Circus Arts help children and students, to develop patience and persistence. They remind us that challenges can be fun.
They stimulate imagination and higher order problem solving by giving you a prop and allowing you the opportunity to perform any trick you can think of. The only limit to the type of trick or skill you can do is your imagination. Everything else is just practice.
Circus Arts have many benefits, both scientifically proven and assumed through repeated observations.
There is evidence that juggling can be particularly helpful to people with dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD.
Physical Benefits - Skills such as diabolo, plate spinning and juggling with scarves, beanbags or balls improve hand-eye co-ordination, concentration, manipulation, throwing and catching skills, ambidexterity, encompassing both fine and gross motor control and are excellent cross lateral exercises. Juggling is a neuromuscular skill that can have a profound impact on your brain function.
Emotional benefits - Learning Circus Arts can create a sense of achievement and boost self-esteem. It can be a great confidence builder. Basic skills can be learned very quickly and most people will find that they can do something that they previously thought 'impossible'. Once the 'impossible' has been achieved, they may then have a different outlook on life where suddenly things are much more achievable and within reach. When students can get up and perform successfully for others, self-esteem soars.
Circus Arts are as competitive as you want them to be. For the most part a hobbyist may not be exposed to the world of competitive juggling, and that suits the majority of practitioners, allowing Circus to be simply a de-stressor with no external pressure. And then there are others, who thrive in competitive atmospheres. Luckily for them most conventions will have games on the final day, and some organisations, such as the World Juggling Federation hold competitions where people from all over the world may demonstrate their aptitude.
Benefits in teaching and personal development
Self-esteem: When someone can get up and perform successfully for others, their self-esteem soars. The key to enhanced self-esteem is the realisation of one's self worth, and this is obtainable from the applause of an audience or peer. Self-esteem and self-confidence can increase dramatically through non-competitive play and the continual success of learning a new trick, which reinforces internal success mechanisms.
Kinaesthetic and physically active learners: Most young people are kinaesthetic learners so they usually prefer to ‘learn by doing’. If you introduce juggling breaks/intervals into your regular studies/school day, then you will see these types of learners improve academically and they will also be developing a skill that they will be able to show off to their family and friends.
Persistence & perseverance: When you juggle, you will drop the ball/prop multiple times. There is no getting past it. You will soon learn that mistakes and failures are just a part of life and a part of the road to success. All of a sudden, drops/mistakes don't matter and you learn to enjoy the road to success.
Developing hobbies and interests: As circus skills are so wide and varied, just like people, you are bound to find one particular discipline that you enjoy more than others and will want to learn more about. Circus skills and sports are great ways to keep active and the more physically intense skills will help fight obesity which is a growing problem.
Making friends: Anyone who juggles will, just like with other sports, be able to find others with common interests and over your learning curve you will be able to teach each other tricks and skills. This will lead to forming stronger bonds with each other and maybe even making a friend for life.
Some studies done by scientists at Oxford university have proven that after six weeks of practice juggling increases the grey matter, or cabling network, of the brain by 5%. Proving what was previously not thought possible, that new stimuli can alter the brains structure.
Nature science journal reported in a similar study that three months after the new jugglers had stopped juggling, brain scans showed the increase in grey matter had been significantly reduced.
Education World also reports that students school work is improved after learning to juggle. Improvements in concentration, eye hand coordination, fine motor skills, reading and behavior are just some of the benefits of juggling cited by educators.
Children who had trouble learning to juggle also had difficulty learning to read. With extra juggling practice their reading improved also.
Schools across America who have adopted circus skills programmes report a marked improvement in academic activities. David Finnigan who has traveled to more than 2,000 schools across the U.S. to teach students states that juggling teaches from the outside in.
While learning to juggle they use the left side of the brain, when juggling the right side. After they have been juggling for a while both sides of the brain become active.
Putting aside all of the scientific studies let’s not forget that it’s fun with a capital F, watching the kids learning and the joy it generates in them is in itself evidence enough of the positive effects of circus skills.
“Studies show that movement and stimulation of balance helps attention-al disorders and improves reading.” C. Hannaford Ph.D
Learning circus skills is physical, creative education which has been shown to improve academic performance. Juggling actually increases grey matter in the parts of the brain that process visual/motion information! Benefits of our workshops include:
Differentiation – We engage all students at a level sensitive to their current abilities; students progress at their own pace and are responsible (with our guidance whenever necessary) for developing their own learning.
Inclusion – Circus skills are perfect for students who dislike or lack confidence in traditional sports or academic pursuits.
“Children get a great cardio-vascular and pulmonary work-out when they juggle scarves, exercising the big muscles close to the head and close to the heart.” Dave Finnigan
Confidence Building – Students enjoy non-competitive activity. No one is born a juggler! Students learn to break tasks down, developing cognitive, problem-solving skills. As they negotiate their way through the different stages of learning a trick that which seemed impossible becomes possible leading to a tangible sense of achievement.
Improving Academic Performance – Juggling engages both the left and right hand sides of our brains. Our left hand brain is responsible for procedures, logic, maths, and gets a very thorough work-out from analysing where to aim that next throw, or where the hand should be positioned to catch it. The right hand, or creative side, is responsible for turning juggling into an art – choreographing tricks into routines, remembering to smile! This is the same for all manipulation skills. They get our brains working holistically and sharpen focus, which leads to improvement in academic performance.
Developing Transferable Skills – Circus skills have cross-curricular relevance, including elements of performance arts, maths and even physics. Studies suggest that as hand-eye coordination is greatly improved by regular juggling, it is particularly beneficial for dyslexics.
1. Juggling exercises and integrates the “right” and “left” brain.
When you fi rst learn to juggle, you are breaking the steps down into small learning steps. You are using
what psychologists call the left brain, the logical, analytic, and narrowly focused side. Once you have
learned how to juggle, you move into “right” brained thinking, the side that is more intuitive and holistic.
When this happens, juggling becomes automatic and relaxing. Some call it a moving meditation.
The left and right movement across the body literally changes our focus from left to right and back again.
Research has shown that there is a direct relationship between hand-eye coordination and the ability to read and write.
Schools are teaching juggling as a way to enhance academic learning.
The eye crosses midline and the movement improves concentration, encourages sequencing, and increases tracking.
Recent research has found that it is never too late to grow dendrites or connective cells in the brain.
Nerve cells are designed to be stimulated by new input which in turn builds a richer brain structure.
New learning creates a reserve of dense connections partially protecting us from cell loss associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers say that the brain benefits the most from learning that which is “exotic and unusual”— juggling—what could be more exotic!
Juggling is a self-esteem booster. Juggling gives kids and adults tangible evidence of accomplishment. When students can get up and
perform successfully for adults or other students, self esteem soars. Learning this newly acquired, yet heretofore seemingly impossible skill,
causes all of us to take a second look at the other things we thought we couldn’t do. It challenges all our other beliefs about what is possible.
Students who get up and move around energetically on a regular basis return to academic tasks refreshed and will learn better as a result.
A program of classroom breaks can be set up and run by the students themselves. Because students work at their own pace, with their own equipment
and in an environment that reinforces effort and accomplishment the activity is completely safe and non-disruptive.
Juggling turns everyone into a participant. We tend to sort ourselves out around the age of 12 into spectators and participants. With juggling,
everyone plays. Juggling is non-competitive when done individually , and requires cooperation when two or more work together.
For many adults, it is the first new physical skill they have learned in a long time.
Juggling is joyful. Through the context of play, people have always learned best. Juggling breaks people out of their mental
ruts and helps them be open to new possibilities and ideas. Juggling And Whole Brain Learning
Juggling offers an effective “brain break” similar to the effect of sleeping on a problem.
Juggling is being used by businesses to help increase creativity and innovative problem solving.
Juggling gets students up and moving bringing much needed oxygen to the brain.
Juggling is an activity at which males and females can be equally adept, and where size and strength are not advantages.
Everyone participates, even those who are usually side-lined by athletics. Because juggling is a subjective art/sport, it is hard to make
negative comparisons about the skill of others. Praise is built into the process.
Because you can only learn to juggle step by step, juggling is a great model for learning in general.
We learn to juggle drop by drop. It is not through success, but through many small mistakes (drops) that we
learn to juggle. We learn from these mistakes and keep on trying until we accomplish the skill. Through
juggling we learn that with practice we can accomplish great things.
Juggling takes little space.Students will not require more space than their own classroom and possibly a small piece of a hallway or
a bit of playground once they move on beyond scarves. Adults can go off discretely to a side office and silently practice with scarves.
The equipment is absolutely transportable.
Juggling provides a great deal of carry-over to learning other physical skills. Many athletes have learned that juggling improves refl exes and spatial awareness,
accuracy in throwing, confidence in catching and brings an innate sense of grace and rhythm.
If students become involved in the teaching process, they learn a great deal more than if they are simply taught a skill by a teacher.
Juggling isn’t just for the athlete or the artist. Everyone is a student, as there is always more to learn.
Everyone can become a teacher and students gain by teaching adults their newly acquired skill.
Juggling is a perfect metaphor for life in general.We are all continually being asked to juggle more projects, priorities, and people. Learning to juggle is a
perfect way to alleviate stress from our mental balancing acts.