Vova Galchenko

Bio:
Born in 1987, I started juggling in my home town of Penza, Russia when I was six as part of my parents' grand master plan to keep my younger sister and I off the streets. From foreign languages to pull-ups, from math and sciences to juggling, we did it all. My dad was a strong advocate for achievement being key to social mobility and hard work being key to achievement. As my sister and I witnessed hard work bringing in rewards, it reinforced our drive to work even harder. The virtuous cycle led us to performing at various events in Russia, some including guests from abroad. With help of a kind American juggler we met at that time, we bought a video camera and started posting videos of our juggling online. As is well known now, the internet has the power to accelerate the hard work <=> achievement flywheel dramatically. Within a couple of years, we started getting invited to headline juggling events around the world as well as teach workshops. In our early teens, we travelled all over the world and by ages 15 and 12 we landed in the United States. With a great degree of help from the juggling community, we've been able to get settled in the new country and juggle professionally. My achievements spanned from media appearances on The Ellen Degeneres Show, Nightline ABC and many others to winning multiple world juggling championships. Eventually, getting in a car accident scared me into a career in IT that I have grown to enjoy even more so than juggling professionally, but I will never forget that it's juggling that has afforded all of this to me. I still love watching it done well and dabble in it myself occasionally. Having seen how far technical juggling has been propelled by the ability to brag about how good you are on the internet, I can only begin to imagine the explosion of skill that would be set off if juggling made it into the Olympics. Let's make it happen!

Why I Became A WJF Rep:
Learning correctly from the very beginning is essential in maximizing the potential of our future Olympic competitors. I'm honored to have the opportunity to play a small role in guiding the first generation of Olympic jugglers down that path.

Services Available
Offers a juggling skill demonstration/explanation at the top of each class
Will stay at a school/venue for the day and teach up to 6 periods of juggling lessons