On the way to mastery 1 ball at a time

On top of my many other hats I am a juggler (one of the ways I maintain so many hats I guess). Juggling was one of those skills that as a small child I just had to have. When I was about 12 my grandmother bought me the klutz book of juggling. I spent about a day going over the basics and was able to juggle 3 balls by the next day. (This isn't natural talent, I have taught a lot of people how to juggle and the ones that are willing to practice it for a few hours will get the basic 3 ball pattern in about this long or less. Over the summer I visited my father in NY and kept practicing, the library helped me teach myself a few tricks. After that my practice pretty much stopped. I knew how to juggle, I was done.

Now, I am exploring juggling as a path to mastery, I practice a little bit each day, I also keep my juggling balls close so I can practice at work (1 hand catch while on the phone or filing, this amuses the heck out of my coworkers). I have watched a few youtube videos and am working on moving forward. I haven't found instruction yet but I am sure I will eventually.

My milestone this year is turn learn 4 ball technique. I know two more tricks since I started at the beginning of January but I am going to love the plateau with this one. The goal is to practice everyday. It takes professionals years upon years, building foundation up foundation to master this sport (Yes, juggling is a sport) and this is the attitude I will be approaching it from.

Brian Darnell
darnellster@gmail.com
http://12hourhalfday.blogspot.com
http://www.unvoicedvisions.com

A lesson from my martial arts class that gives perspective on learning difficult skills

I started my new martial arts class last Monday 1/5 and am already walking out with gems of knowledge. Last night our professor described fighting moves as words and learning them as building a vocabulary. He explained that anyone who can learn anything as complex as communication can also learn martial arts.

First we learn basic words, then we learn how to put them together into sentences, then we build our vocabulary and build that into sophisticated statements.

It is the same way with martial arts. Basic strikes which become more sophisticated with practice. Once a basic set of skills are so ingrained that they are habitual then more complicated skills can be placed on top of them to create a deeper skill set. This gave me faith for any complicated skill that seems difficult at first. I will think of it from the point of view that if I learned how to talk without thinking about it, I can learn how to do anything.