Juggling

A few years ago, I picked up juggling on a whim. It was a thing. A thing I couldn't do. A thing I wanted to do. I started practicing.

For those that can or have tried to juggle, you know that while it's simple it's not easy. Two hands, three balls, repeated arcs. No complication, complexity, or chaos here. How hard can it be?

Try it. Depending on previous experience and fine motor skills, you might be able to pick up the three-ball cascade in a few hours of practice. That's all it takes: practice and pushing yourself. It took me days of 30-minute sessions.

Some beginners start with handkerchiefs, but following Teddy Roosevelt, I used what I had, where I was. Lacrosse balls, in the basement of my parents' house, where I was living. Days later, I graduated to juggling walks around the neighborhood, chasing dropped balls down hills. A cigar-smoking neighbor said, "Can you chew gum at the same time too?"

I branched out. I bounced balls against walls. I learned to run and juggle, or "joggle." I juggled in tandem with other people. I learned a few three ball tricks. I bought antique, laminated, balanced oak juggling 'clubs' on Craigslist and learned to juggle them without more than a split lip. Eventually, I ordered a set of fluorescent-green molded plastic clubs, which are more reliable, more resilient, and less likely to knock me out. Even more eventually, after a few years, I learned how to juggle four balls.

Over the years, I've learned a few things from juggling.

Mind body dialectic - postscript

In a previous post - "Mind body dialectic" - I hypothesized that mental acuity and physical athleticism might not be as different as they seem. Yet "Working out" occurs at the gym, not the library. And while studying might seem like a cognitive equivalent, it is aimed at the capture of a small set of data, not the holistic healthiness and fitness which is the objective of gym antics. My fear continues to be that mental fitness is undervalued because of the way it is typically perceived. Or rather, the way it isn't perceived.

While I have yet to stumble upon another person's thoughts or research on this topic (granted, I've done no research myself, which makes this amateur philosopher hour), one can read delicate corroboration of my thesis in this passage from an article in the New York Times - "Forget What You Know About Study Habits" by Benedict Carey:

Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting — alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading and speaking in a new language — seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time. Musicians have known this for years, and their practice sessions often include a mix of scales, musical pieces and rhythmic work. Many athletes, too, routinely mix their workouts with strength, speed and skill drills.

The argument is clear: musical, academic, and physical training might operate in analogous or similar ways.

This is not too surprising. "Practice makes perfect" - a well-worn common-sense aphorism -is universal in application. That is, practicing any skill or activity - banging drums, whistling, reading, language acquisition, knockin' boots - implies improvement in the execution of that skill or activity. There are textures and particularities to each activity, of course, like degree of difficulty and incline of learning curve. But there are also more consistencies, for instance, we assume all learning curves to be asymptotic to some line we could call virtuosity.

Granted, skill-specific learning is not the same as achieving a generally fine-tuned and well-exercised mental or physical health. But the point is that perhaps there is more continuity between these modes of learning and these degrees and types of health and fitness than are self-evident or routinely understood.

Mind body dialectic

To maintain a physical body in 'good shape,' I believe that it takes as little as 6-10 hours per week. A more modest estimate - or a more relaxed definition of good shape - might result in a smaller lower bound of, say, 4-8 hours. For our purposes, good shape implies moderately high levels of athleticism, physical health, and success in some sport-like endeavor. Naturally, I do not mean to be overly rigorous or exclusive here: a person who does zero targeted exercise (and, instead, lives an active regularity), can be both healthy and relatively athletic. But, I am referring to developed muscle and endurance, and honed athletic prowess. I will self-indulgently assume that I have all these characteristics in order to use myself as experimental subject:

I have come to conclusion range after observing my own weekly exercise formula. My range for targeted exercise is, on average, between 4 and 10 hours per week. The disparity between minimum and maximum hours is indicative of my mercurial schedule and way of life: I have no typical weekly exercise regimen, only regular activities: running, rock climbing, lifting weights, jumping rope, and stretching. I also have irregular activities: hiking, kayaking, skiing.

This week (Sunday March 14 - Saturday March 20) is characterized by consecutive days of rock climbing and running. I run for about one hour every other day and climb for about two hours every other day, resulting in an alternating sequence. With the aim of engaging in full-body workouts as much as possible, I always combine auxiliary kinds of exercises (e.g. stretching, push-ups, sit-ups, jump roping)with the primary activity. For instance, today I ran 4 miles in the succulent sunshine and also jumped rope, did pull-ups, and stretched. This week, my allotment of time to exercise is some 9 hours.

The argument that physical good shape exists and is something one achieve's through laborious and strenuous exercise is essentially intuitive and not controversial. My range of hours is both wide and relatively modest, and should, I think, be highly acceptable.

I follow this inductive, intuitive argument up with a question, whose answer is not as obvious:

How many hours must one dedicate to targeted cognitive exercise in order to be in good shape mentally?