Galchenko.com - Vova's Blog

Recent Posts

Haven't had a chance to post on here, since Olga and I were at the WJF convention for the last week. It was pretty awesome. Both Olga and I had a great time. I'm sure she'll post about it. I'm going to go ahead and tell you about my WJF3 experience.

Olga and I flew to Las Vegas on Sunday night, about 2 days before the convention. Kristian, Thomas, Markus Furtner, Toby and of course Jason were already there. We all stayed at Jason's. Wes showed up the next day and we all practiced together and did a little demo of what we do at a Boys and Girls club. That was pretty cool. The kids seemed to dig it and we got our first chance to run through our competition routines. We did another demo at a different Boys and Girls club on Tuesday. Wes got soooo much better. It was awesome. I love watching Wes juggle. We also did a couple of photoshoots on Tuesday. Then somehow someone heard me compliment a girl on her "sweet bazoongas" on the phone, that quickly spread amongst my friends and their friends and I never heard the end of that.

The convention started on Wednesday. Because all of the juggling I had to do at the convention, I didn't get to hang out much with anybody, really. But it was a cool convention regardless. Went through prelims for everything I tried out for on Wednesday.

On thursday I came very close to missing my own workshop. I was supposed to teach a workshop at noon, and I ended up talking to the "sweet bazoongas" girl till like 5 am the night before. Woke up like 10 minutes before the workshop was supposed to start. Was only about 5 minutes late in the end. Went through my main competition prelims later that day.

Had my ball, club and team exhibitions on Friday. That went awesome except for the fact that I hurt my right hand pretty badly. It got kinda bruised. Still bothers me a little. Oh, well. Olga and I seemed to have gotten since we last seriously practiced like a year and a half ago. We got a 6 up 360 out of 10, 10 and 11 club ultimates and 10 clubs backtoback and backtofront fairly easily. That was somewhat amusing.

Had my first batch of final competitions on Saturday. Didn't like the format of challenge competitions. We all only had one shot at each challenge. Won the 7 ball isolated endurance (beating Dietz!), 7 club isolated endurace, 5 club low 360s, 3 club low 720s. Had my next batch of competitions that evening. Won club endurance with a clean run of 170 catches with 7 clubs, won freestyle competitions for 5 (3 stage 1080) and 7 balls (5 up 360 into (8x 6)*) and for 3 (behind the back juggling) and 5 clubs (5 up 180 into over-and-back). Got second in ball endurance. That was pretty sweet. Not only did I do pretty well in all of the club events, but also beat Dietz with balls a couple of times. I was quite proud of that.

Did my main event competitions on Sunday. Went through my ball routine with only 2 drops, which was nice. The routine included among other things 4 rounds of 97531, 5 up (6x 4)* 360, 5 ball 2 stage 720, 5 ball high-mid-low shower, 6 ball shower and 966. Pretty hard routine, especially considering it's only my first year doing balls. Of course Thomas did a harder routine with only one drop and won the ball competition. I got second. Then came the club competition. Though Thomas went through his club routine cleanly, his routine wasn't that hard. It included a qualify of 6 clubs, a 5 up 360 and a variety of 4 club moves. I went through my routine with 2 drops. It was, in my opinion, the hardest club routine I've ever seen anyone do. It included among other things a 3 up 540 out of 5 clubs, 744 into 753, a 5 up 360 into (6x 4)*, 7733 with crotch throws, a long (over a qualify) run of 7 clubs. At that point I was positive I was going to win, so I went to warm up with Olga for our team competition. Then when they announced the score, it turned out that somehow Thomas beat me. I spoke to the judges and Jason and apparently Thomas won due to some kind of glitch in the scoring system that gave him a ridiculous amount of points for some fairly easy 4 club connections. Also, my last combo was completed after I ran out of my 3 minutes, and didn't count towards my score. Either way, it seemed like both Jason and the judges along with most other people watching the competition thought I should have won. But hey, I shouldn't have won last year. So I guess it's all good. I'm quite happy with how I did at the convention, and I did make pretty good money for how I did. Oh, Olga and I won teams too. Beating three other teams I think.

Comments

It's gotta be pretty humiliating for Jason and the WJF to have the Clubs competition messed up for the second time in a row.

Congratulations on your wins! I can't believe you did 966 in competition. How much did you lose by in the balls and clubs competition? Did anyone else compete in team passing?

I bet Dietz is sweating hard about his chances of holding the Overall Champion title next year!

Posted by: Lachlan | August 7, 2006 01:15 PM

Oops, sorry. I didn't notice that last line about beating 3 teams.

Posted by: Lachlan | August 7, 2006 01:36 PM

Lachlan, I'm not sure how much exactly I lost by. I know it wasn't much in clubs though. As for the teams, I added that in after you asked the question. I forgot to mention that, and your question reminded me. Thanks.

Posted by: Vova | August 7, 2006 02:05 PM

These are some pretty random questions, but how many rounds of the 5 ball high mid low shower did you get in competition and how many high throws of the 6 ball shower did you get? Those are two of my favorite tricks to watch and I'm just pretty curious. Congrats on how well you did.

Posted by: Jamie White | August 7, 2006 02:32 PM

wow you beat thomas in 7 ball endurance...how much time did you get?

Posted by: Jem | August 7, 2006 02:40 PM

I'm a bit confused. How was the club competition in 2005 messed up? I just watched it again and it seems like you were rightly the winner. Also, if Dietz won because of a glitch, couldn't they overrule that and make you the winner?

Posted by: Tom H | August 7, 2006 03:01 PM

Congrats on your success Vova! Looks like you're gonna beat Thomas next year at the overall championship!

Oh, and good luck with the "sweet bazoongas" girl! ;-)

Posted by: schani | August 7, 2006 03:50 PM

Vova, you did an amazing job in the clubs competition. I wanted to jump up and clap for you when you were done but I couldn't because I was working a camera.

Posted by: Jennifer | August 7, 2006 04:27 PM

Vova, you are a huge juggler! Keep training, you have talent!
I really like your job, and I'm planing to go to the WJF in next year. If I go, I really want to see you and Olga ;)!

Posted by: Caio | August 7, 2006 04:31 PM

Surely there should be a more human judging system put into place, especially after two problems in two consecutive years? Perhaps an extra dynamic which couldn't be realised through 'points' but through human appreciation?

Anyways, congrats mate. Wish i coulda been there to see it!

Jake

Posted by: Rollnick | August 7, 2006 04:35 PM

awesome job, Vova! I wish I had been there. Guess there's always the DVD...

Posted by: chris fowler | August 7, 2006 04:37 PM

enough juggle talk!

so...what ever happened to the "bazoongas" girl?

Posted by: keno | August 7, 2006 04:57 PM

Dear V&O
You only won teams because Team Rootberry wasn't there. Just kidding, you guys are the best congrats on your wins.
Jonathan Root, (Currently in Grand Cayman) Team Crunchberry

Posted by: jonathan Root | August 8, 2006 11:34 AM

When will it be on TV? Won't ESPN show it?

Posted by: Don | August 8, 2006 03:45 PM

Vova, Congratulations on doing so well at the WJF. I'm curious how long the 7 ball endurance lasted...that's awesome you beat Thomas! I wish I could've seen that. Cheers, -Jared

Posted by: Jared Davis | August 9, 2006 04:06 PM

Jamie, I got two rounds of 966, two rounds of high-mid-low shower, and over 12 high throws of 6 ball shower. Not sure how many high throws exactly.

Jared, I was talking about isolated endurance. That's where we stood on chairs and juggled 7 balls. It lasted for a while. Not sure how long exactly... maybe about 45 seconds to a minute before Thomas dropped?

Posted by: Vova | August 9, 2006 05:15 PM

Thats really impressive. It doesn't surprize me Olga and you won teams. Good luck with becoming a citizen, or whatever you're hoping to achieve I hear you won't be back once you leave for sometime. Keep up the good performances.

Posted by: Jon | August 13, 2006 01:53 AM

Also, I have renamed myself Jon J to avoid confusion with another Jon on these blogs.

Posted by: Jon J | August 13, 2006 02:16 AM

Drunkenness reveals what soberness conceals... Rebecca

Posted by: Rebecca | November 21, 2006 10:05 PM