Review of The Complete Juggler

The Complete Juggler

by Dave Finnigan (aka "Professor Confidence")

Illustrated by Bruce Edwards
With special contributions by Todd Strong
Technical Consultant: Allan Jacobs
Published by JuggleBug

Review below

Review

Finnigan's method for teaching others to juggle starts with scarves. He spends 17 pages teaching scarf juggling and providing a number of tricks/skills for the budding juggler to explore before moving on to balls. A few more pages teach 3 balls and then shows over 50 tricks for 3 balls. There are a few pages and tricks with 4 balls and then 6 full pages of learning 5 balls "the easy way" followed by several tricks with 5 balls. He goes on to teach partner juggling with 3 balls (steals, runaround, siamese, running 3 balls), ball passing and ends the ball section with multiplexing up to 7 balls. The chapter on rings is fairly short but covers all the basic tricks and work with up to 7 rings. Clubs are introduced with 9 pages on getting them started followed by over 20 three club tricks including backcrosses, alberts, and treblas. The basics with 4 and 5 clubs are then covered. Next is a section on club interaction starting with 3 clubs and 2 people and moving up to lines, feeds, and other patterns with up to 7 jugglers. The basics with cigar boxes, devilsticks (1 and 2) and diabolo follow. Interestingly the diabolo section covers a bunch of tricks with the novel one-wheeled diabolo. Then hat manipulation. plate spinning, and large ball work (spinning, body rolls, and heading) are covered. The final skill section is about balancing peacock feathers, sticks and shorter objects, and objects on objects.

I constantly refer to the sections on "Performing" (including putting together routines, a nice list of "novelty routines in the public domain," showmanship, comments on plagiarism, school assemblies, and audience training) and "Making Money With Juggling" (including persona; promotion; publicity; business aspects; street performing; and booking schools, private parties, parks, shopping malls, cruise ships, colleges, nightclubs & casinos, commercials & movies, trade shows, theme parks, and more). It's always confused me that Finnegan squeezed a couple chapters between these 2 sections, though.

Finnegan's expertise is teaching juggling and he gives 23 complete lesson plans as well as tons of great advice on motivation, organization, teaching methodology, class control, making sure props aren't stolen, and correcting many common juggling mistakes. He teaches 15 different juggling games (many of which are original) which are appropriate for conventions and as a good source of variety in any juggling class taught (there are games for all levels and different numbers of participants).

The section on organizing juggling clubs and conventions ("Spreading the Joy of Juggling") has a lot of practical advice that's been very valuable to me over the years. I also love reading about juggling history and Finnegan exellently weaved together historical references with modern practitioners in the chapter "Visiting a Jugglers' Convention."

This book is complete to say the least (nearly 600 pages). It's not as clever as Charlie Dancey's books, nor is it as in-depth but Dancey only covers one prop at a time and does not cover as many non-skill issues like performing, teaching, and organizing clubs/conventions. I think that this a a great all around juggling book. Not only do I recommend it to any beginning or intermediate juggler striving to learn skills, but anyone interested in teaching juggling, performing, or learning more about the art.

Read also a Review from Winter 1986 Juggler's World.