What a Ball . . . or 3, or 4!

Michelle Gerdes started juggling 13 years ago because her doctor said it would help maintain her peripheral vision, which was being slowly lost due to a condition weakening her eye muscles.

“It helps out my eyes a lot,” said Gerdes, 34, of Long Beach. “Now I know a great bunch of jugglers, and I married one of them.”

Gerdes met her husband Steve while juggling with friends at Hermosa Beach in 1985. They married soon after, incorporating a juggling performance into their wedding ceremony. As the couple walked down the aisle, guests tossed seven clubs over them.

“People were wincing because the jugglers were passing the clubs too close to their heads,” Gerdes fondly remembers.

She and dozens of like-minded enthusiasts gathered to celebrate World Juggling Day on Saturday morning at Irvine Regional Park. Organized by the Orange Jugglers club, the festival brought together jugglers of all ages--novices and veterans alike.

“It’s a day to let the world know juggling is fun,” said Jahnathan Whitfield, 41, said.

Whitfield, a professional juggler who lives in Modjeska Canyon, teaches children the skill at schools.

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Whitfield was joined at the event by some decidedly less experienced hands.

“I went to the circus and saw all these professionals and wanted to learn to juggle. It’s pretty neat,” said Alex Jarman, 11, of Mission Viejo. He said he enjoys performing for his family but warns that juggling looks “really easy, but it’s really hard.”

Nearby, Chuck Lowry was having a hard time keeping up with a routine called “Bruno’s Nightmare,” in which the jugglers walk back and forth while tossing clubs.

“I’m really bad at it. I keep losing count and dropping them,” said Lowry, 48, of Anaheim.

Lowry was lured into juggling by his son Mike, who read a book on the subject and then taught his father the necessary tricks. “I had always wanted to learn. It was easy for him to talk me into it,” he said.

The father and son toss clubs at least once a week, sometimes even inside their home. “We have scrapes on the ceiling. My wife’s thrilled about that,” Lowry said.

Mike Lowry, 22, can juggle as many as five clubs or seven balls. He’s proud of his father’s efforts.

“He’s a cool dad to be able to do it with me,” the son said.

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Others said they liked juggling for the exercise. Steve Healy, 28, of Westminster said he took up juggling after a knee operation forced him to stop running. “It’s a hobby for me,” he said. “I needed something I could do and stand still.”

“This is my passion here, the devil stick,” said Ron Polk, 57, of Anaheim, referring to a stunt in which the juggler keeps a big stick twirling in the air with two smaller sticks.

Mastering new tricks is important for jugglers, and audiences like routines that involve dangerous props. The more dangerous, the better.

“Chain saws are one of the more popular things people ask for,” said Steve Gerdes, a festival organizer.

But such staging aside, he said juggling involves little illusion.

“Juggling is pure skill. Either you do it or you don’t,” Steve Gerdes said. “There’s nothing hidden, and there’s really no way to fake it.”