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Anthony Gatto (real name Anthony Commorata) is one the world’s greatest jugglers, having appeared on TV shows such as That’s Incredible and The Tonight Show, having performed in Las Vegas and the Cirque du Soleil, and achieved many juggling records in his long career (including 9 balls and 12 rings).

Then around 2015 he quit juggling and started his own concrete resurfacing company in Orlando, Florida, Big Top Concrete Resurfacing, mystifying a lot of people in the juggling community, but not me. There have been attempts by some writers to explain this apparently abrupt career shift, including this article (https://www.floridatrend.com/article/19006/a-famous-jugglers-concrete-plans) from a hack reporter who seems to imply that Commorata never actually enjoyed juggling, which personally I think is simply untrue. Sure his dad Nick did sort of push him into a juggling career when he was a youngster but obviously he had a true passion for it as well. And in watching the documentary Gatto: From Vaudeville Acro-Cat To The King Of Juggling-The Story of Nick and Anthony Gatto you hear from Anthony in his own words why he took a hiatus from juggling when he was in his early 20s to start a landscaping business in Las Vegas. Basically as he said, he had reached a time in his juggling career when he could no longer get away with being a cute kid doing a difficult act, but also I think he was bored by juggling as well at that time, having done it for so many years.

And in this last career change, I think he is probably settled into his new life as a contractor, which makes sense since he has a wife and two children. People have said that he still might show up at a juggling convention, but I don’t think that is going to happen; he seems perfectly happy doing what he is doing.

On a personal note, I’m an amateur juggler that had originally taught myself to juggle, and have had two hiatuses from (in my case) the hobby myself. The first one occurred because at the time I had wanted to learn numbers juggling like 4 and 5 balls but I was in such a knowledge vacuum then that I didn’t know how to proceed. Then later on I had purchased a set of “Crystal Stix” (devil/flower sticks) at a Rennaisance fair and also managed to acquire juggling books and get info on the web and got back into juggling in a big way. When my skills had reached a certain level, I had attempted to learn 7 ball juggling, and the resulting practice sessions go to be so mind-numbing I had to quit for quite a long time. Even though I had bought some new toys at the time to break the monotony, boomerangs and Astrojax, it wasn’t enough to stave off the boredom.

So yeah, I totally understand where Anthony is coming from.