Welcome back Blog Thatter’s,
This blog post is officially killing two birds with one stone (not that I condone that kind of thing… depending on what kind of birds they are). It’s Volume Three of the Former Clown Chronicles (just in case anyone cares- here’s Volume One and Two) and it also doubles as my entry into Blog This Challenge Number 38– How I Learned To….
Here’s the thing. My sense of shame and self-respect are gone, people, gone. I think I’ve entered the Blog This challenge about six times and the most I have ever gotten is three votes. So this time, I am fully prepared to beg for votes. Voting opens Thursday. None of this “Check out the entries and vote for the best”. Stuff that for diplomacy. Vote for me. Me, me, me. If you like. Pretty please.
Anyways, enough of my drivel. On with the show…..
Juggling is great exercise, great stress relief and, according to Google and my yoga teacher, helps connect the right and left hemispheres of the brain and get them to work together. Whatever that means. Apparently, it’s quite good for you.
I was taught to juggle by my mentor and love-affair-turned-sour, Gooba the Clown. I learned to juggle because I had just dropped out of uni and left behind my extremely expensive HECS debt to become a professional clown. So I figured I probably should be a ‘proper’ one.
For those of you not in the know, there are a few basic types of juggling. You have scarves, which purist clown snobs will tell you is not ‘real’ juggling. Personally I think it’s quite pretty, and I can do it. So I like it. So there.
Then there is hoops (difficult but quite effective- one I can only just do) and clubs (also quite difficult. I can’t do this one at all. But I’m a shortie and each club is 50 cm’s long.Ttrying to juggle three of them, I almost have the equivalent of my own height in the air). Then, of course, there is all kinds of crazy things like fire clubs, knives, chainsaws, and eggs. And the truly incredible contact juggling, as seen in by children of the Eighties in The Labyrinth.
And then, of course, there’s balls.
As I mentioned earlier, getting your first full revolution with juggling balls (where all three balls are thrown and caught) is muchly difficult, but incredibly rewarding. I can guarantee once you do it you’ll be jumping up and down going “I did it! I did it!” and doing the Sara-Marie style bum-dance. Or maybe that’s just me.
Anyhows, for any aspiring jugglers or those suffering from the condition commonly known as Repressed Clown Syndrome, here are some tips for learning to juggle.
Get good balls. The heavier, the better.
Don’t worry about catching, just throwing. To start with, anyway. The trick is in the timing- practise throwing your first two balls- right hand first, then the left when the right one reaches the top of it’s arc. Once you’ve perfected that, you can start catching them and add another one (or two or three) balls in.
Spend time in the bedroom. Yep, that’s right. Learn to juggle standing next to your bed. To start with, you are going to be doing a lot of dropping. You’re not even trying to catch them, remember? And every time you bend all the way the over to pick the balls up, you make yourself dizzy, which significantly decrease your chances of catching the next throw. Geddit?
Once you get tricky, don’t look up. Belive me- no matter how high you throw the ball, it will come back down. There is no need to turn your face upward to check it’s progress. Spoken by experience, a black eye and a party full of kids laughing at me (and not in the good, ‘oh that clown is funny’ way- more in the ‘Haha! She’s bleeding!’ kind of way).
Hold off on the fire. And the chainsaws. And probably even the eggs. Just in case you’re not as good as think you are…
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I can totally do that. Give me a couple of days to dig out the dvd's
Ohhh, that contact juggling is amazingly pretty. I've never been able to learn to juggle.
I vote for a video of you juggling!!
Hi Lori,
Well personally I love the direct approach, so I hope that the begging pays off in votes for you this time.
I am a new blogger and new to blog this. Look forward to following your blog.
LOL I am really unco-ordinated at the best of times, but hey guess what??? You made me want to give it a go. Looks like Easter weekend the kids and I may just have to have a juggling contest…..hmmmm maybe I should have the video camera at the ready lol!!
Learning to juggle sounds so easy!
Wish I had the patience to get it right.
Ha ha ha – I gave up the Blog This challenges. My fragile ego just couldn't take it anymore!
Wow if I practice really hard maybe I can put on a show for the hubby and kids while I'm folding laundry. Instead of pretty scarves it will be holey socks and saggy knickers.
Learning to juggle is on my list of things to do. I did learn to juggle scarves for the school circus when I was about 6 but I think all skills went out the window when I hit puberty!
Anyone can vote, you only have to be Aussie to be a member.
Begging works, well it did for me, lol.
Oh, and threats work well too!
There she goes with the scarves again.
Let's see, I've got balls, absolutely, and I'm big on spending time in the bedroom. I'm probably a natural. Hell, bring on the flaming torches already.
Do you have to be Australian to vote? Isn't Blog This an Oz thing?
What a great post!
I laughed, attempted juggling, and then put the balls to the back of the cupboard for another 10 years.
You're the best juggling teacher
I'm *almost* there 
This just makes me smile.