juggling
What stuck with me most from learning to juggle in high school is a common mistake that we would make, my classmates and I. I don't know how it started--perhaps we didn't quite trust ourselves, or perhaps we were in a hurry, or perhaps it was simply an error in perception--but the tendency was to throw the balls a little bit forward, so that in order to continue juggling we would have to move forward to catch up. It always felt like it would be sustainable, at first, but as we added our forward momentum to the momentum of the tennis balls we were juggling, the problem only grew worse, and we would have to move faster to catch up, and that would inevitably snowball until something fell apart: misjudged speed, a missed catch. Anything.
There was a correct solution, of course, which is to simply train oneself not to make that mistake. Once you have broken free of that cycle, the traditional process of juggling three balls is sustainable more or less indefinitely. But some of us instead learned to prolong the collapse; the passing grade for the juggling section of the class was to do 100 consecutive throws and at least one student did those throws at a full sprint, collapsing right as he'd finished.
Because it works, right? Sometimes you just need to hold on for long enough. Sometimes it doesn't matter if everything collapses if you can just keep everything in the air for just a bit longer: a few more steps, a few more throws, a few more days. Just make it through the holidays. Just keep it together until your paycheck clears. It gets harder but you can get used to it being harder. You learn to make adjustments. You learn how fast you need to run--too fast is just as bad as not fast enough. You learn the timing, and the angles. You keep moving. You have to keep moving. Stop moving and it's all over.
Of course this was only possible because we took our test out in the schoolyard--nothing but flat green grass stretching on for . . . oh, far enough. This requires absolute focus--no time to notice obstacles, and even if you could it would throw off the rhythm you've spent so hard working on. Everything has to be perfect. But again, it's just a hundred throws, right? You can find enough space to make that work, and not have to worry about anything unexpected throwing you off, right? And if you didn't look--hey, you're probably good, right? You've practiced this. It's easy.
There is no benefit to doing it this way, of course, but sometimes the easy way just isn't possible.
This post was originally an entry for Noel B's Microblogvember prompts on Cohost. Cohost is gone now, but I am collecting some of my best writing from there on here.