FEMALE NUMBERS JUGGLING WORLD RECORDS?
Okay, so I was looking through old posts here and found the list of the 31 people who for sure have flashed 11 balls. There are NO women on the list. Same for the 12 people I can list who have either claimed or videoed themselves qualifying 10. The Wikipedia list of juggling world records for balls, rings, and clubs also contain no women listings.*
Obviously less women juggle, but seeing that no women on the list for flashing 11 really surprised me. What about flashing 10? Trixie did that, right?
The point is... Many sports and physical activities (running, shotput, etc) have separate records for women competitors. Has anyone ever considered trying to compile some for numbers juggling?
*[Granted, they pretty much only contain Anthony Gatto and Alex Barron. (plus 1 record from each Thomas Dietz and Albert Lucas)]
In was Jenny Jaeger who performed a ten ball flash. Sue Kirby could run nine balls. Francoise Rochais can run 7 batons and flash 8 batons. Sergie Ignatov has a female student who can run 7 clubs and 9 hoops. I believe there's a Ukrainian gal who can also run nine hoops. Nikolai Gerasimov's sister performs a perfect 7 club flash and can probably run it. I know of at least a couple of Russian women who can flash 7 clubs. Delaney Bayles can qualify 8 balls well. Frida Brinkman can bounce juggle 9 balls well.
David Cain
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Add Olga Galchenko to the 7 club flash list.
The Ukrainian gal you are talking about is Alexandra Soboleva.
Oh and this girl might go on to break some records.. I can't figure out why but in my memory it said somewhere that she was 8 years old at the time of filming.. There are more recent clips of her too...
https://www.youtube.com/v/1_k9mzQTmY4
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
ah haha, I don't know Japanese but I probably translated that when I saw it first ;)
And David, thank you again for your awesome insight. I think we might have a start here. I volunteer to compile the female juggling world records list myself, and you already have been an immense help.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
Make a Wikipedia page. That's what I did when I was disappointed with the then-current system of tracking world records. Pretty soon other people began contributing to the Juggling World Records page on Wikipedia, and after about a year I didn't need to put more work into it. The built in version control is also a handy way to have at least some kind of view into the timeline of how the individual records change over time too, though it is far from perfect.
I was wondering who put that up there; Back before I quit there was no such thing. Anyway, I've started to compile a bare-bones list which I think I'll put up here for last minute input before I Wiki it. Cheers.
Little Paul - - Parent #
Digging through each records history isn't straight forward, as people are more interested in recording who holds the record now than "who used to hold it" - best I can do is https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.juggling.org/records/records.html and a bit of tedious wikipedia page history digging.
I gave up on the whole tedious process of digging before I could find any details of female holders of *solo* records, but they've been involved in various passing records over the years.
For example, the records for club passing were held by teams featuring women between 1997 and 2006. (Heather Hackett-Brinegar and later Olga Galchenko) The records for ring passing unsurprisingly involve Kati Ylä-Hokkala.
Cedric Lackpot - - Parent #
Didn't Heather Marriot have some pretty mind-boggling passing records with her brother Darren in the noughties?
According to juggle wiki, Heather and Darin Marriott, husband and wife used to have the 9-12 club passing records. These records are currently pretty safely Austrian.
I see passing world records (usually passing with a man who is related (marriage or blood) to them), but what about solo stuff?
Personally, I think a whole new and separate list is in order. I'd be interested to see it. I even hope that such a list would inspire more females to juggle.
Personally, I would not find it very inspiring to find that people expect women to not perform as well as men... Or why else would we need separate lists?
^ this. Women are perfectly capable of equaling men in juggling feats, they don't need to be segregated.
This reminds me of Morgan Freeman's opinion of black history month, which suggests that 'black history' is not the same as regular history. Here he is giving an interviewer a bit of stick:
https://youtube.com/v/I3cGfrExozQ
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
If women had an unfair advantage to some sport, I'd like to have a special category for men too. Just like I like to compare myself to people of my culture (nationality), age group, friends....
Now with juggling the male advantage might not be as obvious as with some more physical sports, but it is very clear that men are more likely to juggle and that alone is a disadvantage to the average juggling woman.
If women are indeed perfectly capable of equalling men in juggling, as Orinoco suggests, why did they not already do it? I don't know if it is a physical shortcoming or a mental one or a socially constructed effect, but all of those will make it harder for the average woman to succeed in (sports) juggling!
What makes you think they haven't? I believe it was Jenny Jaeger who used to regularly perform 10 balls in the early 1900s until her father forbid her to continue practicing the trick because she was spending so much time maintaining the skill level. The 'regularly perform' bit is the important part, this has yet to be equaled by any man.
http://ezine.juggle.org/2013/08/05/10-female-juggling-stars-of-the-past/
http://ezine.juggle.org/2015/04/02/11-more-female-juggling-stars-of-the-past/
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
I am happy there are so many successful exceptions from the norm! Yet the original topic of no women among 31 11 ball flashers is still valid...
Rather than "stopping to talk about it" as Freeman suggests, I personally prefer to become aware of my expectations, prejudices, generalisations and discriminations, and become aware of how they influence me.
Sorry if I seem a bit aggressive in this opinion, I've once dated a radical feminist for a year and it had an interesting effect on my opinions of these kind of things... ;)
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Ability and willingness to learn inevitably lead up to reassessing every single person and situation uniquely. Reducing people to their visible characteristics leads to first impressions which I try and overwrite with every new bits of information.
It is not just to treat people solely on my impression of them, nor it is just to do the opposite and pretend I don't know anything about them. Since the right answer lies at an unknown point in the middle, I might not always notice the exceptions from the norm as much as I wish I did, but I surely am aware of their existence :).
I was specifically referring to your use of the phrase, "exception to the norm", do you not see that this implies that your default position is that men are better than women? Why not start from a blank slate?
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Yep, gender influences my expectation of skill level when I am introduced to somebody new. Just like I am also influenced by: who introduces them to me, the seriousness in their voice when they say "I am a juggler", the location where we meet, the hippy rating of their hair... That is how first impressions work!
The other alternative, a blank slate or trying to not have any expectations, is unfair too in my opinion. From the moment I have the impression that my conversation partner is a juggler, I will act on that. Topic of conversation might be about conventions, siteswaps, or learning the cascade, depending on my impression. Starting with the general topics, and getting more specific as my (and their) impression gets more accurate.
But if I were truly to give them a blank slate, would it be fair to assume that they enjoy talking about juggling? Would it be fair to even assume that they know my language? At an EJC in France I definitely have different assumptions on what language people might speak, and therefore make another approach to a stranger than I would at a BJC.
When I walk on the street, strangers pass by all the time and I wont take the effort to say hello to each individual (that would be awkward...). However, if I run into someone who has all the characteristics of being very likely to be into the kind of juggling I am (for example, young people carrying mini hoops), I'll be sure to approach him/her!
My behaviour is ultimately depended on my impressions and expectations of people. As soon as I have heard of someone, or seen someone, there is no way back to a blank slate. I won't pretend that gender will not be a part of this impression, though I believe that for me it is a relatively unimportant one.
It is impossible, and in my opinion unfair, to try and treat male and female jugglers perfectly equal, as long as I am convinced that there are more male jugglers, and more male juggling record breakers.
Sexism might do more harm than good in our society, but getting rid of it completely is an awful alternative.
I think we should give Jenny Jaeger the benefit of the doubt, given that she regularly performed and advertised juggling ten, who are we to say she didn't privately flash 11 and felt it was not worth mentioning. btw she has a nice, active facebook page with no login required.
https://www.facebook.com/JennyJaegerJongleuse
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Alexander Jaegers page about Jenny is wonderful, I've been following it for two years!
It is a bit ironic, that Alexander originally burned all of Jenny's juggling equipment (at her request), and now runs the best juggling historical facebook page on the web!
I really do believe she could have easily flashed 11. I don't know what kind of balls she used, but I even could see her getting 12 up there.
So I'm making this list, but I'm having trouble finding video of Jaeger. Is anyone aware of one? My ball records for females on this list are pretty bare so far. Even my best videoed 7 ball run is only 31 seconds.
Jenny Jaeger video
http://juggling.tv/1517
David Cain
The fact that there are no female 11 ball flashes doesn't mean anything because of the cultural influences that could be (and in my opinion are) causing it. It would be just as valid to say that Indian people are less able to juggle high numbers because there are none on the list, despite their large population (proportionally at least 5 should be on the list).
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Yep, agreed!
I definitely think that juggling, because of cultural influences, is harder for Indian people than for e.g. westerners. National records are therefore interesting lists. We actually have a Dutch one: https://www.simonacampo.nl/nederlandserecords.html
So I'd argue for creating records list for any group of people, country, gender etc... But of course the big problem is: when you create a separate record list for women, the assumption automatically is that the other list is for men...
Well, Frank Le Dent did regularly perform 11 balls for several years prior to Jenny Jaeger flashing 10 in her act regularly. Read the following article I wrote for lots more info.
http://ezine.juggle.org/2015/01/09/frank-le-dent-the-almost-forgotten-juggling-legend/
David Cain
I wouldn't call the smaller likelihood of women juggling a disadvantage, but it obviously makes one expect more records by males.
Though I am pretty sure that men, having naturally stronger muscles and wider shoulders, are at an advantage.
Little Paul - - Parent #
And this sort of thing is precisely why I wish I'd recorded the OldSkool prep conversations.
Cindy Marvell went on about this (in the context of her arguments with Jason Garfield about the WJF "womens division" being an afterthought which sends the signal that women can't possibly be expected to take part in the "main event") - I say "went on" I mean "talked eloquently at great length"
I can't remember if it came up in the show, but it deffo came up in the prep.
Cedric Lackpot - - Parent #
Alas no, it didn't come up in the show, and Cindy mentioned the fact on FB a few days later, and I instantly regretted not having steered the conversation that way - it would've been a properly meaty bit of discussion. Would that the rest of us were as sharp as she is.
Oh Jesus. I hardly even know how to respond...
As I stated earlier, pretty much every quantifiable sport will have two sets of lists - one for men, and one for women. This says nothing about women being 'inferior', or anything at all negative. It's just that physically, men's bodies are built differently than women's. It is almost certain that no woman will ever hold the 100m dash record, and that's fine! There are whole rankings of records for women in that area.
I think that doing this for juggling will be a huge step, for many reasons. If this doesn't inspire you, oh well. I bet many women would disagree with you. I'm all for equality, but you're doing it wrong.
What if there were no WNBA, and women who wanted to play basketball professionally had to try to get on teams with men? I think that would be the opposite of inspiring, and would make many who would have tried not bother. Or worse, fail.
That's why the WNBA was created. It's progress. FOR equality.
pretty much every quantifiable sport will have two sets of lists - one for men, and one for women.
Maybe this is the difference as juggling is much more than a sport, though the juggling records side of it is perhaps similar to sports records.
I don't have a copy to hand, but in a book like the Guinness Book of Records do all the records have a female category?
lukeburrage - - Parent #
For sports with separate records for men and women they do. Or did. I've not looked at it for about a decade.
Have you considered that segregation of gender in sport could be holding women back from their full potential because it reinforces the bias.
Here's a relevant link I just found that appears to be backed up by science.
https://bayesianbodybuilding.com/natural-muscular-potential-women/
For sure, it probably is. But while there are still substantial social factors having a negative influence on women's performance, having non-segregated competitions and records can end up reinforcing the impression that women don't belong in the sport at all.
You know how five balls suddenly became easy, when everyone could do it? Or how once one person ran a four minute mile, lots more people suddenly did? Similarly, now that you can go and watch women playing professional football, there are a lot of little girls thinking "maybe this is a thing that I could do". But none of the current professional women football players would be anywhere in a mixed league - and at the moment the limiting factor is not inherent gender differences but just a laughable lack of institutional support for the women's game.
I can see the possibility, but I don't personally think it does. At least not enough to make a difference. I feel the good outweighs any hypothetical detriment.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
With Fight Night Combat organizing, I'm always getting as many ideas and recommendations from people, passing them by other groups of people, and trying them out in competitions. Also when I come up with an idea, I'll run it by people before trying it out too.
One idea was for a women only Fight Night at the EJC this year. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea or not, but I didn't feel like doing nothing about the massive imbalance of male to female participation in FNC. There are just 17 women among the 302 players listed: http://fightnightcombat.com/category-gender-option-female.html
Everyone I spoke to about this said a women only Fight Night was a bad idea, which became more obvious as I thought about it more. Way before there is any gender segregation, I'm far more likely to have a separate tournament for young people or short people.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
Only if they play with knives not clubs.
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Haha, short people.. Fair, but it sounds like an evil concept :p
I think you have a good shot at doing a youngster fight night. Little resistance from anyone, and a lot of potential talent!
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Yep, bias exists and this bias might both be positively and negatively influenced by a separate competition.
To add to the the link you've posted: Something they don't talk about is muscle fiber composition. According to my anatomy teacher, woman build a significantly smaller white to red muscle fiber ratio, which gives them a disadvantage at explosive power but an advantage at endurance.
From personal experience, I am convinced that the girls in my circus school work as hard, if not harder (aerialists...) on their strength. Yet somehow they never ever surpass guys in explosive exercises such as push ups or jumping. This is extra surprising since when you are working with your own body weight, your strength vs weight ratio becomes more advantageous when you are shorter, and girls averagely are shorter...
They sure do get muscular though! :)
Climbing is a sport in which women are not far behind men, even in bouldering which requires a lot of explosive strength. Here's Alex Puccio showing up one of the best male climbers in the world recently.
https://www.youtube.com/v/9DBMMLCJ4IA
Competitions are still segregated, but climbing in general is not very competitive and men and women tend to climb together a lot.
Blimey, that was impressive! In my climbing days, I climbed with several women who could get up harder climbs than I could. But then climbing better than me wasn't terribly hard - unlike the problem in the video.
It certainly makes me reconsider previous ideas about how much strength is needed for top-end numbers juggling.
Okay, since it looks like my comment kind of started a discussion here I feel like I should elaborate a bit.
First, to be clear: I was only talking about juggling. I see good reasons to have separate lists and competitions for men and women in many (most) sports. And, I did not think that wanting to set up a separate juggling records list for women would somehow imply that anyone think women are inferior in any way... Just that they don't juggle quite as well as men.
Of course men's bodies and women's bodies are built differently. No, no woman is likely to run as fast as the best men in 100m. The question is: Are the diffenencies between men and women affecting the ability to juggle many objects?
Well... I already know that I will never be on the juggling world record lists, because
a) I started juggling at age 30,
b) I have a full-time job (that does not involve juggling), and
c) I'm more interested in practicing passing patterns, nice siteswaps or cool tricks than numbers.
It just never occured to me that I'd have any reason to add
d) Because I'm a woman.
If it really is more difficult for women to juggle many objects, then maybe it would make sense to have a separate list. If not, then no.
Also, I agree with Miark that juggling is much more than a sport. I don't get my inspiration from records. I get inspiration from my friends in my juggling club, conventions, juggling videos, shows. There are women in the "Top 40 jugglers of the year". There are women in shows, at conventions and in juggling videos. If I need other female jugglers for inspiration, I have them right there. Usually I don't really care if it's men or women when I see people doing something I'd like to learn, though.
So, for me, personally, a separate list would just say that "It's more difficult for women to become really good at juggling than for men." Maybe that is true, but I'm not convinced. And regardless of if it's true or not, it's not very inspiring. For me.
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
:)
Keep in mind, everyone, that ALL I intend to do is make a separate numbers juggling world records list. And that's the extent of it. This is a very interesting debate, but I don't want anyone to take my idea the wrong way.
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Turns out, there is a list!
https://juggle.wikia.com/wiki/World_records#Women.27s_solo_records
Strange list.
5 balls 1:47? I know over 10 women personally that can do better.
Ok for 5 clubs Joelle is listed but only with 3:25; if I recall correctly her personal record is beyond half an hour.
Also why does this list differentiate between beanbags and balls?
43 minutes is listed in unverified claims (Notice also Sue Kirby's 45 catches of 9 balls). The problem is finding proof. If you can find a video of a female juggling 5 balls for longer than 1:47 then feel free to update the page.
Brook Roberts - - Parent #
This is one of the obvious problems with making more and more specific lists - unless enough people take it seriously enough to try and set records the records listed tent to be pretty meaningless. Unless you can convince some good female jugglers its worth trying to break the female records they will remain poor.
The records listed on JISCON tend to be ones that people are far more likely to aim to break for the sake of having the record (and probably now that wikipedia has good listing, the ball and ring passing records too).
And I say this as someone who is amused by breaking pointless records on jugglingedge - I just would find it very odd to claim them as world records.
Aha! Awesome. This list is clearly not final, for the reason that Brook states; These aren't real world records with the people in the records trying for them, they are just the best someone could find video of on the internet to try and make a "starter" list with.
Thank you, this is an immense help for me. This has a lot that I don't have yet, and I have been doing my own research and have definitely found some that crush these. Together, and eventually with (hopefully?!) the Edge's support, we will soon have a list that will be more obviously viewable, and will encourage some more of the real record attempts to come in.
And that is unusual about the beanbags/balls records. Gatto would be proud.
Scott Seltzer - - Parent #
Don't forget Tongan women doing shower. If I remember correctly, there was a video of a 7 tui tui nut shower and rumors of an 8 nut shower.
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