As well as improving your hand/eye co-ordination and providing a hugely satisfying challenge as you learn more tricks and add more balls, you also get to make constant genitalia jokes! Flashing balls, dropping balls…it’s endless fun! So…where does the saving the world part come in?
Juggling is all about getting together with other people, sharing skills, teaching those who want to learn and encouraging them to do better. Hanging out with like-minded people who are happy to help you out trying to get to grips with Mill’s Mess promotes a non-hierachical way of learning and removes the dynamic of teacher/student since no-one has to be verified ‘expert’ before they can begin teaching or sharing their tricks with another and it’s well noted that the best way to learn something is, in fact, to start trying to teach it! As soon as you’ve picked up the basics with juggling (and any derivative thereof, say poi, devil stick, diablo &c) you can turn around and help somebody else learn. Even though there are set patterns and tricks to practice with all the above, it is possible and positively encouraged to come up with new tricks, easier ways of making tricks look flashy, basically using the toys however you feel comfortable and in whatever manner you have fun with them, and so you can learn from people who have been playing for less time than you, people who have developed different styles…the possibilities are endless!
For me, juggling has also meant that I get to go and volunteer in Peru later this year, where I’m going to teach children how to make and play poi and juggling balls in the Sacred Valley, which is a bit fantastic!
Skill-sharing and non-hierachical thinking are a part of what the world needs more of if we are to leave capitalism behind and enter into a new way of living, and, for now, juggling groups encourage and promote these ways of thinking. So hop to it!
I wrote last year about how to make sock poi and the Internet Juggling Database is a bit good for finding juggling groups in your area! Otherwise, head over to YouTube for a few tutorials, although that rather defeats the object of the social, skill-sharing aspect! If you live in the UK, then I’ll be travelling the country during August! Don’t be afraid to drop me an email and I might just drop by for an impromptu workshop!
Got a Simple Way to Save the World you’d like to share? E-mail me at SW2 @throwawayliterature.com or tweet me!
Tags: juggle
Sometimes, this summer before you go, you need to teach me to use my poi
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June 25th, 2010 at 19:12
I shall! I’m back on the 28th and leaving again on the 6th, with a day trip to Brighton sometime in between, but other than that I am free to teach, and eat!
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