Get out of your comfort zone and learn something new!
As a young kid playing ball sports growing up, I always thought I was coordinated…until I came across juggling. It was at a music festival just before the first Melbourne lockdown that I attended this juggling workshop and quickly found out that I was a beginner, and there was a lot of work that needed to be done.
So lockdown arrived and that led to a lot of ample time at home, this was the time to immerse myself into a skill and get out of my comfort zone.
Why should I go ahead and put in the time to learn the skill of juggling? I asked myself this question at the start of my journey and wondered what benefits I would get out of this other than a few tricks. I’m not applying to perform at the circus … so why should I waste my time and effort into this hobby?
It was at this point that I was following some coaches on social media who were using juggling as an accessory to their overall weight training. It was almost like a way of life for them to be able to juggle well, and just be good at so many different skills in and outside the gym. Keegan Smith and Conor Desmond were the two coaches who had a major influence on my initial interest. These guys were jacked, could lift heavy, do all sorts of gymnastics movements, and to top it all off they could juggle up to 5 balls at a time comfortably. It just looked downright cool and inspiring, and I wanted what those guys were having, so it was at that point that I dived right into the juggling journey starting at 3 balls.
Where do I start...Is there a training program for this?
I started searching for juggling tutorials on YouTube, and the name that came up the most was ‘Taylor Tries’. Her videos were easy to watch, the skills were broken down into easy steps, and before I knew it I was juggling 3 balls, and the tricks started to develop.
It quickly became an addiction, as I could literally see the skill progression happening in front of my eyes. We all want that feeling…breaking through barriers and overcoming challenges. Juggling is basically this in a nutshell for me. Adding the aspect of being able to share tricks with friends makes for a social element too. I understand that we’re all living busy lives and we don’t have ample amounts of time to pursue different challenges. All I ask is for you to try Juggle for 5 minutes at some point in the day. It might be in between sets at the gym, first thing when you wake up to get the brain firing, or with the kids at night so you can get them involved too. The great thing about juggling is that there is no ceiling, no endpoint. Your progression is infinite, you get rewarded for the work you put in… and this outlook can help with your perspective on life too. Below is the first video I watched in my Juggling journey from Taylor Tries who I suggested earlier. Take a look, and get started for yourself!