I’m often asked a variant of this question: What’s my favorite Guinness World Record? Which is the hardest? Of which record are you most proud?

This one.

World’s Fastest Juggling.

It’s defined as the most juggling catches in 1 minute. Like most people, I take the most pride in the things I have work the hardest on, and I have practiced for this record for nearly as long as I’ve been setting Guinness World Records.

After assembling the timers and witnesses at Cradlepoint on a Wednesday afternoon, on my first try, I got 556 catches in one minute beating the previous mark of 502 catches in one minute by over 10%.

When I first ran across this Guinness World Record in 2015 the mark stood at 422 catches in one minute. In my mind, it was nearly untouchable. But then I approached breaking the record with a growth mindset I practiced with a vengeance.  I believed I could break the record and spent countless hours on deliberate practice. I broke it in June of 2016 with a run of 428 catches in one minute to lay claim to the tile title of World’s Fastest Juggler. To date, I know of no one who has passed this mark using the cascade juggling pattern. I subsequently hit 472 catches in 1 minute in 2017 as the first minute of a 3 minute Guinness speed juggling run. Today I publish the video with 495 catches -the first known run of over 8 catches per second.

The Guinness World Record mark is now 556 catches in one minute.

Guinness actually has 2 three speed juggling records: “Most juggling catches in one minute (3 balls)” and it implicitly required the use of the cascade juggling pattern. This is the record I previously broke. They also had a similar record for “Most juggling catches in one minute (3 objects)” that explicitly called out that any juggling pattern could be used, so the faster shower pattern was allowed and it stood at 466 catches in one minute. Guinness recently accepted an application for the fastest 3 ball juggling using the shower pattern after previously rejecting other applications using it. In the meantime, JISCON (Juggling Information Services Committee on Numbers) only counts the high throws in the shower pattern as “catches” so the 556 Guinness “catches” would only count as “278” catches.

I contacted Guinness to let them know of the inconsitancy and they determined they were going to stick with their decision to allow the shower juggling pattern for the 3 ball record. Eleven months of practice later I can lay claim to both Guinness World Records using the shower juggling pattern (556) and the JISCON record with the cascade pattern (495) for speed juggling.

I filmed the 3 ball cascade record at lunch earlier in the week after a quick 2-mile run (while juggling) on the treadmill to warm up.

I then broke the 3 ball shower Guinness World Records during a live event with witnesses and a news station present. I broke it on the first try which was good since I got so excited during the attempt my arms nearly turned to jelly.

I invite challengers to these records as I love a challenge and I know I can go faster and just need the motivation to do so.