Ten Things that make Juggling and Circus Skills a Fantastic Self Help Tool

Ten Things that make Juggling and Circus Skills a Fantastic self help tool When people think of self help there are a few areas that generally crop up – yoga, meditation, exercise, organising your life. You are much less likely to consider something like juggling or another circus skill. Hobbies like juggling, diabolo, hula hoop, or staff spinning can in fact help you in many ways – in this article I hope to highlight some of these. First allow me to introduce myself – my name is James and I have been working as a professional circus entertainer and fire performer for the last several years. Circus skills started as a hobby for me and I felt that it greatly enhanced my life – though at the time I could not really place my finger on any one reason why. This made me curious as to whether others had experienced he same thing and was surprised to find that circus skills offer a great many benefits to both the mind and the body – here are a list of my top ten reasons why circus skills are the perfect self help tool. 1) Accessible Circus skills are extremely accessible. Take juggling for instance – whilst it might be enjoyable to juggle with others (and I would certainly encourage it) it can be also very satisfying to do it on your own – all you need is 3-balls and some youtube tutorials to teach you the basics. 2) Good Exercise Some of the more active circus skills (hoop dance, staff spinning, etc.) can be really good exercise. Hula-hooping for instance works out over 30 muscles in your body. It has long been recognised that exercise can provoke mental stimulation whilst also helping with issues such as depressing. 3) Motivational Circus skills can be a fantastic motivational tool and can even help motivate you in other areas of your life. Skills such as juggling offer a clear demonstration of how hard work produces results. As the basics take relatively little time to learn, this can lead you down a path of discovery which is transferable to other areas of your life. 4) Makes you smarter You wouldn’t think it but recent studies have indicated that dexterity based activities such as juggling increase both the grey matter and white matter in your brain – the result of this is that you genuinely become more able to learn other things as you learn to juggle. 5) Meditation When I first started juggling something I found was that it was a fantastic form of meditation. Once you have mastered the basics it is possible to almost zone out whilst juggling – not really concentrating on anything at all. This can have extremely relaxing effect on you, especially when you are stressed. 6) Make new friends Having a new hobby is always a fantastic way of making new friends and circus skills are no exception. There are dozens of juggling and circus clubs across the country full of friendly people. Additionally having a skill or party trick can be a great way to meet people at parties and can make a great conversation starter. 7) Improves hand-eye co-ordination and reaction times. This one goes without saying really – any dexterous activity will improve your general skill with your body – this can be particularly advantageous if you also do other physical activities. 8) Creative There are hundreds of circus tricks that already exist – many can be found on youtube and other sites with a little searching. However Circus skills, unlike sports, have no rules – you are entirely free to invent new moves, new styles, and even new circus props! 9) Self-confidence Circus can improve your self confidence in a number of ways. Similar to the way in which success can motivate you, it is often a great way to build one’s self confidence. As you succeed in one area it can help you realise that you are capable of succeeding in other areas of your life as well. Additionally as you progress you are inevitably going to receive compliments and admiration from others – this can be a great way to boost your confidence (or ego depending on how you look at it). 10) Fun and accessible Circus skills are fun; generally fun things are good to do.