Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada
So my boys are both enjoying their March Break at the moment and the challenge as a parent is to come up with interesting things that keep them reasonably entertained, encourage them to do more than simple plonk themselves down in front of the TV to watch a movie or play some video games and promote a some level of exercise. So it struck me that this might be the perfect opportunity to encourage my older son Koji to work on his juggling.
I’ve never really pushed what I do on my kids, though I have exposed them to it. We got a unicycle for Koji when he was about seven or eight and certainly encourage him and his younger brother Owen to give it a try. Koji seemed to take to it, Owen not so much which was fine. Koji also took a circus skills workshop with a friend from school a few years ago and was working on Diabolo as well as his unicycle skills.
A few weeks ago one of Koji’s friends was over visiting and asked if I’d teach him to juggle. I said sure and went through the basic moves involved in a three ball cascade. Prior to this Koji had shown very little interest in working on juggling as a skill, but when a friend asked me to show him how to do it, all of a sudden Koji’s interest picked up and he started throwing balls around more than I’d seen him do ever before.
So the week started out with a simple goal. Make six throws and catches successfully. He nailed that on day one. Next – make it twenty throws, and bit by bit the number of throws he was making consistently increased. His pattern is still quite sloppy and will need to smooth out a bit before I show him any of the more advanced moved, but watching him struggle with the mechanics of what’s involved and getting hooked on working on the skill reminds me of exactly how I felt when I first started to juggle when I was thirteen year’s old. Koji’s eleven, so if he sticks with it he’ll have two more years than I ever did under his belt should he ever decided to ‘go pro.’ I’ve taken such pleasure in watching him work on this skill that it’s put a great big smile on my face.
