Jason Garfield

Jason Garfield (born August 9, 1974) is an American juggler who was born in Norwalk, Connecticut and grew up in Seattle, Washington. He is the founder and president of the World Juggling Federation.http://thewjf.com/about/department-heads/jason-garfield/
Jason started juggling when he was 11, and at age 13 he won the 1988 IJA Juniors competition.http://web.archive.org/web/20001018180009/http://www.jasongarfield.com/biography.html By the time he was 15, he had juggled 9 balls, 9 rings, and 7 clubs, and done 200 catches of 5 club backcrosses.http://web.archive.org/web/20070127214632/http://jasongarfield.com/timeline/1990/1990.html
After taking a six-year break from juggling, Jason went on to juggle 10 balls and 10 rings,http://www.thewjf.com/about.php and tied with Bruce Sarafian for the 11 ball world record (12 catches) in 1997.http://web.archive.org/web/19980630172927/http://www.juggling.org/records/records.html In 2000, Jason beat Bruce's record with 14 catches.http://web.archive.org/web/20000818120347/http://www.juggling.org/records/records.html(video) (The record has since been broken by Alex Barron.)
Jason has been producing instructional materials for juggling since 2000, starting with the series of Juggling Master videos.http://www.seriousjuggling.com/juggling-videos-dvds.htm The latest versions of his instructional videos and book are:
*The Theory and Practice of Juggling - A video that teaches basic patterns for up to 7 balls, 7 rings, and 5 clubs.
*Etudes for Juggling: The Next Three Years of Your Life - A video that teaches siteswaps, overheads, halfshower, full reverse, shower, backcrosses, body throws, shoulder throws, 360s, and 180s (including dance training for 360s from professional dance instructors).
*JUGGLING: Fundamental Exercises and Practice Structure - A workbook that covers everything in both videos.
Jason founded the World Juggling Federation in 2000, with the goals of expanding public awareness of juggling as a sport, producing sport juggling competition programs for ESPN, providing an incentive for jugglers to push themselves to their technical limits, and increasing the number of good competitive jugglers in the world.http://web.archive.org/web/20070110233741/http://jasongarfield.com/2004.html
Jason was voted the world's most popular juggler in the Top 40 Jugglers poll in 2004http://www.jugglingdb.com/compendium/world/jugglers/top40of2004.html, and was featured on that list ten years in a row (2003-2012).
==World records==
Jason holds the following world records with publicly available video evidence:
*1080 qualified with the most rings: 6 rings, 6 up 3-stage (video), tied with Anthony Gatto (video) and Eivind Dragsjø in 2016 (video at 43:00)
*1080 qualified with the most clubs: 5 clubs, 5 up 2-stage (video), tied with Vova Galchenko in 2006 (video)
*Blind catch qualified with the most rings: 5 rings in 2002 (video), tied with Ben Hestness in 2011 (video)
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==Competitions==
Jason won the following IJA and WJF competitions.http://www.juggle.org/ija/championships/http://wayback.archive.org/web/20131029113815/http://thewjf.com/allevents.php
IJA 1988:
*Stage: Juniors
IJA 1990:
*Numbers: Solo Balls
*Numbers: Solo Rings
IJA 1998:
*Stage: Individuals
*Numbers: Solo Balls
*Numbers: Solo Rings
IJA 2000:
*Numbers: Solo Balls
*Numbers: Solo Rings
*Numbers: Solo Clubs
IJA 2001:
*Numbers: Solo Rings
IJA 2002:
*Stage: Individuals
WJF 2004:
*Advanced Balls
*Ring Endurance
*5 Ball 360s
WJF 2005:
: Challenge Competitions:http://www.thewjfstore.com/2005convention.php
*5 Ball Low 360s
*5 Ring Low 360s
WJF 2006:
*Advanced Rings
*5 Ring Freestyle
*6 Ring Freestyle
*Ring Endurance
: Challenge Competitions:http://www.thewjfstore.com/2006overall.php
*5 Ball Low 360s
*5 Ring Low 360s
==References==
Category:Jugglers
Category:Performers
Category:IJA champions
Category:WJF champions
Category:Numbers jugglers
Category:Educators and coaches