ContactJuggling.org

Hi I just quit my day job

To much stress and life is to short!

I want to do something else with my life other than working my life away in an office cube....like contact juggling.

So how long did it take before you were ready? I know everybody is different just asking if there were any "Tells" when you new were ready to go live.

I've got a long way to go but I have 8 hrs a day now to pratice!

Oh and my plan is to either cook or bartend at a Island resort and contact juggle in my off time,
could also be doing this on a cruse ship and if I can get good enough maybe I will not have to cook

I might be crazy but at least I'll be happy!

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Life isn't about how you survive the storm...
But how you learn to dance in the rain with your Balls

I'm a huge advocate of quitting your day job. But you have to be really f'ing good before you can do it... not only as a contact juggler, but as a human being in general. Full-time art is terrifying and wonderful. It can destroy you if you're not ready and enlighten you repeatedly, often daily, if you are.

I spent about a year practicing before I started performing contact ball. I spent a couple of years doing shows pro bono, maybe a lucky $50 gig every couple-few months. But a performance is worth ten practices, so I sucked up the stage time readily. Later on I started casually busking based on my experiences watching an experienced friend's polished street show. Mine, of course, was really rough... but it earned me a little bit of pocket change (and taught me a lot about arguing with petty authority). I went on like that for a couple of years, getting my busking skills up until I could make three figures a day at a good street fair. I'll never forget the day I made $30 in 30 minutes at Fisherman's Wharf; it was also the first time I ever fooled myself with my own enigma. At that point, I knew.

A year and a half passed. I started performing full-time at the end of last year. On one hand, it's hard hard hard work... on the other, it's hard calling professional CJ "work." A lot of manipulators try to make the full-time art thing happen and don't realize how much time you spend in the office instead of the studio. Unless you have an agent (ha!), you're doing all your own booking yourself, which means that 75% of those wonderful 8-hour practice days are suddenly spent in the office trying to get your website live, sending e-mail correspondence, and carefully balancing your finances so that the humongous stacks of money you can make all summer aren't all spent by the onset of winter (so far, so good). And when practicing is your job, it's often a little tougher to muster the motivation... there's a reason I live in a place where there are casual jams going on constantly. I joke about waking up one day and having all your friends be jugglers... but we do a lot to keep one another motivated on those days when practicing isn't on the top of the to-do list.

The flexibility is the best part. There's no boss to piss off when I leave for two weeks of juggling festivals 1000 miles away, and I can go to work - or skip it - any time I want, whether that's at 10 AM or 2 AM. I feel like I've internalized my living more than ever, but it also means that every decision is a career decision. Meg and I lamented together last spring that we don't have time for video games since we started circus - better to gain levels as a real-life warrior than as a pretend warrior, after all. I would extend the same principle to dates; now that I don't have to try to get them, I find that I don't have the time, money, or interest. This attitude lends to workaholism, of course. On the other end of the spectrum lie those artists who stop working once someone isn't forcing them to, which results in burnout and starvation.

I'm still struck almost daily at the directions the ball has taken my life. It's already been a year since my last regular job, and at the end of December I'll be celebrating a year of living CJ full-time. I don't recommend everyone do it - in fact, I rarely recommend anyone do it. But if it's your thing, you'll know.

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http://www.gravitydefiance.net

I got a job performing at the Sixflags in Denver, maybe 6 months after I started Contact Juggling. I could also toss juggle and pass pretty proficiently at the time. It was a great job, I was 15, making 10 an hour, and being paid to juggle. The greatest thing about that job were the other Jugglers that worked there. Out of the 6 of us, 4 of them were full time professionals. We spent about 20 hours a week just practicing and learning various things, and I probably learned more that summer than I ever have before.
Ever since then I've done gigs on a semi regular basis. Not surprisingly, I generally do more stilt walking gigs than juggling gigs, and the pay is about the same generally.

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.org addict

i finally got fed up with your standard fair of jobs and went into massage therapy. So far it is going great and i am looking forward to it freeing my time up quite a bit with its flexability to do the other things in my life i want to do. I really enjoy performing for people. Whether its with contact, fire, music, or just being a goofball. But making everything fit in your life in a sustainable way is really difficult. The fact is food and shelter come first. after that its no longer work and you get to really enjoy it. for me at least.

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much Love,
Dan

BIG LEAP!!! Love it ^^... Get to critiquing yourself and realize that you will never be perfect but can still corrupt the senses. Okay, I might not be the best for advice but here ya go.
I asked this question some time ago and was told, basically, that you'll know when you're ready. Get out and practice in the public a bit if you aren't used to it.

Actually, this fushigi craze has somewhat helped me with getting some gigs. People want to know how to do this stuff and watch someone that knows more about it than they do. So I teach a few classes/seminaries for a few bucks a person.
Try calling a few places... masquerade balls, ren fests, birthday parties, etc... (You might have to do a few starting off for free or for some food just to get going). Everyone wants something unusal but it's if their piggybank can handle it. Businesses sometimes look for unusual, taboo stuff for dinner parties and social gatherings.
The sky is the limit. It's just a matter of proving and selling yourself.

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"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night"-Edgar Allan Poe-

The best way to find out if you're ready to perform, in my opinion, is to try and see.

I first tried performing back in June, I was nowhere near ready at that time. So I stopped performing, worked on my skills, and when I felt up for it I tried again.

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It's not true contact unless you're naked.

I waited 5 years before i started performing.

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www.ryanmellors.com
www.ministryofmanipulation.com
www.piryokopi.net

awesome thread

Quitting your day job to pursue a dream is very ballsy, huge kudos to you!

I'm nowhere near brave enough to give up the security of my day job but I do hope one day to make some pocket money on the side with object manipulation.

I'm perhaps 9 months into dedicated practicing (I was fiddling with CJ on and off, not seriously, for about a year before that). I haven't performed for pay yet and I don't feel like I'll be ready to put on a worthy show for a paying audience for quite some time to come. I've done a lot of freestyle public practice and drawn a few crowds in parks and bars, and I've been on the TV, but I've never put a hat down for cash yet. I think it will be another couple of years before I can do that without feeling like I'm asking for more than I'm worth.

Good luck and well done for stepping out of the rat race!

Woah, I'm not ready to take that final step but I do have it in mind...congrats to everyone of you who have done that before.

Yes, I think you need to be very good, have the required connections/bookings to make a living and really want it.

Started performing after two and a half years of practising, performing for more than applause after three years and a bit, will think about becoming a full time artist in a few years...

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Real friends don't need to be the same

Now I know When I started this thread I was not going to be ready to make a living at CJing for some time(at 6 weeks I'm hardly ready to show anyone what I can do(try to do )
but a cruse ship cooking job and contact juggling in the Islands is a nice dream and totally attainable and the lower stress level would do me some good

BUT Dang
An "opening" in the field I was in has become available at twice the pay rate........
That I was at....
The Project Management job I left is very stressful(making the big decision for projects, dead lines, safety issues, materials, permits and so on)

Will I sell my soul again for money.........I did apply....

_________________
Life isn't about how you survive the storm...
But how you learn to dance in the rain with your Balls