Sometimes the juggling ball continues to fall out of your hand when catching the ball. Go back and do more hand exercises using both hands developing fine motor skills, especially in the area of touch, as demonstrated by Lincoln and Emelia in Juggling Brain video Step 2. This is to help the message to get quickly from your hand to your brain to prompt you to close your hand over the ball. After you consciously do this for practice, it will become natural and you will be able to concentrate on juggling 3 balls, which is what you want to do!
We were going to make a video to demonstrate how to juggle Chocolates (see post) and had everything lined up - camera, masked juggler, chocolates in the refrigerator……
Uh Oh ….. then we discovered another Masked Juggler, who shall remain nameless, had taken and eaten all the juggling chocolates !!! So if you can’t visualize chocolates, how about visualizing big purple grapes?
Why are we talking about how to juggle grapes?
To show you how you can keep throwing your juggling balls close to you - up instead of out. Juggle something you love to eat and pretend to throw them towards your mouth - don’t drop them and keep imagining them falling into your mouth. Can you taste those large purple grapes now? Soon you will be throwing that third ball up instead of out, and juggling 3 balls with the best of them. Our masked juggler who had to settle on grapes, eventually couldn’t resist catching one in his mouth and savouring the flavour!
When you are learning how to juggle, learning to throw three balls in a similar arc requires practice using preferred hand and non-preferred hand. It helps to trick your brain. Visualize chocolates, marshmallows or cherries, something you love and pretend to throw them towards your mouth - don’t drop them and keep imagining them falling into your mouth. Can you taste those rich creamy chocolates now? Soon you will be throwing that third ball up instead of out, and juggling 3 balls with the best of them.
Juggling not only exercises the body but stimulates eye function. Watching the balls keeps the eye muscles more flexible, and makes eyes coordinate more efficiently together. There are six eye muscles and just as you need to strengthen your biceps by exercises and repetition, so your eyes need practice to spot a target and move smoothly in pursuit. What do we need for reading? Eyes! What a fun way to keep your eyes in shape for your favorite fiction book!
When beginning to learn how to juggle make sure you have a wide base to start with – feet astride- a juggler’s stance. You need good balance when juggling. You are relying on your body balance mechanism to maintain your posture as your eyes are fixed on a moving target. Check Step 7 in the Juggling Brain video for the juggler’s stance. Generally we use our vision and vestibular system to maintain our balance but in juggling we rely on balance mechanism and information coming from our feet and ankles.
To begin juggling one ball our eyes need to practice fixating on a moving target. Fixing both eyes on the target stimulates the visual system and from there smooth pursuit of the moving ball is required where the ball moves up and over to our other hand. This is where you start in Step 1 of the Juggling Brain video. Sounds easy doesn’t it. Take your time to teach this skill to your eye muscles. They may not have had this experience before. Later on when more advanced you need only look at the ball at the top of the arc. But first you need to learn to look at the ball all the way. This applies to all ages. Remember, the eyes have it! What could be easier for step 1.
