Last night Sue and I went to a juggling show by a former student of mine named Alex.  Alex, who is entering his sophmore year of high school, did a 12 minute routine at Point Sebago, the resort owned by his parents.  We were proud to be their special guests for this performance.

The show was on a stage right near the beach on Sebago Lake.  Alex opened with rings, which were admittedly hard due to the breeze off of the water.  After that, though, he really hit his stride.  Before moving on to 3, 4 and 5 balls, he paused to drink from his water bottle, only to turn this pause into an opportunity to demonstrate some flair bottle moves with the water bottle itself.  This only supported the old jugglers' belief that ANYTHING can be a prop in the right hands.

Alex's ball work was outstanding, and was as good as any juggler's I've seen in Maine.  I was especially impressed with his multiplex tosses with four and five balls.  I must confess, he did several tricks I've never done, even at my physical peak.

After the obligatory apple eating trick, Alex continued with some fast paced diabolo work, then machetes and fire torches, which was performed with a flashing fire truck light going at the corner of the stage.  Everything he performed was very precisely choreographed to his music.

Alex invited me up on stage to do a little partner work, which we hadn't prepared for, so it was by far the weakest part of the routine (sorry Alex... my bad).  It's hard, I suppose, for a non-teacher or non-juggler to understand why last night was so important to me.  Alex is by far the best juggler i've ever taught, and to see it mean as much to him as it did to me at his age was wonderful.  To be invited to join him on stage was a huge complement.  I was so proud to be a teacher last night, and if there's any ex-student who is going to become a better juggler than me, I'm happy that it's Alex.