We all juggle every single day, from work, to school, to our home and family obligations.
But very few of us can actually say we are able to juggle, as in balls, knives or chainsaws.
A group of students is proving that we can all learn to do it, and pick up a few other lessons along the way.
It’s today’s Sightseeing in Northern Michigan.
“Belief, in the first place. Usually once we get them started most of them wind up learning it. Most of them stand there and watch and you say ‘you want to learn?’ and they go ‘nah, no’ but they don’t mean that,” says Tommy Tropic.
This is what Tommy Tropic is talking about.
“Every Tuesday and Thursday. I haven’t missed a day yet,” says Lillii Armstrong.
When the school bell rings at 3 p.m. students at East Jordan High School gather to learn the ups and downs of juggling.
“I never thought I could juggle,” says Lillii.
This after school activity is the brain child of Tommy Tropic and his exchange student from Italy, Emanual.
“I don’t even remember which one of us thought it up. We were both teaching kids how to juggle every chance we got and we said, ‘let’s do this at the school I bet we can start a club’," says Tommy.
They did, and it caught on.
“I mean, the second day we had 45 people all together here. I didn’t expect that at first but, you know, people were interested,” says Emanual.
Emanual has been juggling since he was seven years old.
“The first time everyone is frustrated, because it’s hard and the first step is very hard, then after that everything gets easier and easier, and pretty soon you can start doing harder stuff,” explains Emanual.
One person who comes back every week is Lillii Armstrong. You could call her Tommy and Emanual’s star pupil.
“For each different thing, like I had to learn the balls first. That took me about a week. Then to learn the rings, that took me a day or so. Then the pins took me the longest, like 2-3 weeks, then the mixed objects took me like one day to learn.”
“She works hard, that’s it. Everybody can do it, but Lillii works hard at it. She’s really excelling,” says Tommy. “If this is her hobby for four more years she’s going to be incredibly impressive.”
Juggling, a life lesson?
“Learning to juggle is a lesson in learning itself. The complex tasks are broke down to simple achievable steps. That’s our mission and were going to teach anybody and everybody,” explains Tommy.
Lillii says, “It’s just a matter of time. It doesn’t really matter if you’re faster or slower. If you just put your mind to it you can do it.”
These kids are proof.
“If you don’t give up, you’re going to get it soon enough,” says Emanual.
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