A Pair of Suspenders : Jahnathon Earns Living by Tossing Things in Air
OK, so juggling checkbooks doesn’t give you the thrill it once did, and you’re looking for new challenges.
Call Jahnathon Whitfield. He’ll show you what juggling is all about.
Jahnathon (because he’s probably the only person in creation who spells it that way, it’s the only name he uses) is one of the few people in the country to make a living throwing odd objects in the air and making them stay there.
And when he’s not performing, he’s teaching other people to throw objects into the air, although in the early stages anyway, they don’t always seem to stay there.
Jahnathon runs the California Juggling Institute in Santa Ana, operating out of the basement (“lower level, if you don’t mind”) of the old City Hall on Main Street in what used to be the police garage. He also teaches juggling at Orange Coast College and at any number of schools and recreation centers throughout California and Nevada--a touring pro, if you will.
And he offers a money-back guarantee that he will have you juggling inside of an hour, regardless of where you rank in the realm of klutzdom. Of course, because he doesn’t charge very much--parks and recreation classes cost about $15--he’s not risking a whole lot, but he seldom if ever has any reason to make good on the offer.
“Anyone can juggle,” he says, “and you don’t have to be super-coordinated to do it.” All it takes is some interest and some time--not much time for a casual interest, but an “irrational dedication” if your goal is to someday play the Palace.
Jahnathon demonstrated his methods (madness, some might say) recently at a class sponsored by the Newport Beach Parks and Recreation Department at the Oasis Senior Center in Corona del Mar. Six people signed up and showed up, from a third-grader to a senior citizen. All they really had in common was a fascination with the ancient art.
Nomenclature being important in any field, he began there.
“Is tossing two oranges from hand to hand juggling?” he asks. Before anyone has a chance to reply, they get the answer. “Of course not; that’s making what is called a ‘correct exchange.’ ”
“How about tossing two oranges with one hand?” Heads shake, shoulders shrug. “Yes, that’s juggling!
“By definition, juggling is handling one more object than the hands you’re using. So, throwing two oranges with one hand is juggling, throwing three with two is juggling, and on up.”
He starts his students off with nylon scarfs, thereby “eliminating the gravity problem.” They begin with one scarf, casting it palms down from about knee height straight up in the air. It slowly floats down, giving them plenty of time to grab it with a claw-like motion.
After a few minutes, they move on to two scarfs, one in each hand. The right hand casts a scarf up across the body and the left hand follows suit a second later. The exchange is made and when they get proficient at that, the third scarf is introduced.
Amazingly--especially to the students--in no time at all they are indeed juggling, scarfs wafting around the room, palms down, hands clawing for them, with very few ever reaching the floor.
It’s the moment Jahnathon relishes more than any other with his classes. “They go from the ‘I can’t’ stage to the ‘I can’t yet’ stage to the ‘Hey, I can !’ stage.”
The skepticism of the class is gone, and they eagerly move on to bean bags, which brings them face to face with the “gravity problem” that they were able to avoid with the almost-lighter-than-air scarfs. This is a palms-up exercise, and the thuds of falling bean bags on the hardwood floor are so distracting that Jahnathon has the group move to a carpeted area, where the noise, if not the embarrassment, is somewhat cushioned.
One student, 20-year-old Daniel Sidman, loses a bean bag in the hood of his sweat jacket. He retrieves it and pulls the hood over his head to avoid any repetition.
Jahnathon shows them little tricks of the trade, provides individual attention and encouragement and, inch by inch, at least a modicum of success is achieved by each student.
Now all they need is practice, and Jahnathon tells them that there is a “very thin line between your moving from two bean bags to three and a professional moving from six balls to seven; it’s all in practice and in the head. Your thoughts can either restrict you or take you anywhere you want to go.”
Who are these people and why are they here? Most echo Robert Swayne, 40, of San Clemente, who is accompanied by his daughter, Renee, 14. “I’ve wanted to be able to juggle as long as I can remember,” he says. An engineer for Southern California Edison, Swayne sees it as a “nice form of relaxation.”
David Newbro of Newport Beach, 54 and retired, may be the most determined of the bunch. He says that his grandson will be visiting him soon and that he would like to have a few routines down before the boy arrives. “His parents are great athletes,” says Newbro with a little twinkle, “but they can’t juggle.”
While he calls the class a “humbling experience,” Newbro says there’s “something almost mystic” about juggling--”it goes so far back in history and it makes you feel kind of connected with that ancient past.”
Julie Hardesty of Balboa is 62 and says she does “a lot of things just because they’re fun; and this looks like fun.”
Sidman, the 20-year-old with the sweat jacket, is an economics student at UC Irvine and teaches windsurfing on the side. He, like 8-year-old Carl Fuller of Costa Mesa, just “wanted to see if I could do it.”
Jahnathon’s own call came rather late in life. A bearded, self-styled “child of the ‘60s”--technically true, anyway, considering that he was 3 when that turbulent decade began--he “sort of drifted” through a number of jobs and interests, including pedaling a bicycle across the country from Oregon to Vermont. On his way back, he took a job in a children’s hospital in Minneapolis, and it was there that he discovered juggling.
“I went to a show of the Karamazov Brothers (the internationally known troupe) and was just blown away by them. Then a friend starting learning juggling and I thought, ‘If he can do it, so can I.’ ” So, he bought the book “Juggling for the Complete Klutz” (Klutz Press, Stanford, Calif.) by John Cassidy and B. C. Rimbeaux.
The more he got into it, the more he enjoyed it and the more he found he agreed with author and juggler Dave Finnigan, whose 574-page tome, “The Complete Juggler” (Vintage Press, $10.95), describes juggling as a form of meditation, “a way of integrating the mind, body and spirit.”
Jahnathon joined the International Juggler’s Assn. and attended his first convention in 1982. “I was just awe-struck by these people, who were performing feats of magic. They were so skilled . . . so good.
“And they were so friendly and helpful to newcomers,” Jahnathon says. “Unlike magicians, who are by nature pretty secretive people, jugglers are very open, very sharing. They’re delighted to show you what they’ve accomplished and how they accomplished it. They’re neat people; their lives are in balance.”
Firmly hooked now, he practiced and improved but decided that he would rather teach than perform. So, in 1983 he approached Orange Coast College about leading a class. They bought the idea and the class continues to this day.
It was in that first class that he met “my lady, my partner,” Jennifer Ames, 26, with whom he lives in Santa Ana with their 3-year-old son, Idren (“it’s a Jamaican name for ‘brother,’ and he’s really my little brother as well as my son”).
And the maxim that “the family that juggles together stays together” gets a pretty good workout at their house. Ames juggles, and Idren is doing pretty well on the diabolo, also known as a Chinese yo-yo, a spinning, whistling device operated with a string.
Jahnathon’s own proficiency has improved to the point that he can juggle six bean bags or four clubs (the large ones that look like bowling pins) at once, and his goal is to increase each by one.
Is he a great juggler? “No,” he quickly answers. “I’m a good teacher, though.”
The term “greatness” is reserved in Jahnathon’s mind for such legends as the Italian Enrico Rastelli, who set the juggling world on its ear in the early part of this century. By the time of his early death at the age of 31 in the 1920s, Rastelli had set records that stood for decades--10 balls at a time, eight plates, etc.
But there is someone on the horizon, says Jahnathon, who could eclipse all records and set standards unreachable by anyone, ever. His name is Anthony Gatto; he’s only 13 but, says Jahnathon with reverence, “He can do almost anything. . . . And he doesn’t even have to practice very much, either.”
Jahnathon’s own reputation, however, will be getting quite a boost in the fall when Clarion Books, a major New York publisher of children’s books, releases “Juggler,” by Caroline Arnold with photographs by Richard Hewett.
The title of the $14.95 book refers to Jahnathon.
JUGGLING EVENTS
The Southern California Juggling Institute is at 217 N. Main St., Suite 25-LL, Santa Ana 92701. Phone: (714) 541-5845.
Jahnathon Whitfield’s schedule for Orange County appearances and classes for February and March follows:
Feb. 20, Orange Coast College.
Feb. 25, Cub Pack 723, Placentia.
Feb. 26, Cub Pack 101, Huntington Beach.
Feb. 27, Orange Coast College. Cub Pack 516, Orange.
March 5, Orange Coast College.
March 8, Heritage Elementary School, Santa Ana.
March 25, De Portola Elementary School, Mission Viejo.