I learned to juggle in spite of myself

A friend suggested that I do a blog entry on how I learned to juggle. The story has some relevance to the previous post, so this seems to be a good time.

I juggle clubs before a Big Toss-Up at the 2015 Not Quite Pittsburgh Juggling Festival. The photo is by Bill Allen.

I had an internship at the Muskegon Chronicle in Muskegon, Mich., during my junior year of college. Bob Burns, one of the reporters there, kept three Pinky rubber balls on his desk and juggled them pretty regularly. It was a first time I ever saw someone who wasn't a performer juggle, and I was fascinated. 

I'd always loved the circus, and this was an everyday person doing a circus skill. When Bob juggled, I gushed about how marvelous it was. He juggled, and I gushed. He juggled, and I gushed. He juggled, and I gushed. At some point, probably very early on, he offered to teach me how to juggle.

I am the queen of the uncoordinated people, so I assumed I'd never learn to juggle -- despite the fact that the Muskegon newsroom was the first place where I heard the saying about what happens when you "assume." So our new routine became he juggled, I gushed, he offered to teach me, and I said something along the lines of "I'd never be able to learn that."

Bob kept insisting he could teach me. I kept insisting I wouldn't be able to learn. Finally, I decided to let him try teaching me, so that he could see he was wrong. But it turned out I was the one who was wrong. I didn't know it then, but Bob was using the basic juggling pattern, called the cascade. Once he broke it down into steps for me, it looked as if it was something I could learn if I worked at it.

And work at it I did! While I was wrong about not being able to learn, I did have a fairly long learning curve. Some people can learn the cascade in a few minutes. It took me about a week of diligent practice every night in a closed-off part of my apartment so I didn't have to chase the balls very far. (At that point, I hadn't heard of beanbags.)

Eventually, I learned how to juggle and never was so glad to be wrong in my life. Not too long ago, I looked up Bob so I could contact him to thank him properly for teaching me to juggle. I have manners, so I'm sure I thanked him at the time, but I would have had no idea then about the impact learning to juggle was going to have on my life. I couldn't have thanked him enough for the immensely important gift he gave me.

I found him online and emailed him about how learning to juggle affected my life -- which has been filled with meetings of various juggling clubs, juggling festivals throughout this country and in Canada and Great Britain, and friends I never would have met if I didn't juggle. And I told him about his "juggling grandkids," the hundreds of kids I've taught to juggle over the years. I could teach them because he taught me.

Bob responded that he hadn't juggled in years. Because of my email, he said, maybe he would start again.