Jugglers meet at club

Amos Batto starts out tossing three clubs every which way. After a few warm-up juggles, he pulls out his unicycle for few laps around the gym. When he gets tired of this, he decides to combine the two, juggling his clubs while simultaneously riding his unicycle both forward and backward around the gym. Occasionally, he will bust out the knives and fire, but for the moment he concentrates on the intricacy of each moving club. All in a day's work for Batto, a graduate student and the president of the IU juggling club.\nBatto, who has been juggling for 10 years, started out practicing with his college roommate and the two eventually started doing juggling routines together. It was not long before he had the hang of the basics.\n"Anyone who can catch a ball can learn to juggle," Batto said. "It is merely a matter of patience and practice. Natural ability matters less than determination." \nIn addition to juggling balls, clubs and rings, Batto can swallow fire, juggle machetes and torches and ride a unicycle.\n"I ride my six-foot unicycle to class some days," Batto said. "Some people honk at me, some laugh and others cheer."\nFaculty club sponsor and Spanish professor David Wren has recently been working on juggling four balls to expand his arsenal of tricks, but adding another ball to the basic three-ball juggle is not as easy as it sounds. \n"If you add an object, it's exponentially more difficult," Wren said.\nBut with practice, any trick that can be conceived can eventually be accomplished. Once he said he saw a woman riding a six-foot unicycle with one foot. A boy set a plate on her free foot, and she kicked the plate into the air and caught it on her head. Then the boy brought out two plates and placed them upside down on her foot. She kicked both plates up and caught them on her head, stacked neatly on top of the first plate. The boy then brought out three plates, and finally four bowls, all of which ended up perfectly stacked on her head. All the while she rode her unicycle forwards and backwards with only one foot. \nBatto has seen amazing juggling routines, and he has also seen performances go terribly wrong. On one such occasion, Batto was with an older man who was attempting to eat fire. He first realized something was wrong when he smelled the aroma of burnt toast. \n"I saw (the man) catch his beard on fire when he tried to eat it," Batto said.\nThe man managed to save his face from getting burned by slapping himself repeatedly, but there is always danger involved when playing with fire and sharp objects. But none of that stops Batto and the rest of the juggling club from doing what they love. \n"Juggling is a beautiful process of thinking to move until you can move without thinking," Batto said.\nGraduate student Jonathan Sauer, a club member who performs his juggling routines at events around Bloomington, said anyone interested in juggling is welcome to attend the club's weekly meetings. Meetings are held from 9 to 11 p.m. every Tuesday in HPER 169. For more information about the juggling club, contact juggling@indiana.edu. \n-- Contact staff writer Doug Evans at dnevans@indiana.edu.