The World Juggling Federation was founded in 2000 out of a desire to expand public awareness of juggling as a sport. The goal was to produce juggling competition programming to air on a sports network. In 2004, the WJF secured their first five TV deals with ESPN and the shows aired in January of 2005. To produce these shows, WJF President and founder Jason Garfield began a global search for the world's best jugglers and invited them all to compete. Jason Garfield had gained popularity in juggling since he entered the industry in 1986 at just 11 years old. Having accomplished the juggling of 10 balls, 10 rings and 7 clubs, Jason was well familiar with the highest level of juggling skill and wanted to raise the bar even further through competitions specifically designed for that purpose. In 2000, dissatisfied with the reputation that proceeded juggling wherever he went, Jason created plans for a venue that gave juggling the reputation he wanted it to be known for. Looking to the competition structure of gymnastics and consulting with an olympic gymnast, Jason formed the first set of WJF competition rules. Having absolutely zero experience in event planning and TV production, Jason took it upon himself to produce the first WJF convention and series of competition programs and has continued to produce 10 WJF events (one in the U.K.) since 2004.
Soon after its inception, the term "technical juggling" was replaced with "WJF style juggling" as jugglers identified anything technically challenging in juggling with the WJF. The WJF also started a new generation of jugglers who spend a great deal of time connecting moves together where previously most jugglers only did one move at a time. And now, the junior level competitors of 2010 exceed the skill level of the advanced competitors of 2004. The plan is working.
The WJF also advocates proper training. Since the competition scoring is based heavily on perfect form, Jason Garfield teaches beginning through advanced workshops at all WJF events to give everyone the opportunity to learn correctly and avoid embedding bad habits into their juggling skill. Additionally, the WJF has produced the world's best instructional materials for juggling:
Jason Garfield's Theory and Practice of Juggling DVD, which covers the basics of 1-7 balls, 1-7 rings, and 1-5 clubs.
www.thewjfstore.com/tap.php
Etudes for Juggling: The Next Three Years of Your Life, which is a huge 2 Disc DVD set that covers a wide variety of moves and incorporates 360s dance training from three different professional dance instructors.
www.thewjfstore.com/etudes.php
And JUGGLING: Fundamental Exercises and Practice Structure. A workbook that covers everything in both DVDs and additional perspectives on juggling.
www.thewjfstore.com/workbook.php
It's not a stretch to say that the WJF excels in what they specialize: competitions, competition programming production, instruction, and the innovation of original competitions and formats. The WJF also has awarded more prize money than has ever been offered for juggling competitions of any kind.
Since 2007, the WJF has annually sponsored a juniors division competitor by holding an online video competition to determine the winner of each year's sponsorship. Last year, Lauge Benjaminsen of Denmark received an all expense paid trip to WJF 5 including his flight, hotel accommodations for two, competition uniform and music. The WJF also seeks out new talent and negotiates sponsorships from our supporters to help bring these new jugglers to the WJF events. in 2008, Joelle Huguenin from Switzerland received a sponsorship deal that the WJF brokered for her travel expenses. And the WJF also arranged a sponsorship for Falco Sheffler, the best three ball juggler in the world in our opinion, from Germany to attend WJF 5 and give a performance and workshop. This year we're hoping to bring a juggler from Africa to WJF 6 for his first trip to America. All of these elements help make our live events a truly amazing and one of a kind experience for our attendees.
2010 is going to be a very exciting year for the WJF, with new competition plans and new implementations of juggling into the mainstream that have never been attempted before on the scale we are currently undertaking.