Posted on 10/12/2009 11:49:04 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Complex tasks such as juggling produce significant changes to the structure of the brain, according to scientists at Oxford University.
In the journal, Nature Neuroscience, the scientists say they saw a 5% increase in white matter - the cabling network of the brain.
The people who took part in the study were trained for six weeks and had brain scans before and after.
Long term it could aid treatments for diseases like multiple sclerosis.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Penn and Teller are geniuses so i guess this makes sense.
My brain refuses to see beyond two balls.
To me, it comes under the same category as trying to draw a circle with one hand and a square with the other ... at the same time..
Also great for hand eye coordination. If you or someone you know plays football or baseball, it’ll make a marked improvement in their skills
Once, he opened for Shields & Yarnell at a show at Flint Center (DeAnza College c. 1977).
Another time he opened for a concert - King Crimson at the Greek Theater in Ber(zer)keley (1984).
The last time was around '89 and he was performing at Pier 39 in SF.
He's good!
Stick to it and you’ll get it. The trick is to be able to toss two balls without doing the “handoff,” and then three is easy. Once you master the toss-toss, you’re done.
Duh.
Exercising your muscles makes then grow. Who is suprised that exercising your brain causes it to grow?
Juggling requires a lot of hand/eye coordination, which is very brain intensive. Why wouldn’t it cause your brain to grow?
The real question is why people want to do things that don't make their brains grow.
Self-ping for later read.
If you're juggling three balls, only two are in the air at once, so you only need to see two. The trick is in consistent tosses. Start with one ball and toss it back and forth between your hands in an arc. Once your arc is consistent, add a second ball, but alter the timing a little bit so they aren't thrown at the same time. If you're doing that, you only have to concentrate on catching one ball at a time, even though both are in the air at once.
Once you're consistent with two balls, add a third. There is no real challenge to it because you're basically doing the exact same thing as you were with two balls, but you're just doing it a little faster. If you're right handed, start with two balls in your left hand. Piece of cake.
The challenge becomes juggling different sized or weighted objects or throwing some objects higher in the air than others. It can be a challenge to remember what is going where.
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