JUGGLING BOOKS

This one is a classic beginner's how-to that takes you through the basics from three ball juggling through passing and juggling with clubs to a quick primer on juggling with four and five balls.

The Klutz book starts you off with a very basic skill, that is really quite an essential one: "Throw all three bags into the air and making no effort to catch any of them, let them all hit the ground. This is an example of THE DROP. I do it all the time and so will you, but it's good to familiarize yourself with the moves early on."

THE COMPLETE JUGGLER is a sort of juggler's Bible that does, indeed, cover all the steps from beginner to professional. There are sections that talk about how to teach juggling, how to make money as a juggler and about juggling games.

The line drawings that accompany the text are cleanly drawn and easy to follow.

"Learn how to juggle with balls, clubs, devil sticks and beyond."

This book is very nicely illustrated with colour photos of real live jugglers.

This is the book is where I came across the "box" metaphor, which I think is a particularly good one for visualizing the paths of the balls and the timing of your throws.

The subtitle of the book is: HOW TO ACHIEVE YOUR FULL POTENTIAL IN BUSINESS, LEARNING AND LIFE, and Gelb and Buzan offer some good insights into how the lessons of juggling can apply to challenges in other areas of your life. Unfortunately, as the ordering of the words "BUSINESS", "LEARNING" and "LIFE" suggests they have a corporate/competitive slant to their message that seems to me to be somewhat at odds with the I-can-do-this, anarchic spirit of the juggling fool.