Learning circus skills provides a wide range of benefits to the participant – increased attention span and focus, personal and social growth, mental and emotional health – all the while within a non-competitive and fun atmosphere.
Problem-Solving
– From complex juggling patterns to understanding the dynamics of a diabolo or working on acrobatics with a partner, all significantly improve your problem solving skills.
PHYSICAL coordination
– Object manipulation requires accurate, coordinated and timely movements, which results in greatly improved physical coordination benefiting daily life.
Concentration
– With correct learning and through ongoing practice, the practitioner will see an increase in their ability to concentrate at the task at hand.
IMPROVED Reflexes
– Most circus disciplines require split second reactions. Those who practice circus skills will develop increased response rates the more they practice.
Patience
– A trick must be practiced many times before your muscles learn the knack to it, and dropping props is a fact of circus life. Patience is a virtue. It can grow on you.
Improved Balance
– Equilibristics such as unicycling, tightwire, stilts and acrobatics improve the body’s natural sense of balance.
Self-confidence
– Being able to reflect back on your hard work and having a nice trick to show for it is a great confidence booster. The more you advance at a given skill the more you feel a sense of achievement and confidence in your ability.
Fitness and flexibility
– Acrobatics, acrobalance, and aerial all lead to greater fitness and flexibility. Proper warming-up and stretching is essential to care for your body and should be practiced at all levels of circus.
Creative Expression
– Circus is an art form as well as a form of physical and mental stimulation. Practicing allows the practitioner to be creative, explore and express themselves in a way they hadn’t before.
Social skills
– Participants of all ages can learn and share in a safe, non-competitive atmosphere all the while making friends and having fun.
INCREASED brain mass
– Proven by science! According to research published in the journal ‘Nature Neuroscience’, juggling actually increases the amount of white matter in our brains and creates new neural pathways.
