Juggling - Day 23

Ugh, I did it again today. We spent all day at a waterpark, so when we came home at about 8 pm, I was so sleepy, I laid down . . . bad idea. I woke up at about 10:15 and realized I still had to juggle, so up I got. Amazingly, I was much more coordinated than yesterday, so I must not have been in as deep of a sleep. This was actually one of my better juggling days, and I managed to break my record of tosses. My new record is 38 J I’m pretty happy about that. I figured that I wouldn’t do so well today, and all the practice would just be for muscle memory (because my juggler friend says it’s just like riding a bike and that once you learn, you never forget), but luckily, today was better than that.

Juggling - Day 22

So. Sleepy. I stayed up way too late last night making chocolate éclairs (and got up way too early this morning to finish them), so by the time I got home today I was exhausted. It was a fun lunch at work today, some juggling in the park was involved J I even got my friend to show off some mad juggling skills (as in regular juggling morphing into “bounce” juggling and then juggling with four objects . . . very impressive) and I got to juggle a bit too. Mine was not nearly as impressive, and I didn’t do very good because I was nervous about all of the people watching me, but I did it. His one tip to me, after seeing me juggle a bit was that I needed to relax and not be so frantic about it . . . definitely a good tip, I need to work on that. So when I got home, I finished the book I was reading and then proceeded to fall asleep for four hours . . . oops. My husband had been over at a friend’s house that we are house sitting for this week because they said we could use their laundry (our coin-op is not very good). It took him much longer than anticipated, so when he got home at 11:15 pm, I was asleep and that’s what woke me up. So much for eating dinner tonight. Just one note of advice, don’t try juggling right when you get up, coordination is required and not available (at least to me) for an hour or so after waking up. I juggled, but not well. Okay, back to bed now . . . try again tomorrow J

Juggling - Day 21

So I finally got around to asking my friend at work today for some juggling pointers. I explained to him my situation and he gave me the following advice:

• Try keeping track of my attempts using my stopwatch instead of counting, that way I can focus just on juggling instead of trying to divide my attention
• Try two bean bags in just one hand, making circles that way, as an alternate form of practice
• Try to keep my tosses spread out (e.g. avoid “control freak” mode), but not too spread out or I’ll lose my accuracy
• Just keep practicing J

I used the stopwatch method, and it worked pretty well. It seems my average attempt is about five seconds, but I got over ten seconds three times (ten seconds was his benchmark for doing okay) and my best attempt was seventeen seconds. The two bean bags in one hand did not work at all. Oh, and I used my bean bags again . . . now that they are all fixed. I like them better than the tennis balls I think. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do anything fancy by the end of this month, but I have definitely improved. 

Juggling - Day 20

Today was a better day for juggling. Maybe it was because I had a stressful day, but when it was time for my juggling practice, I was alone and could turn up some of my favorite music (Ramin Karimloo’s "Human Heart" . . . check it out, it’s great), and just dance around and practice juggling. It helped me focus and feel better in general, which was nice. I did get a chance to sew up my poor injured juggling bean bag too, so tomorrow I’ll be able to use them again if I want to. I did a little better today, although I was singing too much to keep counting ;)

All better :) 

Juggling - Day 19

Juggling today didn't go much better than it did yesterday. I’m feeling better today, but for some reason, I just couldn't get too much past ten tosses. It seems like the tennis balls are “slipperier” than the bean bags, and require a more precise juggling technique . . . something that I definitely do not have. I broke the juggling into three ten-minute sections to keep from getting too frustrated, and I also went back to the basics and just worked on my tossing and exchanges, but it didn't really help much. I’m thinking I might need to ask my friend at work for some more pointers, because I don’t know what else to do.

Juggling - Day 18

This month is flying by, but juggling today did not. Maybe it’s because I’m feeling a little under the weather, or I’m tired, but thirty minutes seemed to take forever today. Also, I was not very coordinated today, and it didn’t go very well. The use of the tennis balls was good, but I dropped them a lot. Towards the end, I sat down and juggled that way because I was too tired with all the bending over. I’m hoping tomorrow will go better . . . I think I need a nap.

Juggling - Day 17

Sad bean bag :(

Late night juggling tonight. We didn’t get home until late, so that was when I had to juggle. Sad news about my juggling bean bags: I think I have been over using them . . .one has developed a small hole L So I had to make a quick switch and actually attempt to juggle something else. Of course I switched to the obvious . . . tennis balls. They were both easier and more difficult to juggle at the same time. They were easier because they were lighter and a bit smaller which worked well with my small hands, but if I dropped them, that’s when the trouble started. They are much more bouncy and get away from me much easier than the bean bags did. Overall, it went pretty well, even with the substitution. I still am bad at counting while juggling, but I was consistently getting more tries with 10 – 20 tosses, which I count as progress J

Juggling - Day 16

Another day of juggling is done. I broke up the juggling a little bit, into a ten minute and twenty minute section, because I was back to playing my cello. We are visiting my in-laws this weekend and they are very musical, so I brought the cello along and played some duets with my mother-in-law (who is a very good pianist). It was a lot more fun when I had someone to play with; I wish that was the case more often. Anyways, back to juggling, today was just another plain juggling day really. Not too much to tell. It is much nicer to have more room to move around when juggling, that helps a lot. Also, remember when I was “fencing” across my kitchen floor in an attempt to catch the bean bags? Well, now it looks like I’m dancing the tango because my left hand and arm are close to my body, and my right arm is almost completely outstretched to catch the tosses from the left hand. This is a problem . . . does anyone have any tips to help fix this?

Juggling - Day 15

So this weekend we are at my in-law’s house (it is Father’s Day after all, and my husband’s birthday weekend) . . . this was probably going to mean more juggling in the car. However, I decided to wait until we got there, and it was rather late by the time I started practicing. It was so much nicer to juggle in a more open space. I didn’t feel like I was going to run into something no matter where I turned. I think they were sort of impressed at how far I’d come in only two short weeks. I really need to work on learning some tricks so it can be even more impressive J

Juggling - Day 14

Today was just more practice . . . not much progress, but I need all the practice I can get. It seems to have helped that I practiced starting my tosses with both hands as there is not much of a difference between the two now, which is what I was going for. I do seem to have a problem of inconsistent tosses though. It seems that one hand tries to throw too far away, then the other one overcorrects, and then there is just a big mess. Also, I’ve been having many more problems with the bean bags colliding in mid-air lately. Perhaps it is because they are in the air longer as I can do more tosses, but I need to figure out how to remedy that. I got a little frustrated today towards the end because I had to pick the bean bags up so many times, something that I definitely don’t enjoy, but I still got my thirty minutes in, and that’s what counts.

Juggling - Day 13

I don’t have too much to report today. I had one really good try in the beginning of my practice, but of course, I wasn’t counting tosses at the time. I’m willing to bet it was close to thirty tosses though. Other than that, I averaged about eight tosses today, and I was confident enough to practice in the kitchen while my husband was making barbecue chicken on the stove . . . luckily no messes were made. I think I’m getting better, but I definitely still need more practice.

Juggling - Day 12

I think today went much better than yesterday. Getting more rest was definitely helpful, and improved my hand-eye coordination quite a bit. Today was the first day I tried juggling with music on . . .it was a little distracting, and I can’t juggle in time, but it didn’t throw me off too badly. Also, another thing that helped me was the fact that I didn’t try and count my tosses so I only had to concentrate on juggling. One thing I noticed today was that I’m getting uptight again . . . perfectionist’s syndrome. It is the same as when I was trying to learn how to knit. I would get going, and then get so worried I was going to screw up that I start getting tense and my stitches got so close together I couldn’t even get the knitting needle in anymore. The only craft where this was an advantage was basket weaving . . .I was good at that ;) It seems that with juggling I start making my throws smaller and smaller until my juggling circle implodes . . .I need to work on that.

Juggling - Day 11

Today was not a good day for juggling. I was still tired from the weekend, I was stressed about how much stuff I have to do, and it was 86 F in our apartment . . .ew. I think the close-quarters juggling over the weekend helped keep me more in one place, but I sure hit myself in the face with the juggling bean bags much more frequently. Also, I was just not doing well today, my “good” tries had, at best, eight tosses. I did have one anomaly where I got twenty-five tosses in, my personal best so far, but that was only once. This is taking longer to learn than I had hoped.

P.S. All this juggling is taking a toll on my bean bags . . .check out what is happening to the “velveteen” fabric.

Sad, worn bean bag

Juggling - Day 10

Well, I was right . . .I did my juggling in the car again today. And I must say, it was not a very productive day for juggling. No improvements anywhere, so not much to write about, but “practice makes perfect”, right?

Juggling - Day 9

I was bad today, I juggled in the car again. I was bad today, I didn’t focus on juggling as much as I should have. But to be fair, we are up in Minnesota, and there were lots of interesting things to see, so that is why I did the things I did. The wedding that we went to was nice, and then the reception was at the Science Museum and since we were invited to the reception, we got free day passes to the museum, so we wanted to get as much out of that as possible. It was about a fifteen minute drive to the Museum from the church, so I started my juggling en route (only being distracted a few times by the cool things to see outside the car) and then finished in the parking garage so we could get as much museum time as we could. The museum was pretty cool by the way, I would recommend it. As for the juggling, it went okay. I had a few tries that went pretty well, but with the city driving (lots of stopping and starting) juggling was more difficult and I was just not trying as hard today I should have been. I’m guessing since tomorrow is going to be busy as well, juggling might be in the car then too . . .I’m going to be really good at close quarters juggling after this weekend!

Juggling - Day 8

Okay, you’re going to think I’m even weirder now, but today I did my juggling in the car. Talk about close-quarters juggling. We are on our way to an out-of-town wedding this weekend and this was really the only time I had to practice, so there’s my reason for my madness. I guess it helped me practice not moving around so much to catch the bean bags, but I didn’t do very well at all. I put a blanket over my lap with my legs up on the dashboard to act as a bean bag retrieval device, so that was pretty handy, but I think the best I did was ten tosses, and I only managed to do that once. Most of my attempts only resulted in four or five tosses. The bean bags were hitting the ceiling, the sun visor (because we were driving west in the evening so the sun was in my eyes, I doubt that helped any either), or fell on the center console. I’m proud to announce that I didn’t hit my husband in the face while he was driving, and I didn’t cause any accidents, so I guess today was a success, even though I did rather poorly at juggling. I can’t help but wonder what the people we drove past were thinking. Readers, what is the strangest thing you have seen someone do while driving? Overall, I would not recommend in-car juggling, try reading a book or something . . .you will be much more successful.

My juggling bean bags

Juggling - Day 7

It’s hard to believe it’s been seven days already, but time flies when you are having fun right? Or maybe it’s just that I’ve been extremely crazy busy lately, one of the two. Anyways, I’ve been noticing that thirty minutes really flies by too . . .it doesn’t seem like I’m ready to be done juggling yet when that timer goes off, I think that’s a good sign. I was rather impressed with myself today, I don’t know if anyone else who saw what I was doing would be impressed, but I got thirteen tosses in before I dropped anything (and that was only after I started counting), and only had one three-bean-bag-drop and very few two-bean-bag-drops. I am far from a stellar juggler, but I’m so much better than a week ago, and this coming from the girl who has zero hand-eye coordination. J One final thing I noticed: even without having to run after all of the bean bags, juggling is still good exercise, not quite as good as running miles upon miles, but for this month, it will be good enough.

Juggling - Day 6

Whew, today went so much better than yesterday J I don’t know if I gained a bunch of juggling muscle memory in my sleep last night, or what, but I could tell a marked difference from yesterday. Today was one very long day at work and almost everything I tried to do failed, so maybe this was just God’s way of letting me have something go right today, I don’t know. It’s difficult for me to count while I’m juggling, so I don’t know exactly how many tosses I got in before I dropped a bean bag, but I’m going to say I was averaging about 8-10 tosses on my good tries. Also, I noticed a decrease in the number of “three bean bag botches” where I freak out and manage to drop all three at the same time. Most of my drops today were just one bean bag and I held on to the other two. I see this as a definite sign of improvement, and I think if my kitchen weren’t so small and I ran into the cabinets while going from one side to the other chasing the bean bags, I could probably juggle even longer. Now I just need to figure out how to do it without moving so much.

Juggling - Day 5

Well, today was a good day to practice. I spent the first fifteen minutes starting with my left hand, and then for the last fifteen minutes I started with my right hand. I seemed to be “fencing” across my kitchen floor; kind of scooting with one foot forward to keep catching the juggling bean bags. I wish I could just stand still, but it seems my right hand tosses towards my body and my left hand tosses forward, so I’m constantly running around trying to catch them. I think I got a little better today, but I definitely have a long way to go yet. I even went back to the basics, just tossing one or two bean bags, maybe it helped, maybe it didn’t. All I know, is that it was a long day, but I’m glad I got my practicing in. It’s tiring and soothing all at the same time.

Juggling - Day 4

I think I can, I think I can. You guys remember the “Little Engine That Could”? I feel like that today. I didn’t do too much better than yesterday, but I felt better about it. I got up to five exchanges/tosses a few times, my personal best. It’s more mentally challenging than physical, I think, but I started to figure out the rhythm. It seemed to go in spurts and I would do really well for a few rounds, and then I’d lose it again and keep dropping all of the bean bags. It is rather tiring to have to keep bending down to pick them up though, and I’m getting really sick of getting hit with them, especially in the neck, I need to improve, and quickly. During my juggling lesson last year, my friend told me that moving forward was a good sign, and hitting myself with the bean bags (aka moving backwards) was a bad sign, and I think I did some of both, but definitely a lot of moving forward, so I’ll take that as a good sign. Here’s to more improvement tomorrow!

Juggling - Day 3

Today was rather frustrating. I did the “fifteen drops” exchange / two bean bag drill again, once starting with each hand, and then moved on to more practice with all three bean bags. It did not go well. My legs are sore from all of the bending and squatting I’m having to do to pick the bean bags up so many times. It’s like the two bean bag exchange is too easy (although I don’t think my form is very good, which is probably making the three bean bag juggling so difficult) but the second I get the third bean bag into my hand, I am way out of my league. Granted, I know I need more practice, but today was not encouraging in the least. I sure hope I figure this out eventually. Oh, and two people I talked to today were quite surprised when they heard what my challenge is for this month . . .like this is any crazier than baking a cake every day ;)

Juggling - Day 2

Whew, this is going to be more exercise than I thought ;) It really shouldn’t be, and hopefully when I get better I won’t have to run around quite so much, but today was lots of bending and picking up the juggling bags. I started with just the single ball toss again, and then worked on the two bean bag exchange for quite some time. I’m left handed, so starting the toss with my left hand seems to give me greater success, but I want to be able to do it both ways, so I started with my left hand until I dropped it fifteen times, then started with my right hand for fifteen drops (as is instructed in the Klutz book). I repeated this circuit again before I added in the third bean bag. Once that happened, there was much more lunging around trying to catch the bean bags and a lot more drops, but I feel this more methodical approach to learning is giving me better results than I had before. Oh, and since I’m practicing in my kitchen, any of you who sent us a Christmas card or wedding "save-the-date" this year (which I put up on my fridge) are all watching me practice, so thank you for your lovely smiles of encouragement. I can’t decide if I’m going to be so good at this I’m going to be bored by the end of the month, or I’m never going to be able to get it . . .time will tell.

Juggling - Day 1

Okay, as usual, I’ll begin with the rundown of my setup for the month. Since I had previously (very briefly) tried to learn this before, I already had the necessary equipment, “Juggling for the Complete Klutz” and a set of juggling bean bags. Did you know that this book was how the “Klutz” line of fun books started? It’s true. The introduction to the book gives a brief history of how young student teacher taught his class and then printed off 3,000 copies of his lessons and they just kept selling, and “Klutz” was born. A set of three nice, square (so they don’t roll away) bean bags came with the book, and that is what I’ll be using to learn. I had originally tried with 3 different sized and textured hacky sacks, but they started to fall apart and pieces of them were strewn all over my apartment, so I decided I should invest in the Klutz set. My task each day is to set aside 30 minutes and give my undivided attention to genuinely attempt to learn how to juggle. I was a little nervous about picking this challenge as I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it. In fact, I didn’t even decide that I was going to have juggling as my activity this month until after I got home from work today. We’ll see how it goes though.

So far it’s gone better than I thought. I started with just one ball, and the book expects the user to get bored with the simple tossing of the one bean bag back and forth between hands in a matter of minutes, but I think I did that for about half the time. Like I said, tossing a ball around is not something that is second nature for me at all. Eventually I started to get a feel for it and tried their suggestion of doing it with my eyes closed. That did not work. So I practiced with just one eye closed for a while, and then switched eyes. I did okay with that, so I figured I could move on to the next step. I got to use a second bean bag and work on “The Exchange”. I could tell that my form was much better that the last time I had tried to learn this, so I think taking a month and devoting time to it is really going to help me. I definitely have a long way to go . . .I’ll probably just be using the two bean bags again tomorrow, but we’ll see how adventurous I get. So far so good though J

June Reveal

This month’s challenge will be to learn how to juggle. Why juggling you ask? Well, by now you should know that I’m crazy enough for it, based on all the other crazy things I've endeavored to do so far. But anyways, juggling is not something that I was ever really that interested in, but I was always impressed when I saw people who could pull it out as a casual party trick (I’m not all that impressed by professional jugglers, interestingly enough, who knows why). So there is that, and then one of my friends at work happens to be a very good juggler and he would randomly juggle at lunch time (oranges, apples, etc.) or I think once even in the lab (rubber flask stoppers) . . .there is seemingly no end to the situations in which juggling can add a little fun. So since he lost a bet (I think it was about a crossword puzzle answer) he owed me a juggling lesson. That is how this all started.

Any of you who have known me for a while probably know that I’m not the most athletic person in the world, not that I couldn’t be, I just never have been. So the whole hand-eye coordination / tossing a ball around kind of thing is really not natural for me. At all. This fact made the juggling lesson rather interesting. I think I spent much more of the time running after and picking up the tennis balls than I actually did trying to toss them around. At any rate, he gave me some good juggling tips and encouraged me to keep practicing . . .yeah, that didn’t happen. So here it is about a year later and I am no better at it than I was during my first lesson ever, thus this month’s task. Enjoy J

Cello - Day 31

Today was my last day of cello playing. I don’t feel like I got as good at it as I was hoping, but I’m definitely better than I was a month ago! Today, just for fun, I finally convinced my husband that he should play along with me (and help me practice the song that I might be playing in church on Sunday).  He is a very good trombone player and since that is an instrument that requires a lot of pitch control, just like the cello, he has developed a good ear over the years. We played the parts of the hymn a few times and then I found some duets that we played through. We didn’t sound very good since we hadn’t played any of them before, but it was sure fun. My mother-in-law called while we were practicing so we played a song for her over the phone. I’m planning on taking my cello along the next time we go to visit my in-laws because they are very musical too. So, there ends my lovely month of cello playing. It was a nice transition from running, and I feel like I’ve accomplished something. I won’t stop playing the cello I don’t think, it’s just too pretty to quit. I hope you all enjoyed this month, and take a look at my next blog post to see what you have to look forward to next month!

My lovely cello

Cello - Day 30

So I just realized that I only had 30 days of blogs written and there are 31 days in May . . . oops. Considering yesterday’s post says “two more days”, and tomorrow’s post says it is the last day, I’m fairly certain I didn’t miss a day so I must have just forgotten to blog about it . . . major oops. Now it’s too far past the day for me to actually remember what I did that day, so it’s just going to have to suffice to say, “I played the cello today”. Sorry.

Cello - Day 29

I don’t know why, but I did not do so well today. I was not motivated to learn anything new, so I played through some hymns in the hymnal. I wanted to play the melody though, so it was a lot of transposing in my head. I suppose that is a good skill to learn, but I feel like it’s the easy way out for me because I’m leaving bass clef and going back to treble clef, so I should probably not do too much of that. After the hymns, I tried to play some in my lesson book, but it was not pretty, so I got out my trusty standby, the Suzuki book, and played through that for the rest of the time. I’m considering getting the Suzuki level two book, because that seemed like a much more natural way to learn and the Essential Elements seems more forced, but that probably has something to do with the pace at which I’m going through it too. Only two more days of practicing . . .then what?

Cello - Day 28

Video day again already. I may have volunteered myself to play in church this coming Sunday too :S So most of my practicing today, and the video for this week, was of the song that I may or may not be playing. I talked to the organist and we are going to try and find a time to practice this week and we’ll see how it goes from there. I didn’t submit my name to the church office to be printed in the bulletin, so if I chicken out at the last minute, no one will be missing me, but perhaps I’ll have my big debut this week. Oh, and for the record, the videos are not very good this week. They were taken at the end of my practice time (as usual) and I just seemed to be getting worse by then, I don’t know why. Enjoy anyways J

Scale - Week 4

"Praise The One Who Breaks The Darkness"

Cello - Day 27

My first finger on my left hand is really sore. Learning these “extensions” is painful. My hands are just too small. So that is rather frustrating. I wish that was easier and didn’t hurt . . .it makes the enjoyment of playing go down significantly. Oh well. I learned the two new notes today and am making progress through my Level 2 book . . .just a few more days to finish it!

Cello - Day 26

So I was working through my Level 2 book again today, but I got rather overwhelmed. I just learned two new notes yesterday, and now today there were two more . . .too many, too soon. Instead of learning the new ones, I reviewed the two I learned yesterday and then got out my sheet music that I had set aside as being too difficult before, and worked on a few of those instead. I have two Beatles songs, “Eleanor Rigby” and “Can’t Buy Me Love”, so those are kind of fun, and I spent a little more time with “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Mis. One of these days I’ll be able to play it.