Sports Teams
What it looks like:
A unique full-day workshop series designed to enhance athletes' and teams' performance through the surprising and unexpected skills developed by juggling. In today's competitive environment, athletes are constantly seeking marginal gains, and we believe juggling offers a powerful, yet often overlooked, method to reinforce, elevate, and improve all aspects of their practice. Beyond serving as an excellent mental warm-up, juggling can unlock potential for superior performance, fostering better coordination, decision-making, and execution of athletic goals.
Our workshops are ideal for small groups of up to 30+ people and are particularly effective at building team chemistry, synchrony, and bonding through partner-passing exercises.
How:
The day begins by establishing the basic 3-ball cascade pattern. We progress from one-ball variations that stress mental awareness, emphasizing the importance of practicing at one's current level and incrementally adding challenges. This approach reinforces the concept of achieving small marginal gains. We then introduce a second ball, observe the impact of this new distraction, and culminate in 3-ball juggling, where participants experiment with timing and space to create a continuous flow.
The full-day program includes three additional progressive sessions, with breaks scheduled throughout the day:
1. Partner Feeding: Partners work together to feed each other perfect passes, attentive to each other's needs within the rhythm of their 3-ball pattern.
2. Synchronized Passing: Both partners juggle 3-ball patterns and exchange passes on a predetermined rhythm.
3. Recovery and Communication: Partners learn to maintain play after a dropped ball, getting back into sync with or without rhythm based on clear communication. This partner-passing concept embodies the metaphor of juggling, sports, and the 3 "R's": Right reason, Right time, and Right place.
Where:
This activity can be done anywhere your group can stand together, preferably in a circle, an arm’s length apart.
Why:
This experience will be a lifetime memory that one can reflect on. Juggling can energize or engage the mind as an active form of active respite or preparedness. Make this experience a chance to do something uniquely new, refreshing, and invigorating, as it can and will be every time you juggle. These benefits of juggling can then be applied to any activity you are engaged in!
When:
You decide!
Who:
Inclusive: ideally everyone involved with the team can participate so they can have a shared understanding of what has been learned. As the tasks increase in complexity people can still participate by watching and/or practicing where they are at.
How Long:
From 1 hour, a tightly planned basic workshop (Workshop 1)
to
An all day affair, with breaks basically incorporating Workshops (1 and 2)
Core thoughts: Parsing
Scaffolding: Learn to Learn
The key benefit of progressing with juggling is breaking down any new task into small, achievable goals: scaffolding. Juggling continues to reinforce “learning to learn,” which leads to: progressive scaffolding, development, and achievement.
Yours truly, “Sir Drop-A-Lot”, Aladar Reusz