Juggling

For those of you who don’t play soccer, I apologize for the specificity of this following entry. Now, I’m not trying to discriminate, or play favorites among the sports, but juggling really only applies to soccer. (Although, it might improve your general quickness, because it requires quick feet. And quick feet make for a quick person, you know.)

Juggling is not the circus act of tossing big red balls into the air and trying to catch them at the same time, without letting anything drop (or tossing and catching oranges, if I’m reenacting it in my kitchen. However, I wouldn’t recommend doing so, unless you like eating bruised fruits). Nor is it the metaphorical term used when busy moms worry about getting little Timmy to baseball practice by 5 and little Tammy to ballet by 5:30. Juggling, or at least the soccer player’s definition of juggling, is keeping a soccer ball off of the ground by tapping it up with your foot or thigh (or, for the more adventurous of us, with your head, shoulder, foot, or thigh).

Although you will never really use juggling in a game (but if you’ve proven me wrong by juggling the ball up the field in a game before, props), juggling has helped me a lot with my quickness with the ball and my foot skills. Now I’m sure I still have a lot of room for improvement, but juggling has helped me tremendously when trying to control the ball and move it up the field. It’s also something you can do when you don’t have a lot of space, and when you don’t have a lot of time. You could even try hacky-sacking (which I have to say, is really really fun) to work on the same skill sets when you’re nervous about breaking something with your giant soccer ball in the only-for-nice-occasions dining room (although I would never recommend juggling there in the first place, much too risky).

And for those of you playing other sports, I’m sorry I don’t have much advice to give. You are always welcome to try juggling (although it might be a bit difficult with a football or hockey puck). Above is a video of some pretty insane juggling. Enjoy! (With some practice, you might even be able to make some money as a street performer like this guy! Gotta love Iya Traore.)