Thursday, March 27, 2008

Fulfillment of a lifelong dream costs $20.

Hear this now: You can learn to juggle for $20. It can happen to you and it can be everything you dream it can be.

Recently, this question has been asked of me: Why do you want to know how to juggle so badly? This question had never occurred to me. I assumed that everyone wants to know how to juggle. Why wouldn’t someone want to know how to juggle? May as well ask someone why they want to fall in love or eat a delicious meal. Forced to put words to my deepest inborn desire, here is what I’ve come up with:

1) It’s magic. The physics behind being able to juggle have never been explained by science.

2) People who can do it are therefore wizards and can control other mystical elements of the universe.

3) It looks cool. Deep inside my very cool exterior still lurks a vulnerable 6th grader, trying to win friends by doing cool stuff.

4) It has potential to add a kooky ingredient to my stand up comedy.

Really, any one of those reasons would be enough but taken together, it’s a given.

I’ve made previous attempts to learn to juggle. As a kid, I owned this book but it failed to teach me how to juggle. I needed someone to show me. Throughout my life, whenever I’ve encountered someone who had the gift, I would always beg them to teach me. The most frustrating thing about people who have the gift is that they can’t imagine not having it so the lesson would usually go like this:

Me: OH! You know how to juggle! Can you teach me?

Gifted person: Okay!

Me: REALLY??!! YAY!!!

GP: You just take three balls and [starts to juggle] toss them from one hand to the other like this! See?

Me: Um… yeah, but how?

GP: Like THIS! [Continues to juggle]

Me: Yes, but how?

GP: Just toss them from hand to hand. Try it. [Stops juggling. Hands me the balls.]

Me: [Makes pathetic uncoordinated attempt that results in fallen balls.] Uhhh…

GP: Ha ha! Just keep practicing. You’ll get it.

Guess what? THAT’S NOT A FUCKING LESSON! That’s a slap in the fucking face is what that is. It reminds me of my first ever snowboarding lesson from someone who worked as a snowboarding instructor: “Just ride the edge as you come down the mountain.” That’s not advice for someone who has never touched a snowboard, jerkass.

Fast forward a few years when I stumbled across an ad in Time Out NY for Juggling Classes for $20. Surely that’s a misprint, thought I. Who can teach this magic for only $20? I don’t have a lot of money these days, but this would be a gift far beyond monetary value.

Rod Kimball is the teacher and I was terrified that he’d be a guy who happens to have the gift and decided to cash in on it by making regular, non-gifted people feel inferior. Not at all. He’s a master and a real teacher. He started with basics. First, arm exercises. (I admit, at this stage, I was impatient. I ain't payin' no money to swing my dang arms!) But then, one ball, up and over. Then two balls. If you can’t get two balls to fly properly, he has little tricks to practice. He was very patient and never showed a hint of frustration. Catching the balls is secondary to throwing them properly, which was counterintuitive to me but also a great relief. Then, finally, three balls. Get all three in the air at the right time, at the right arc and don’t worry about catching them.

… But I did catch them. Throwing three balls in the air and catching three balls is called a “flash” and it looks like juggling. When I did my first flash, I almost burst into tears, I was so happy. What a great moment.

Then Rod wanted us to toss the fourth/first ball again. And so on. And that’s juggling. Well, there are 9 million ways to juggle. The kind of juggling that I so desperately wanted to learn, what I think of as standard juggling, is called a “cascade” – learning the lingo is another way to look cool, by the way. Fulfillment of a wish is $20 if you’re looking for it. I highly recommend it. The only negative about the class: The latest one starts at 5:30pm so day jobs might compete for time.

Other notes: Yes, it has occurred to me that I have also taken a trapeze class and that these classes are a cry for help because I secretly want to be circus folk. Thanks for your concern.