Joggling: The World's Weirdest Sport

If you're like me, juggling is something that will always remain a mystery. No matter how hard I try, the balls only go in one direction: down. But that's not the case for everyone. In fact, for some people, juggling is so easy that they decided to combine it with another sport: jogging. Jogging + juggling = joggling. Thus, the weirdest sport (and most inaccessible for uncoordinated people) was born.

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In 1975, a guy called Bill Giduz brought his juggling balls along to a running track to practice some tricks. He began to juggle while running and discovered something amazing: the pace of juggling three balls matches a range of running cadences. Or in other words, each throw of a ball matches the natural swing of a runner's arms when running. Giduz realized that he had found something incredible and gave it the only name it should have: joggling.

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After this, Giduz began writing for a jugglers newsletter and found that other people had also discovered joggling. In 1980, the first jogglers race was held. It was so popular that it became an annual event and holding the world record for joggling became a coveted accomplishment (you can view the results for the previous 11 years of the world championships on Wikipedia). And not just anyone juggling while jogging can win. There are a number of rules the competitors must comply with. For example, Rule 1 is: jogglers must juggle 3, 5 or 7 objects. Three sounds hard enough to me!

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Since the 80s, joggling has become a challenging and fun sport, but it's taken seriously. There are 17 entries for joggling in the Guinness Book of World Records, ranging from the fastest 50 miles, the greatest distance joggling in 12 hours, the fastest 100 meters joggling with three objects, the fastest 50 miles joggling backwards, and many more. While it sounds a bit silly, there's no doubt it's physically challenging (try running backwards while juggling for 50 miles, I dare you).

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So, if you can juggle (or if you can't) and want a challenging sport, joggling might be for you. Who knows, you might be the next world champion. You'll never know till you try.

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