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Hand-Stands In The Park
I spontaneously spent about ten minutes today in the park practicing hand-stands. I’m not very good at them yet, but had fun doing it.
After I’d been doing it for a while, I heard some kid yell off from a stand of trees in the distance, “You suck!” I turned laughing to see the kid then yell out, “Watch this!” and proceed to copy me. The funny part is that he couldn’t do it any better than I could, but still felt like he needed to yell out an insult anyway.
I went back to it myself and landed a couple decent ones and got to thinking: if you’re doing some kind of activity like this in public, it almost pays to not be *too* good - at least if you goal is to get other people to copy you or to join in the fun.
The other thing I came up with today while juggling on the Ave for a few minutes is that juggling is all about non-attachment. Juggling isn’t really about catching and throwing. It’s more about ushering balls from place to place and offering them a temporary resting point/launching point. But since it’s such an active thing, it’s not at all about being uninvolved or being passive. It’s like actively participating in actions and events without becoming fixated on any one point in the process.
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Here’s something interesting about juggling. I’m not sure about the whole “Hawkeen” thing surrounding it, but the techniques are interesting. I haven’t tried it myself, although I’ve wanted to. Have to go find something the right size/weight that makes noise…
The stuff on nightwalking is pretty cool too. Found the site via a link to the nightwalking stuff on Ran Prieur’s site.
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Why not just do regular juggling though, instead of this “mind juggling” technique which just seems to be throwing a ball from hand to hand for twenty minutes?
June 4th, 2008 at 2:02 am
holy crap someone else does spontaneous hand stand practice in the park??? high five!!! i thought i was the only one. i also am not so great at them either. keep up the good work!
June 4th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Well, I more meant to point out the ideas about anxiety, nervousness, and the way juggling balances the brain hemishperes.
The actual excercise seems to be a simplfied version of juggling, something easy for people who don’t want to take the time to learn actual juggling, or don’t think that they have the dexterity for it.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Oh ok. I agree with the basic premise like you’re saying
June 4th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Cellvia, if you’re in Baltimore, let’s go do handstands in the park together!
June 4th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
[…] This is a great card, I feel, to get just before I go to my friend’s studio to record an EP. On the Eight of Pentacles we see a young man who is hammering away at a coin. He has finished six and has another coin to go. It is clear that he is in the middle of a project that absorbs all his attention. He’s isolated himself from others (the town in the background) in order to concentrate. In this scene we see the essential elements of the Eight of Pentacles: hard work and attention to detail. […]