Review 1: was written by Chris Cartier, who saw my request for people to review the cd-rom, on the newsgroup rec.juggling. Chris juggles to a high level, working on 8 & 9 balls, 5 clubs and 7 & 8 rings. He also is at an intermediate level in the circus skills of rola-bola, unicycling, devilstick, diabolo and acrobatics.

Review 2: was posted to the newsgroup rec.juggling in Jan 2001 by Jake Cooper. Jake is 17 years old and has been juggling for 5 years and is currently working on 7 balls and 4 clubs. He also does some rola-bola, unicycling, a decent amount of diabolo, and a bit of devilstick.

Review 3: was written by Tim McKenzie, who saw my request for people to review the cd-rom, on the newsgroup rec.juggling. Tim has been juggling for roughly the last two to three years, more seriously in the last year. He can do a varitey of 3 ball tricks, some bounce juggling, basket ball juggling, stilt walking, with a very minor ability in clubs and rings. He considers himself to be somewhere between beginner and intermediate level.

Review 4: was written by Mark Hutchens, who saw my request for people to review the cd-rom, on the newsgroup rec.juggling. Mark is an advanced ball juggler, able to do 1200 catches with 5 balls, 35 catches with 6 and 14 with seven. He describes himself as a keen amateur who dabbles with clubs juggling, devilstick, diabolo and contact juggling, practicing for at least 3 to 4 hours a week.

Review 5: appeared in the Jan/Feb 2001 edition of Juggle Magazine, the official magazine of the International Jugglers' Association. The review was written by Eric Bagai, one of the editors. You can visit Juggle Magazine's website at www.jugglemagazine.com.

Review 6: appeared in the 2/2001 edition of Kaskade European Juggling Magazine. The review was written by Wolfgang Schebeczek, an Austrian member of the editorial staff. You can visit the Kaskade website at www.kaskade.de.

The Interface is very simple, one click operation, very easy to figure out, very user friendly. The program itself is top-notch. The variety of props is great, I know when I started juggling I became interested in everything. This saves from having to buy a book on devilsticks, on diabolo, or on cigar boxes. The amount of tricks shown is quite large, enough to keep the beginner busy for over a few years. The actual descriptions of the tricks are as good as in any book I've read, but in addition to this is the videos. What more could you ask for? The videos are very clear, the objects manipulated are sharp and very visible, and the ability to view the videos frame by frame is priceless. I know I would have been saved from many fits of screaming at the beanbags had I owned something like this when I was starting out. The only negative comments I have are that there is no mention of numbers juggling (but that's because I'm a numbers freak) and no section on ring juggling.

So on a scale of 1 to 10 I would have to give it around a 9. Congratulations on creating such a wonderful and helpful product.

Hello everyone-

Dave Gaskell sent me a copy of his Media Circus instructional juggling CD and asked me to review it for him. After writing the review, I thought rec.juggling would be an appropriate place to post it. So here it goes:

Well, I got the CD in the mail 2 days ago, and I've been looking at it since. I was making a list of pros and cons, and I'll list the cons first (notice that the cons are both computer related, and the pros are all juggling related):

1. Setup didn't work. The setup wizard kept asking me to "insert disk 1", and I have no idea what that is. But I could run the program off autorun just fine.
(Jake's comment to rec.juggling - there is really no need to run setup, since the CD automatically runs when you put it into your computer, but I was just checking everything.)
2. More labels. When I say more, I mean 3 more. Specifically, the up arrow (the one that goes back to the previous menu) should be labelled appropriately (i.e. the up arrow on the 3 ball menu should be labelled "Main Menu," and the up arrow on a specific trick, like 4 ball Mill's Mess, should be labelled "4 Ball Menu"). The door picture that exits the program should also be labelled "Exit." And, on the main menu, there should be a statement that says "Click on a picture to learn about the subject." Actually, I didn't have any problems with the lables (or lack thereof), but my dad, who is less than computer literate, would have benefitted greatly from them.
(Jake's comment to rec.juggling - Dave used standard Windows icons where "Next" = arrow pointing to the right, "Exit" = door, "Back" = arrow pointing to the left, etc.)

And the pros:

1. Ease of use. Click on a trick, and you instantly have a video of the trick playing continuously and explanations / hints / suggestions. I also liked how the explanations / hints / suggestions had direct links to other tricks when appropriate.
2. The videos. This is actually 2 pros combined into one. First of all, no description could possibly help a juggler learn better than a video of the trick. I was playing around with the 4 ball windmill (something I've never thought to try) and the video was *so* helpful! And, I've seen plenty of videos off the internet, but yours were far more instructive. Simply because you used large and differently colored balls on a pitch-black background. The background is black, your shirt is black, your pants are black, even your belt is black. You get a solid A on the videos.
3. Depth. I counted 40 3-ball tricks, 22 4-ball tricks, and 6 5-ball tricks (that's in addition to the basic pattern). You had 41 3-club tricks, 23 devil stick tricks, 26 diabolo tricks, and 26 cigar box tricks. That's 184 tricks in 7 categories.
4. Selection of tricks. Tricks ranging from the 3 ball cascade to 4 ball Mill's Mess (or 5 ball reverse cascade, whichever you find harder) make a nice range of difficulty levels for ball juggling. From a 3 club cascade to backcrosses, from getting the diabolo spinning to a whip catch, etc...

I've been dabbling in juggling for a number of years now and just this past year have really gotten serious about it. I found the over all layout of The Juggling Tutor to be pleasant and easy to follow. The video clips used to demonstrate the tricks were smooth, clean and edited very well. So i could just let the clip play and it would almost seem like he was continously juggling..without the usual start stop motions of normal online juggling clips. The only downside to the clips was that they could have been a little larger. That way one could follow along with the demo's. The tricks themselves were a good mixture of beginner to expert moves.. Which spanned a nice array of props to pick from. Definitley something going to keep one busy for months.. So the question remains.. is The Juggling Tutor worth it.. I would have to say yes it is..

The Media Circus Juggling Tutor can take an aspiring juggler from raw beginner to a smug show-off with a repertoire of tricks any pro would be proud of. Instructions for tricks and patterns are given with handy tips which are clear, concise and are complemented by a videoloop of that trick, which can be paused, or watched in slow motion. Advice is given on equipment selection covering balls, clubs, devilstick, diabolo and cigar boxes. Whatever your standard of juggling the Media Circus Juggling Tutor is a great way to learn and polish beautiful and challenging patterns, encouraging you to take your juggling to new levels.

What we have here is an instructional CD-ROM for the IBM-PC or equivalent. It covers basic three-ball through five-ball juggling, club juggling, cigar boxes, devil stick, and diabolo.

The last time something this comprehensive was published they called it The Complete Juggler, by Dave Finnigan. But that book had four hundred years of accumulated experience in book design to rely on. Media Circus is the first CD to try teaching a juggler's complete basic repertoire. It falls short of achieving the same degree of instructional excellence as Finnigan's book, but it will do very well until the ultimate juggling CD comes along. Its great advantage is the large volume of material a CD can contain, and that you can see a trick actually being done, rather than try to interpret a series of printed line drawings.

If your PC meets the minimum requirements listed above, you can use this CD. However, you will need bigger iron if you want to enjoy this CD. For me, at the lower end of PC power, the interface and menu system were clunky and slow, and the video clips were jerky. I did find that running the clips in slow motion, or simply using the arrow keys to step through them, made them much more watchable. Moving about the menu system was also awkward, and having to watch the same menu graphics slowly appear and dissolve every time you want to see a different trick or prop, tends to condition you against a lot of exploring. Nevertheless, the material is well thought out and will indeed get you through the basics. And if you have a relatively powerful PC, it is easy and fun to use.

Considering the cost of books and videos you'd have to buy to get the equivalent instruction, this is a bargain. But you'll need a top-of-the-line laptop if you want to read this in bed, or take it with you to the park.

This CD-ROM tutorial covers 3, 4 and 5 ball juggling, club juggling, diabolo, devilstick and cigar boxes, and is aimed at beginners and intermediate jugglers, although the beginners may find it difficult to keep up with the pace at times. The tricks are described briefly and then presented in a video sequence, all by the tutor himself, Dave Gaskell, which makes things slightly monotonous. Perpetual loops, freeze frames and slow motion are possible. For people who learn best through visual media, this CD is definately a useful alternative to a teaching video, although it doesn't make full use of the potential of the CD-ROM medium. For example, schematic diagrams, especially if they were animated, might have been more helpful than the live-action videos as an aid to understanding complex patterns. Nor does this CD make use of the medium's sound capabilities.