Busy people are always juggling work and life. Gill South takes it more literally and exercises her brain in the process.
What mad thing is she doing now, you ask? Well, juggling, actually. Yes, this week in my living room, I was instructed in the art of juggling. I'm sure the neighbours had a good laugh if they cared to look.
I was doing it for health reasons of course. Juggling is one of the very few physical activities that uses both left and right brain hemispheres - drumming is the only other one. It's just an excellent workout for your brain, my juggling teacher, Orly Jacobson tells me. If you juggle for five to 10 minutes, it will clear your head, "reset your brain", says Orly. She reckons while there is a lot of emphasis put on exercising your body, there is far less on exercising your brain. And she and I both agree we are rotten at Sudoku and cryptic crosswords, so juggling is perfect. Picking up the balls I am constantly dropping is no doubt great for my fitness levels too.
I have to say, juggling is one of the most engrossing things I've ever done. You have to concentrate very hard and toss the balls just right, otherwise it all goes horribly wrong. The key thing to remember is to think of the ball going up to a centre and coming down in the shape of a triangle. As the first ball is coming down from the upper point of the triangle, I throw the other ball up in the air. In the beginning I just naturally pass the ball I'm holding in my left hand over to the right hand as the first ball makes its landing, but I get over this. I am convinced that I would be able to juggle in the proper way with only two balls, but Orly tells me I'm ready for three and within 20 minutes I have juggled with three balls several times. In fact, she goes so far as to say that I'm better at juggling three balls than two.
I had assumed that Orly, who I know through the online women's networking group, Professionelle, just did juggling for a laugh. She is a communications consultant by day. But she's really into it. The Londoner's been doing it since she was 21, learning from her boyfriend with two potatoes and an onion, and going on to do it at the Glastonbury music festival between getting degrees. Wherever she lives she meets up with other jugglers. The first thing she checks out when she moves to a new town is where the local juggling group is. The social anthropologist has a business called jugglefish.com, which teaches corporate groups to juggle - from chief executives to their underlings. It's a good thing to do during corporate retreats, she says. The beauty of juggling is it's a level playing field - there is no knowing who is going to be good at it, says Orly.
