All posts by davidrush@gmail.com

Juggling, World Records

The Long Juggling Balance

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.

My longest YouTube video ever

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.

Juggling on the balance board

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.

Board off-kilter

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.

Lifting heal to get some blood circulating in my foot again

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.

Dropping the balls as I fall off at the end of the attempt

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.

World Records

Popping it into the Mouth

Jonathan “Hollywood” Hannon strikes again. This time we got 54 in a minute with popcorn thrown from 2 meters away.

The hard part about this record is that popcorn without all the goodies on it is light. It doesn’t follow a typical parabolic trajectory of a flying object since wind resistance acts on it more than heavier objects. Any stickiness also makes it not want to leave the hands which resulted in a few errant throws.

Hollywood used his ambidextrous skills once again to get as many over to me as possible and I was able to nab 54 of them with my mouth before quickly spitting them out to catch the next crushing the previous record of 37.

World Records

Slippery Stack

We got our hands dirty for this one. Or was it, “we got them clean”? Jonathan “Hollywood” Hannon and I decided to tackle yet another COVID lockdown record and this time did it with an ingredient we cannot get enough of these days: wet soap.

We had to stack bars of soap that had been soaked in water for at least 1 minute before the attempt began. We had to stack them 1 at a time alternating between us. I let my fingernails grow out so I could get a good grip on them and so did Jonathan, but he decided to grab them without the nails anyway.

Preparing for the celebration high five as we wait for the 5 second timer to expire.

The first time we tried it the stack fell down. It has to remain standing for 5 seconds after the minute is up. The biggest challenge is actually getting the bars to stay on top of each other. They’re so slick that as you add more bars on top, any variance on the bottom is amplified and it trieds to squeeze the ones below out. We also didn’t have the stack straight. On the second try we reserved the last 5 seconds to just stabilizing the stack. It wasn’t quite straight, but it was sturdy enough to survive the required 5 seconds, and a bit longer.

We managed 47 bars in 1 minute surpassing the previous mark of 40 set by another team of 2.

Juggling, World Records

Knife Juggling Fruit Ninja

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

Juggling, World Records

52 Records in 52 Weeks of 2020

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.

World Records

Count Your Chips

… as fast as possible.

Kenny Rogers once said:

“You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run

You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done”

I think I made a decent compromise here of counting them as fast as possible. I stacked 79 poker chips in one minute breaking the previous Guinness World Record’s title of 75.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time stacking things as quickly as possible which is what makes this record possible.

I also enjoy a little Texas Hold ’em (low stakes only), and while my math background from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seems like it might be handy, it’s really not helpful for this record, nor for playing poker with the professionals (which I’ve never done).

I’m at 47 records submitted to Guinness in 2020. Can I do another 5 in the next 11 days?

World Records

Samurai Sword Grape Slicing on a Balance Board

The first time we broke this record, the mark to beat was 18. This time is was 61. It was harder this time.

The record was for the most grapes sliced in one minute with a samurai sword while standing on a balance board.

We thought it might be as easy as last time since he’s ambidextrous and I’m super-practiced on a balance board. It wasn’t that easy. After warming up, and two full attempts, we ran out of grapes. We had to come back for another night of attempts and this time we got it. The first time we broke the record we got 57, this time, we got 68 beating the standing record of 61.

It may not have been quite as easy, but that just means it was that much more meaningful. It’s credited as a one-person record, but Hollywood Hannon made the Guinness website in both picture and name, so I’m going to say this one belongs to him as well.

He did make the Guinness website in photo and name, so I feel like this one belongs just as much to him as it does to me.

Hollywood Hannon in name and print on the Guinness Website.

This was the third of three records broken on Guinness World Record day 2020. It’s nice that we’ve been on the same quaranteam this year.

Juggling, World Records

World’s Fastest Juggling on a Unicycle

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!

Juggling, World Records

Blind Unicycle Juggling

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.

World Records

Pop It Up

I’ve been practicing to catch stuff in my mouth so I decided to go after another one. This time for the most candy-coated corn caught in the mouth by an individual in one minute (self thrown). The previous record was 41.

There are a couple of tricky things about this record beyond simply catching the popcorn in the mouth, the hardest for me was actually getting popcorn into my throwing hand fast enough and the other was throwing the popcorn high enough for Guinness but not so high it took too long to come down or had too much error in the throw.

My favorite part about this record (and may these days) is my two boys cheering me on (as they happily ate the excess candy corn). That was even more special than getting 50 to break another Guinness World Record’s title.