the timboucher experience

I discovered this by chance recently and have been really enjoying it. It’s so simple that anyone should be able to do it (assuming you have hands, that is).

All you do is this: Take a ball (or some similar small object you can fit in your palm) in one hand, close your eyes, and throw the ball up in the air in an arc to your other hand. All with your eyes closed.

I’ve tested this one out on a few other people, and everyone I’ve experimented with invariably drops the ball. The exercise is easiest if you throw laterally across, from hand to hand in a straight line, and becomes graduallly more difficult as you increase the height of the arc. Best practice I’ve found for it is hold your hands up and out in front of you at about rib-level, arms shoulder-length apart and have the top of your toss-arc cross in front of about where your eyes are.

I’ve actually been doing a more elaborate exercise based on this: blind three-ball juggling. You can do it with your eyes closed or with a blindfold. I’ve also heard the technique of tilting your head up, eyes open gradually until you can no longer see the balls you’re throwing.

Juggling without aid of your eyes, however, takes a lot of practice. Throwing a ball from hand to hand with your eyes closed is a lot easier and can be picked up in a much shorter time. My theory for why this simple exercise is so difficult (aside from the fact that you have your eyes closed) has to do with brain hemisphere communication. That as the ball crosses the center-line of your body, it passes into the domain of the opposite side of your brain. So physics calculations originating in the one hemisphere don’t necessarily translate across to the other - without some work. In most people, the level of communication across hemispheres is so low as to almost be non-existant. But it’s 100% trainable though. You just have to teach yourself to do this through repetition.

I like the blind juggling/blind toss exercise for metaphorical/symbolic reasons as well: it becomes an exercise in patience, self-trust, and even faith. Eliminating something so essential to your ordinary activities as sight, sensory input, is excellent practice and preparation for any other type of activity which requires pushing oneself out into unfamiliar and uncertain terrain.

Best of luck!

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