilled the bottle with water and added some green food coloring. (Food coloring stains things - water only dilutes it.) When he took a swig, the diluted food coloring stained a bright green ring around his mouth! Green teeth, green tongue, green lips! Of course, he didn't notice this but the crowd did! Lisa and I were waving at him from the crowd trying to make him realize why everyone was in tears! Of course his head remained green for several days until the food coloring wore off...

God, I love this job.

- Steve