The Art of Juggling

The Soviet circus school trained some of the best technical jugglers of the past century. If you are interested in improving your juggling skills, now with this English translation and long after the collapse of the Soviet Union, you can finally study juggling from the same textbook that the official Moscow School of Circus and Variety Arts used to teach their students.

Nikolay E. Bauman was a well known Russian juggler who graduated from the Moscow School of Circus and Variety Arts in 1930. Bauman became a professor at the Moscow School of Circus and Variety Arts in 1947. In 1962, he published this juggling textbook, “The Art of Juggling.

With 125 pages and 169 drawings, this manual will teach you the proper technique, mindset, and training methods to become a solid juggler and performer. In the first few chapters, the author covers the basics. After that, you will see and learn about much less common juggling and balancing stunts from a bygone era. Explained are many tricks from the repertoire of legendary jugglers like Enrico Rastelli, Massimiliano Truzzi, Alexander Kiss, Jenny Jaeger, and Boris Jewgrafow.

The book also includes drawings on how to make a mouthstick, Salerno rings, and other unique juggling props.

Thanks to Alan Howard, as an appendix, you will also find the chapter on juggling from the rare second book that Bauman wrote.