By Kyle Petersen

Fushigi: something fishy...

By now, the contact juggling community has been set aflame by the “Fushigi Magic Gravity Ball”, a contact juggling ball that has been rebranded and mass marketed.  The product is featured on nationally televised advertisements which show video of  professional contact jugglers intertwined with beginners demonstrating extremely basic maneuvers. In between these demonstrations are testimonials from everyday people, including one teenybopper who exclaims, “Fushigi! Like, I don’t even know what it is, but it’s like, the coolest thing ever, and I can do it!”

But does the Fushigi mean the death of contact juggling as we know it? Past history suggests the answer is no. Just as the Sham-Wow did not replace the everyday dishrag and the Showtime Rotisserie (“Set it, and forget it!”) did not replace the oven, the Fushigi Ball will most likely go the way of countless other As-Seen-On-TV products and simply fade away. That doesn’t mean there isn’t cause for alarm.

What is so outrageous and upsetting to many in the contact juggling community is that the Fushigi has cheapened the entire art form. It has now made it into a “trick” that anyone can do. While I do not consider myself a contact juggler, I do use a little bit of contact juggling in my act. At a recent performance, I was appalled when a chorus of children began yelling out “He’s cheating! He’s using a Fushigi!” after I pulled out a 3.5 inch red stage ball and demonstrated some basic body rolls. I was upset, but some people are devastated. Jonathan of Street Juggling even went so far as to say that he’d never use acrylic contact juggling balls again.

While we love that the Fushigi has brought contact juggling to a wider audience, we feel their business practices are unethical and that their advertisement completely misrepresents the product. They have taken an existing product, renamed it, claimed it was brand new, and then warned consumers to beware of imitators. They have labeled the ball as a “Magic Gravity Ball”, even though it isn’t magic, and doesn’t defy gravity (technically, it is a ball, so partial credit is due). They have intertwined professionals and people off the street in their commercial to create the misleading illusion that any Tom, Dick or Harry can instantly master even the most advanced tricks.

The bottom line is this: we commend the makers of Fushigi for their business acumen, if not for their business ethics. While the Fushigi represents a major challenge to the contact juggling community, it is the responsibility of the contact juggling community to rise above. We worry that the community will respond either with defeatism or by lashing out in anger. Neither response is constructive or appropriate. The public’s sudden and new-found interest in the Fushigi is a golden opportunity for those in the contact juggling community to reach a broader audience, educate the public, and redefine the art of contact juggling as they see it.