Ok jugglers! I posted a response in the "Deckless" section in which I opined that juggling is indeed 'magic'. Most of the card people disagree; and I think a few actually have too narrow a definition. In short there is controversy,perhaps a tempest in a teapot. I like BOTH card magic and juggling, and feel they BOTH belong in the Magic Café. Please weigh in via the 'deckless' section in 'flourish and false cut'.

Now that I made my post at deckless I'm sure that I have made about 50, or 100 nerds hate me. Of course you realize that card manipulators never get up out of their chairs, and jugglers never sit down. Juggling is generally hated by sleight of hand magicians, and musicians, so we are not going to change anyone's opinion here.

Thank you for posting in the cards section. I'm mainly a cards and coins guy; but I think there are many of us who love to watch a good juggling act, and welcome juggling as part of the magic community. I try not to define 'magic' so narrowly .... I think of it as the art of 'amazement', and good juggling fits that criterion! Even dare-devil escape acts are part of that (I hear David Blaine is preparing a new one as we correspond).
Many slight of hand performers also juggle as well .. I once saw a Penn and Teller act where Teller juggled as part of a 'misdirection' for another part of a trick.
One thing that bothered me in the Deckless section wasn't just the definition of 'magic'. It's Ok for people to disagree on that. But I didn't like the tone of condescension.
Finally, I'd like to add that I'm a musician; and the lead singer of my last band was a juggler as well!

Card mechanics, and mind readers live in their own world. When I go to lectures at our local magic club there is always a few guys that do not listen to the lecture, because they only do card tricks. We are not going to change any minds here, but I gave them my two cents.

Musicians do not like jugglers because there are very few musicians making a living performing.

Musicians do not like jugglers because there are very few musicians making a living performing.
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Not sure if that's the reason ... but it's true that most musicians have a day job! It's the source of a lot of great musician jokes!

Once I did a job with a four piece band. Before the guests arrived the band members pressured me into telling them how much I was getting paid that night, so I reluctantly told them. My pay was $10 more than the four of made together, and they did two sets. After that they stopped talking to me, and I will never make that mistake again. When you practice the guitar for ten, or more years you get kinda touchy.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with the term "juggling is magic".

Nope, I'm afraid magic IS juggling. We are all jongleurs after all are we not?

This includes musicians too.

We all come from the same humble beginnings and although these days its more common to refer to things as magic and the allied arts that's not an historically correct way of referring to such matters. And if people are going to get all hot under the collar about such trivial things then I think they should use the correct terminology. That is simply that we are all jongleurs, or jugglers, regardless of whether we manipulate balls, cards, coins or the air around us.

It seems that it's mostly an ego thing whenever people get upset over these things. Different people want their art or hobby to be defined in regards to how they wish to be seen and what they think is important. Whatever their favorite magician's philosophy is on performing good magic suddenly becomes the inalienable truth. I refer mainly to those who discover a performer such as Lennert Green and because they are so fooled by what he does they conclude that his style is superior to all others and stuggle to be like him, and start to eschew any conflicting opinions. They convince themselves that the philosophy they believe in is the only valid philosophy. Some have very convincing arguments, either developed over years of study and performing, or more often by posers who want to be like their idols merely parroting what they've heard or read.
Many magicians don't feel like magic and juggling should be placed in a similar catagory, just like there are a lot of jugglers that don't want to be placed in the same catagory as clowns.
I don't think that concrete definitions are what further the art of entertaining, whatever means you use to do so. If we settle on a definite 'This is exactly it' then there is less experimentation and performers start to look more like each other. There may or may not be an exception to every rule, but there is an exception to a lot of them. I think it's important that entertainers have a clear idea of what they are trying to do, and work to make something that is unique to them. They need to develop their own philosophy of what good entertainment is. But I don't think that in any art there is only one right way to go about things.
Many use narrow definitions for things when they know or study a lot about them, therefore they separate things into more detailed catagories. But the general public don't see things the way insiders do, and place performers into much more general catagories. A lot of people simply group all variety entertainment into 'circus' (or vaudville) and leave it at that.
Myself I just say hang it all, and do what pleases you, believe what you want, but for goodness sake just try to make it entertaining.

Here's something that I found interesting. I've recently added a flower stick routine into my school show. Once I've packed up I always get changed in to civvies and hang around listening to what the kids say about the show without them knowing I'm there. On a few occasions I've heard them discussing the floating wand trick.

At first I thought they were talking about someone else. But it turns out they meant my flower stick routine.

It's happened at more than one show. And even in workshops the kids gasp and want to know how I make it fly.

It reminded me of this thread. So juggling can really be seen as magic in the minds of an audience. This has never happened to me before doing this routine. It's quite a cool feeling.

I've always fancied doing a juggling routine based on the scene from Sorcerer's Apprentice where the brooms, mops and buckets are all under the wizard's control.

I used to go to more magic conventions than I do now. I like to observe. It seemed that the jugglers drew more attention than the magicians did.

Bob Phillips

P.S. I noticed that Charlie Frye has more "magical chops" than most magicians do.

I pull my cj ball out of a cloud of bubbles, and, at times "pop" it.

This is a great topic and is proving to be a fascinating read.

I want to thank everyone for some thoughtful and insightful comments.

I do find myself in concert with Roslyn. The statement, “We all come from the same humble beginnings…” is great.

I completely agree with the post above about flower/devil sticks. People find this really magical and often can not get their head around how it works.
The same goes for contact juggling.

Fushigi may have tarnished Contact Juggling for a few years at least.

The IJA was organized at the 1946 Pittsburgh IBM convention. There were only a few performing juggling acts in the country. The IBM invited 8 jugglers to their convention to organize, and eventually become the IJA. There has always been (until just recently) one juggler at every magic convention, and one magician at every juggling convention. The Chinese call both juggling, and magic hand skills.

Back in my day (look at Photo) we called all of it juggling as to say one was doing magic was to atract "Inquisitive" people. not a good idea.

I go to both juggling and magic conventions and the huge difference between the two is that at a juggling convention people show everybody anything and at a magic convention everything is veiled in secrecy.
Obvious I know but a real difference in attitude.....

Al,
I did not know about the Chinese designation, "magic hand skills."
Fascinating; thanks for sharing!

I recall Al Angello commenting on this extensively in a previous post.

And it's not just the secrecy aspect, at magic conventions things HAPPEN ON TIME because timetables are firmly adhered to by respectably coiffeured gentlemen.
At a juggling convention I once waited six hours for a stoned hippy to get out of his pit to run a contact juggling workshop - and well worth the wait it was too!