I consider myself a juggler. I’m certainly not the best juggler but there are few things I’m better at than juggling. After countless hours of practice, I have also acquired a number of skills that fit into the category of “stupid human tricks” that are useful for little other than entertaining myself and others. One of those skills is catching things in my mouth. For this record, I combine the two skills of juggling and catching things in my mouth.

The Guinness World Records title is for the most grapes caught in the mouth in one minute while juggling. The record when we attempted this stood officially at 27. Before this was approved another team got 32. My neighbor, Jonathan “Hollywood” Hannon was again my thrower and while juggling 3 balls for the full minute with no drops or stops I was able to catch 35 grapes in my mouth.

I was expecting this record to be easier than it was. It took a while not to move my hands out of position while my head darted back and forth catching grapes. Once I was able to separate the movement of my head and hands, it made breaking this record possible. I think we’ll probably have to defend this record soon but we’re sure we can extend it even further.

I have another addition to the chronicles of “The World’s Fastest Juggling”. This time I got the most juggling catches in one minute while balancing on a Swiss exercise ball.

After decades of balancing on a roller board and riding a unicycle; a couple years ago I taught myself how to balance on a Swiss ball. I just about broke my toes a few times but came out with only a few stubbed toes. The effort was worth it as I’ve made about a dozen Guinness World Record attempts while standing on a Swiss ball now. Most have been while wielding a samurai sword to slice fruit. It turns out speed juggling it quite a bit harder than swinging a samurai sword. While speed juggling balance and timing are more critical and the margin for error is lower, fortunately, so are the stake. 

It took quite a bit of practice several official attempts but I finally completed a run of 522 catches in one minute to set the inaugural Guinness World Record mark.

I didn’t know how long I was going to juggle when I started this one. I though the previous record was about 47 minutes but it had been broken recently and I didn’t find out until after that it was actually an hour and 2 minutes. Fortunatly, it didn’t matter.

https://youtu.be/g7o6UVvoL8Q

I was going for the longest duration while standing on a balance board. This was my attempt to take back this record (it was my 75th broken before).

The juggling wasn’t so hard for me. I juggle for a couple hours at least every week (usually while running). I don’t drop often, and when I’m paying attention, I happens even more rarely.

Balancing on the roller board isn’t that hard for me either. I’ve spent a lot of time on a roller board. Sure, my legs got super sore and my feet fell asleep, but I can handle the pain.

The hard part for me is keeping the rolling board perpendicular to the cylindrical rock. When I first put it on, it’s great but once I’ve rolled back and for a few hundred times, it gets off-kilter. It makes it a lot harder to balancing and I even feared I might roll the rock off the board underneath. Before I was 40 minutes in, I was so off-kilter I wasn’t sure I was going to break the record. I worked hard not to panic or make too many sudden movements, but I think it’s luck as much as anything that the board eventually corrected itself which is what allowed me to continue far past my expectations. It did eventually get bad enough to cause me to fall off after 2 hours 39 minutes 56 seconds but it could have been a lot less.

The other challenging, and completly unexpected thing was how much my feed moved on the board I was standing on. I was wearing rubber-soled running shoes and had grip tape on the top of the board but my right foot moved forward and my left foot moved back and both feed moved in toward the center. I had to roll over to one side to take weight off one foot to wiggle it into a new position further out several times.

Once I fell off my legs were so stiff I had to march in place for a while to keep them from cramping but then I let out my “Come on!” and celebrated.

This isn’t my first fruit ninja Guinness World Records title, and neither is it the last.

This time I take on the Guinness World Record’s title for most apples sliced in 30 seconds while juggling 3 knives. The previous record holder was Josh Horton, an accomplished juggler and YouTube star. He had broken this one a few times before and held the record at 17 apples sliced in 30 seconds.

Jonathan “Hollywood” Hannon worked with me on this one to get the timing just right on the throws so they got there right when I needed them. It was hard enough getting the double spin throw to my own left-hand right and then the next throw a single to my right hand. Add on top of that having to slice an apple with the right-hand knife (meaning I have to catch and twist it just right) and this record took years of juggling practice plus months of specific mechanics practice to master.

In the end, we ended up with 21 apples sliced in 30 seconds, and it’s already been approved by Guinness. We published the 1-minute version of this record previously at 40 apples sliced in one minute.

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/487469-most-apples-sliced-in-30-seconds-while-juggling-knives-team-of-two

I capped the year off on New Year’s Eve like so many others – with only my immediate family but also with a camera and 3 juggling balls to recapture the Guinness World Record’s title for most juggling catches in 3 minutes with 3 balls.

I also decided to do a quick recap of some of my favorite records of 2020 to kick it off. It really kicked off big with America’s Got Talent and the t-shirt ripping contest with Terry Crews right before the world came to a halt and then on to fire swords and shaving cream. I ran over 1,000 miles on 2020 (but biked a lot less without a commute to the office). I broke several records that took a lot of tries, and I have a few yet left to publish from 2020.

The record for most juggling catches in 3 minutes with 3 balls stood at 1,320 (440 per minute). I started off with 538 catches in the first minute, slowed to 494 in the 2nd minute and finished with 475 in the third minute, catching 2 in one hand a second shy of the 3 minutes to end the attempt. It was good enough for 1,507 catches in 3 minutes – over 500 per minute or 8.37 catches per second for a full 3 minutes.

If speed juggling for 1 minute is about like running a 400m dash, then juggling for 3 minutes is like trying to run at that same pace for a full kilometer. My arms burned like crazy at the end, but I’m glad to have this one back.

Add one more to the list of “World’s Fastest Juggling”. This time on a unicycle. It was another record I broke for Guinness World Record day this year along with the most juggling catches on a unicycle while blindfolded.

The skills for each are complimentary. Become stable on a unicycle. Have a tight, consistent pattern, don’t have much variation in your ride, don’t use your arms to stabilize yourself on the unicycle, and juggle like crazy.

It only took a couple tries to finish the full minute at record pace. I completed 450 catches in a minute which comes out to 7.5 catches per second. That’s faster than the first time I broke the record for world’s fastest juggling while standing on solid ground (by 32 catches)!

Thanks for all the help from family and neighbors during this crazy season!

The first time I broke this record, I got 30 and I was thrilled. This time I got 363 and I wonder how many more I could have done.

I broke 3 records on Guinness World Record day and this was one of them… and possibly the most impossible.

I juggled for 1 minute 06 seconds while on a unicycle… while blindfolded… making 363 catches for a Guinness World Records title of most juggling catches on a unicycle while blindfolded. The previous record was 70 (held by unicycling extraordinaire Jeremy Walker who beat my previous record of 30).

GWR day coverage: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/103615-most-juggling-catches-on-a-unicycle-blindfolded

I wonder how much longer I’ll hold this one and I’m sure Jeremy will be after it again soon. Check out his YouTube channel here.

This is one of the few “impossible” records I’ve broken. I rank the records I break on an easy, medium, hard, impossible scale. Easy means there may be someone else in the room who could break this right now, medium means anyone could break this record with some practice, hard means it takes an expert in the field with dedicated practice to break, and impossible means I may be the one person in the world who can break this record right now. 

I have held this record for most juggling catches in one minute with three objects (blindfolded) continuously since I first broke it in March of 2016 with 364 catches. I’m also the only record holder since it was a new record for Guinness at the time. 

I then attempted to break it again live on the TODAY show in September 2016. That didn’t go nearly as well as I practiced. I did break it in 2017 at the FIRST Robotics nationals competition in St. Louis with 428 catches in one minute tying the overall speed juggling record at the time. I’ve since gone on to get 502 catches in a minute with the cascade juggling patter and now Guinness accepts the shower pattern with 586 still pending Guinness approval from last December. 

Today I bested my own mark with 454 catches in a minute bringing this one over 7.5 catches per second for the first time. If no one challengers me this time, I may have to break revisit this mark again in another 3 years :). 

I ran my first ultramarathon. I did it while juggling. I also had a couple extra rules that made it a little more difficult.

1) If I drop a ball, the attempt is over (no pressure)

2) No stopping allowed or the attempt is over (don’t get a cramp)

3) The support crew cannot help with anything (make sure your shoes are tied well)

4) You are not allowed to be given food or water by an assistant, even if you’re still moving and juggling (have to take it with you!)

It was a pleasantly cool October morning with clouds in the sky when I took off at 9:35 AM. I ran a little too fast 9:03 first mile but then hovered around just under 10-minute miles until I broke the record 2 hours 32 minutes and 15.5 miles later. I wanted to run slow since I was going for distance instead of time which is why I was nearly 30 minutes slower at the half marathon than my juggling half best, and the marathon was over 50 minutes slower than my first (and only) marathon (also juggling, and over 5 years ago).

I had a couple of near drops at about 10 miles that would have cost me a shot at the record but was able to recover. After that, I didn’t have many issues. About 4 hours in, it did start raining with some wind gusts which didn’t make it pleasant on the witnesses, but it helped keep me cool. It made the juggling balls a little sticky, but nothing that would seriously hinder me.

I didn’t have any issues (other than slowing down) until I dropped a ball 116 laps + 300 meters after 5 hours 21 minutes and 23 seconds of continuous juggling and running.

The Camelback ironically is what slows me down the most. Without it, I run a good 1-1:30 minutes per mile faster. But with it, I have to keep my bouncing down so my cadence has to be slower and smoother. But without it, I don’t know that I could have gone more than 20 miles with no access to water, calories, or electrolytes. As it was, I drank a little over 2 liters of a mix of Gatorade, G2, and electrolytes.

By the numbers:

Laps run: 116.75

Miles run: 29

Throws: 60,000

Catches: 59,999

Ball weight: 135g

Total weight thrown: >17,000 lbs

Average mile pace: 11 minutes 9 seconds

Thanks to the team!

Credits

Ken Hosac – Witness, clipboard, interview

Josh Hamilton – Witness, cameras 

Michael Gilmore – Witness, cameras, clipboard

Scott Smith – Witness, cameras

Seth Lemons – Witness, cameras, interview

Jennifer Rush – Moral support, videos

J&P Moral – support, competition

Mike Rush – Moral support

Hollywood Hannon – Didn’t do a darn lick

Thanks also to Centennial High School for hosting me!

This is the real life fruit ninja. Slicing fruit while juggling 3 knives.

Jonathan threw the apples (which turned out to be a much more critical component to this record than I though) and I juggled the knives.

The knives have to switch hands left-right-left-right every throw except when an apple is being sliced and then you can have a single throw that lands back in the same hand.

I’ve been a serious juggler since college in 2004 (i.e. 5+ balls and shows for audiences) but it still took me about 1.5 years of casual training and a few weeks of serious preparation to break this record. It also took over 400 pounds of (crab) apples. Once we got got the motion and timing down, it came down to a little luck since an errant apple slice often hits the knife in the air making it impossible to catch.

Jonathan and I had a cadence that every time I caught a knife in my right hand, he’d throw an apple, and I’d slice it. This is the fastest way to execute the record and we didn’t miss a beat. He threw 41 apples in the minute, I missed only one, and sliced the other 40 into 2 pieces each (if it wasn’t completely separated, it didn’t count).

We used the crab apples from Jonathan’s tree so we didn’t waste any food for this record. It would have been easier if we’d used larger apples, but I was able to get my slices precise enough to only miss a single one.

The obvious difficult parts of this record are juggling. I have to execute a double spin left-hand throw to the left hand while using the right to catch the knife, swing back, and slice an apple that’s flying through the air without being able to focus on either. (It’s also frowned upon to catch the knives by the non-handle end…) On top of that, I have to rotate the knife after the catch to hit the apple straight on with the blade instead of just hitting is broadside.

I’m glad Jonathan had a crab apple tree in his yard that yielded over 400 lbs of apples because we had to practice a lot before we could finish a full minute of apple slice juggling with only a single miss.