All you need is love practice

I think the most interesting skill I have is the ability to juggle. You tell someone you can juggle and you’re practically guaranteed a reaction.

I learnt to juggle when I was 14 during the summer after second year, at CTYI 07. It was an activity offered almost daily by Brendan, who is probably my favourite RA of any in my 3 years at CTYI. Because I’m not very good at, well, catching and throwing and anything like that, I wasn’t very good at juggling when I started. It took me two solid hours to manage to throw the three balls and catch them again. It took me two weeks to get any further than that. But by the time I was leaving CTYI I had the basic foundations down, I knew what I was doing I just couldn’t keep it up for any length of time.

When I left I had my own balls (in-your-endo!) and I was determined to improve. For the rest of the summer I practised. I juggled while I was away with orchestra, while I was in Canada, while I was at home. Through countless hours of sheer effort I managed to get to stage where if someone saw me they’d think “Oh, she can juggle” instead of “Oh, she’s trying to juggle”

A lot of people have seen me juggle. Most members of my orchestra, everyone in my family, my friends… plenty of people. Their reactions always amuse me. When I was in 3rd year and my mocks were on, we were waiting around in school between them for hours at a time, so I brought juggling balls to entertain me. Because of the huge amount of people around to see me the reactions were quite diverse. There was the “Woah she can juggle”, the “Can I have a go?” , the “Sinéad, be careful” when I walked into my history teacher, the “Stop it” when someone who was having a go kept throwing the balls (accidentally) into the door of a classroom, the people who just looked at me and even “Hey it’s the juggling girl from CTYI”
People also always tell me I get a really weird look on my face when I juggle. I guess I’m concentrating really hard and because I’m following three balls my eyes look a bit strange. Also I’m almost always biting my lip while I do it.

I’ve been juggling for two years now and I’m very good at your basic three ball cascade. But that’s it. No tricks, no variations. Nothing. I’m just not talented enough to try anything beyond basic throwing and catching without disastrous results. But what I can do I’m damn good at so that’s enough for me.

My juggling balls(whose names are Jimmy) are essential for going to CTYI. I panicked when I couldn’t find them this year the day before I was going. Juggling at CTYI generally isn’t considered very special. So many people can do it so much better than me, that my skills are nothing out of the ordinary. Well that’s the way it should be.

This year wasn’t like that. There were so many people who hadn’t been around when juggling was really popular, who were surprised to see my juggling. It was just strange for people to ask me where i learned to juggle and me being there “I learnt here! Isn’t it obvious?” Also trying to teach the RAs instead of having them teach me wasn’t right at all.

Juggling is one of the only things that I can do that I have no talent for whatsoever. I’m musical and I’m smart (and modest!) but if it involves a ball and any hand eye coordination I’m screwed. I’m actually really shocked that I decided I was gonna learn to do this and when I sucked at it I didn’t actually mind. I kept at it until I got good. That’s really really unusual for me.
Now I love juggling. It makes me feel good to get into the rhythm of catches and throws and to feel like I can do something a lot of people can’t do. Yay juggling!!!

picture from google images

Oh and the title? Something Brendan said.
“John Lennon said “All you need is love.” He was wrong. All you need is practice.”

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