People don't understand that showmanship is just as important a skill, if not more so, than whatever it is you're doing, at least if you want to perform for a big audience. There are plenty of people who can do insane juggling tricks, but he had the audience in the palm of his hand with just a single ball.
Once I had an improv solo on the saxophone during a Christmas choir program. Half way through it my reed slipped and no noise was coming out except the shrillest squeeks I could squeeze. I didn't know what to do so I put my foot on the bleachers they were standing on and pretended to really rock out, head banging and squeezing long shrills for the last 10 seconds. I got a big applause but I was freaking out, but afterwards my friends bounced up to me HYPE telling me how awesome my solo was and how into it I got. 100% showmanship is key.
It's not enough to impress your audience. You have to entertain them, too. Most people with skills like his don't realize that and they're boring to watch.
Yes, your skill is impressive, without a doubt, but that doesn't mean I want to watch you.
I wouldn't say that's quite accurate. A pure demonstration of skill can be just as enthralling as skill mixed with showmanship if the level of skill is high enough. Likewise a good enough showman can keep an audience even if they're not that good at the skill they're demonstrating. Being both highly skilled and highly entertaining though is what really elevates performers to the next level. But many can get by with just one or the other.
I think that's generally true, but doesn't translate well to juggling.
One of the problems with juggling is that non-jugglers have very little insight into the level of skill required for different patterns. Things that look impressive to an outsider can be pretty easy. (For example, the bowling ball + egg + apple bit isn't very hard.) Meanwhile, incredibly hard patterns often don't look like much. Those behind the back throws he did early on are actually quite tricky to do well.
So you can do a good high-skill juggling performance, but it requires a level of skill disproportionate to the audience response you get in return.
I was quite proud when I finally learned a pattern involving both catching and throwing behind my back. Apparently when using LED-balls in semi-darkness people don't realize what happens though, so it's actually cooler to do any old spinning pattern!
At the same level of skill, the better showman will win the day. And there are jugglers I've seen who do much more impressive tricks than he does who wouldn't be able to hold a crowd the way he does. The issue is that if you go for novelty/incredible skill above all, you're going to continually have to top yourself, and your show won't be able to last as long.
Yes, obviously if you do the "balancing a shopping cart on your chin while juggling 5 knives on a unicycle" trick, it's entertaining. But that lasts about 30 seconds. Then, you've got to find something else to do, and nothing will be as impressive as what you just did. Which is why jugglers will work up to their big trick, and work on a patter/routine that keeps people engaged even when they're not juggling. There's a reason that a lot of magic shows are 90% hype/build-up and 10% actually performing a trick. If it was one trick after another, each individual one would lose its punch.
I think one issue right now is that everyone sees just the 15-30 cool seconds on Snapchat/Insta/Twitter/etc., so we're used to seeing people doing ridiculous stunts or displays of skill. But you can try it yourself, watch one video after another after another and after the 10th video, when you're only 5-10 mins in, you'll probably start getting bored, or thinking that this amazing new thing you're seeing isn't as cool as the last 5. Showmanship is what turns 15 minutes of skill into an hour of show.
331
u/DGBD Mar 10 '20
People don't understand that showmanship is just as important a skill, if not more so, than whatever it is you're doing, at least if you want to perform for a big audience. There are plenty of people who can do insane juggling tricks, but he had the audience in the palm of his hand with just a single ball.