Watch the Princeton juggling team’s GoPro footage
The president: “That’s how I introduce myself at parties, gets all the girls”
John Van Orden is a sophomore and MAE major from Little Egg Harbor, NJ. He doesn’t just figuratively juggle his engineering classes and his sprint football team workouts – as the current president of the Princeton juggling club, he literally juggles anything and everything he can get his hands on. John answered our questions about one of the most extraordinary performing arts groups on campus. The best news? Newbies are welcome at practices – now is the time to realize your childhood dreams!
Do you use juggling as an icebreaker and a party trick?
Yeah, that’s usually how I introduce myself, because it gives me a lot of street cred. I mean, I just walk up to people and say, “Hey, I’m the president of the juggling club.” [Pause] Well, no, not actually. But everyone is pretty impressed when you can pick something up and just start juggling it. It’s the perfect party trick.
When did you start juggling? When did it become a passion for you?
I first started juggling in high school, it was the summer of my junior year. I was hanging out at my friend’s house, and he was like, “Hey! Let’s just – learn to juggle.” We spent hours trying to learn. It was pretty rough, actually. By the end of the week, though, we could juggle three balls.
We were on the same track team in high school, and during track meets there was a lot of down time. So when we weren’t racing, we were in the middle of the field where everyone on both teams could see us, and we would juggle. We became known as the juggling track team.
What’s the craziest object you’ve juggled?
Over the summer, I made – and this wasn’t the greatest idea ever – I made torches. Home-made torches. And it worked, like, a little bit. We did it on concrete, and I had a friend ready with a giant bucket of water – ready to dump it on my head if anything went wrong.
It’s been said that juggling is the lowest level of show business. What would you respond to these haters?
They have clearly never juggled. It’s more than just throwing stuff in the air and then catching it. If you’re going out on the stage and you’re really trying to put on a good show, you have to organize it, and you have to be full of energy and really sell the show. It’s absolutely a performing art.
Is there any skill cross-over between sprint football and juggling?
I would say that there’s definitely similar aspects. I’m a receiver in sprint football, and for both football and juggling you have to really really train your reflexes and your muscle memory – and your hand-eye coordination, of course. Juggling is a lot of muscle memory, just trying to make the perfect throw so that every throw is identical, the perfect throw. Football is a little bit different because you don’t really know where the ball is coming, so you have to be able to react to it. But they require the same general motor skills.
How much do you practice on a daily or weekly basis?
I try and practice fifteen minutes a day. The thing with juggling is that if you do it over and over again, you get tired and realize you’re not getting any better. It’s really good to practice for a few minutes a day. Right now I’m learning how to ride a unicycle. I try to do a little bit every day.
What are juggling practices like? Are newbies welcome?
We have juggling practice once a week, on Sunday afternoons. We always welcome beginners, people who can’t even juggle three balls, and we just sort of teach you. After a while you can juggle three balls, you can juggle four balls, five balls – we have a kid in the club who can juggle seven. We juggle clubs and knives, and we unicycle. It’s honestly my favorite part of the week. Two hours a week of hanging out, no pressure.
When’s your next show? Why should people go see you all perform?
It’s in the spring – we have one show a year, and it’s one and a half hours long. It’s more than straight juggling, we do juggling and then we also write a story that goes along with it. We link it all together, and then of course we throw in as many juggling-related puns as we can along the way.
There are a lot of very serious performing arts groups on campus, but with juggling, stuff happens and you just have to laugh it off. When we go up to perform, we know we’re going to mess up, but you just have to laugh it off and do the best you can. And at the end of the day, it’s really fun.
Just a little more impressive than Will Ferrell’s air juggling routine:
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