How I learnt to juggle

When was the last time you learnt a new skill?

We were recently challenged to learn something new. Something we’d never previously done. Yes, a “Lockdown Challenge”!

I’ve always wanted to be able to juggle. I quite enjoy the diabolo, so juggling seemed like another great circus style addition to my repertoire.

Breaking down the learning process

I jumped straight in and bought a set of juggling balls. Nice and cheap from Amazon. They arrived & I was excited. How hard can this juggling thing be, I thought?

Yep, the first of many false starts - I thought it’d be simple! I mean, I’ve watched people juggling before!

Top Tip - take instruction! (In my case a video on YouTube that was clear and visual)

My Learning process

1. Take instruction
2. Start simple
3. Build up methodically
4. Master the individual steps
5. Put it together
6. Practice

In time, I developed some muscle memory. The juggling process is slowly becoming familiar. I can now juggle three balls…there’s 5 in the box!

Learnings

There’s no shortcuts - learning something new takes time

I was reminded of a few other interesting things on the journey to learning how to juggle.

1. There’s no shortcuts - learning something new takes time; you can’t expect to be an expert overnight.
2. You might need to unlearn some previous behaviour. In this case:

• I had to learn to throw the ball out of my hand - I was struggling to let go of the ball at the right time!
• I had to learn to let the ball come to me, rather than chasing the ball to catch it.
• Counterintuitively, giving yourself more time by throwing the ball higher made things easier.

What’s your learning process?

What did you learn in lockdown? What’s your learning process? Let me know. Thanks for reading.

First published on LinkedIn during that strange time called the Covid-19 pandemic.