Prior to the start of his freshman year, junior Jake Hershenhouse taught himself how to juggle and found a new hobby. He is now president of South’s juggling club and has performed in the Variety Show with the club.

What made you want to learn to juggle?

“The summer before my freshman year, I was like ‘wow, I wanna learn how to juggle,’ and it wasn’t that big of a deal. I didn’t really have anything going on […], and I just wanted to learn how. It’s one of those quirky things, and it just really clicked.”

What makes juggling hard?

“You really just have to wrap your mind around the concept of juggling and how it works, and then it’s also hard to get your hands to do what your mind is telling them.”

What is your favorite juggling memory?

“My favorite juggling [memories are] probably from v-show. It has happened a few times actually where you have a performance and you know your lines and you know what you’re going to do, but you don’t really know how it’s going to go. Once you get it completely perfect in a v-show with no drops, and you get all the lines right, that’s one of my favorite juggling memories because all of your hard work pays off.”

What was the experience like juggling in this year’s v-show act?

“It was super cool. I’m the president of juggling club, so I had to take a leadership role in this Variety Show act, but I also had the help of some other expert jugglers in the club. It was a whole lot of fun [going through] the process of writing the script, rehearsing, auditioning and just […] getting the patterns down and the lines down.”

What is the coolest juggling trick that you can do?

“The hardest thing I can do is five balls. It’s literally five balls in the air at one time, and it’s really hard. I’ve [also] juggled knives before at work. I work at Potbelly’s and sometimes you get bored if you’ve already done all your work, and you’ve got to pass the time. Other than that, at juggling club, we do pin juggling and ring juggling.”

Is it hard to balance doing cool tricks and also finding other ways to entertain an audience?

“Maybe the stuff that I find really cool and the stuff the audience finds really cool are completely different. [When I see a juggling act,]  I’m like, ‘wow, that guy is an awesome juggler. That’s sick how he’s doing all that [stuff] up there.’ But then someone else might just be looking for some funny jokes.”

What do you love about juggling?

“I just like how there is always order in whatever you do. You know what’s going to happen, and even though there is some chaos going on, you’re the one that is controlling it.”