Guest post, by Daniel (The LadyPrefers2Save’s better half).
Spring break is just around the corner. That means no school for a whole week! Kids home for a week and looking for something to do. This may be the article to help keep your sanity, and look like a pretty cool parent to boot. How? Teach them to juggle. Balls never need batteries, they’re cheap, and will keep your kids doing something productive and healthy. “I can’t juggle!” you say. That’s fine, I’ll teach you and you can teach your kids.
So, you may be asking why Juggling? Well juggling is a really good exercise for life. In fact, there are a lot of benefits to this sport too! Juggling can help you with the following life-boosting skills:
Brain growth: Juggling has been scientifically proven to help your mind grow larger, prevent gray matter deterioration in the elderly and help with focus issues with children with ADHD.
Posture: The average person spends 8-12 hours daily at a computer, causing your neck and back to become unaligned. You can combat this unhappy hunched back situation by juggling is perfect. As juggling forces the proper body and spine alignment used to stand up straight, relaxing neck muscles, and correct hand-eye coordination.
Anxiety: Juggling can help users learn ways to de-stress, aid in anxiety relief, and help relieve computer screen eye strain.
Focus: Juggling helps users focus various muscles, including neurological related muscle groups, and through regular practice and focus can be an overall, built-in reward. Consider this, one of the worlds premier jugglers, Reid Belstock, transformed by juggling. He sited focus and developing time management skills as the two major benefits to juggling:
Being an adaptable learner: The act of Juggling helps your mind adapt to learning new sequences of movement, and when you gain the learning to learn idea, you’re on your way to being a super learner.
Relaxation: Juggling is like meditation for the mind. Juggling is like Active Meditation, in that it helps you focus on the present, be more aware of your surroundings, positive self awareness, and helps you be aware to shapes, colors, and space in new ways. be aware of yourself.
So with this in mind, how do you start?
- First find three balls that are about the same size. Tennis balls, racquetballs, and even baseballs will do, but I recommend tennis balls or bean bags. The following steps are laid out to help you train your brain to do to things at the same time. The balls will travel in a pattern similar to an infinity sign. Don’t rush yourself. So take a deep breath and let’s start.
- Take one ball and toss it from your right hand to your left. The ball should be at a comfortable height. The hand that is about to catch should not need to move much to catch the ball. This will make the next few steps easier if your throws are consistent.
- Once you can throw the ball back and forth at least 10 times without dropping it, pat your stomach once with the hand right before you catch the ball. This will help you prepare to make the second throw. Do this until you can go ten throws in a row without dropping the ball. Go for two pats before you catch and ten throws without a drop.
- Now you are ready for two throws. Throw the first ball from your dominant hand. At the top of the arc of the first throw, throw the second ball behind the first ball. It should happen at an equal cadence of 1, 2, 3, 4 or throw throw catch catch. Take your time.
- This is the last step. Place two balls in your dominant hand and one in the other. In the hand with two balls, hold one with your first two fingers and your thumb. Hold the second with your other two fingers and your palm. Start with the ball between your first two fingers and thumb. Make the same pattern you have practiced. This time instead of stopping, make another throw. It should follow a pattern of 1, 2, 3, 4, or throw, throw, throw, catch. You have just completed a cascade pattern.
So, that’s it folks! Take your time. If you run into issues go back a step. All things worth doing, take time and effort. Believe in yourself. You can do this on your own first or even try to work on this as your kids do. Whatever you choose to do, have fun.
I will post a quick video to give you a visual of the instructions.
Your friend,
Daniel
