More isn't always better: Lessons from Juggling

I've just spent four days at the New Zealand Juggling Festival in Levin, a great chance to catch up with friends, and practice my skills.

While I was there a young boy from Levin, who was seeing the madness that is the juggling and circus community asked me "How many can you do?"

It's a common question. Many non-jugglers assume that more is better and the goal of juggling is to juggle as many balls as possible.

In fact, there is more beauty, variety, pleasure and entertainment to be gained from juggling with three or even two clubs, balls or other props as there is from attempting the technically demanding multi-prop juggling. Even better is club passing, when you weave a pattern between two, three, four or a dozen or more other jugglers.

More clubs or balls aren't better. They are much much harder to pull off technically, only last for a short space of time, more tiring to do, and less interesting to watch, each pass must be done at high speed, so much so that most people watching will only see a blur of balls.

It's the same with speaking. Your message will have more impact, and be more memorable if you slow down, give each of your points time to shine and make one or two points well.

Better to make at most three good points, and revisit them in different ways, than to try and cram too many into a speech. It's more enjoyable for you, and easier on the audience who won't be blinded by a rush of ideas. And it allows you to play with variations which make things more entertaining for the audience.

More isn't better, in juggling or in speaking

A to Z of Luck : J is for Juggling

I've been posting an A to Z of Luck, and today J is for Juggling.

When I first started juggling training at the Circus Space in London with Jebb the Juggler I was told that there were three rules:

1 - Don't stop till you drop
2 - When you do drop in a passing routine never say sorry. Mistakes are part of the process, every mistake is getting you closer to success. Just pick things up and keep going.
3 - Don't wait till you've perfected a trick to move on - always try something a bit more complex. When you come back to the initial trick you'll find it you can do it with ease.

The benefits of juggling are many. The constant failure forces you to get comfortable with mistakes. It's great for overcoming the crippling perfectionism which stops us taking risks and trying new things. I found juggling helped me to be more relaxed, more resilient, and more creative. And, in one scientific study at the University of Regensburg in Germany, brain scans showed that those who had learned to juggle had increased their brain matter after practising juggling for 3 months.

It's a general principle: the more you try, the luckier you'll get. Juggling is a great way to help you keep trying new things, and to persist. Throwing balls or clubs around can help you toss ideas around too. I love juggling with other people - and it can be a great social pastime, whether or not you're doing it for sport or as a performance.

I decided to use J for juggling today , as we've been planning the timetable for a conference "Speaking Professionally" run by the NSA Christchurch Chapter. I have a 5 minute break-out energiser juggling exercise which I learned in a workshop from the wonderful Denis Paumier. I cannot do 1/100th of the things Denis can do, but this exercise, which involves 1 ball per person to start with, is a lot of fun, and good for the brain and mood.