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A Blast from the Past In his book ”The Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things,” Charles Panati wrote that hoops made from grapevines existed in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome and that wood and metal hoops created a craze in 14th-century England. Egyptian children played with hoops by rolling them with sticks or whirling them around their waist. The ancient Greeks used them to exercise, but there is no evidence relating them to the Olympics. In the Louvre there is a vase dated 500-490 BC showing Ganymede rolling a hoop. Hoops were used in Great Britain in the 14th century in religious ceremonies but also as a form of recreation. Documentation of doctors treating dislocated backs and heart attacks attributed to hooping were found in the medical records of that time...  In this article from Oxford University, scientists discuss their research on: juggling! In a very exciting discovery, for scientific and flow communities, practicing a skill like juggling creates new connections in the white matter of the practitioner's brain. No previous studies have been able to show ways to improve these connections, called the "cabling network" of the brain because they pass messages between different grey matter areas (those parts that take care of processing and computation). So, what many of us have long suspected has now been proven true: juggling is good for your brain! This fantastic demonstration of isolating "eight" rings comes to us from Malabaristas, the Tokyo University juggling club. Kotaro, a university student and dedicated juggler, rocks out the rings with creativity and precision. This is a great reminder of the power of practicing with others of many skill levels. dvKDZEJkF4U  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a leading researcher in positive psychology, says creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. He has devoted his life to studying what makes people truly happy: "When we are involved in [creativity], we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life." Here he discusses the notion of "flow" -- the creative moment when a person is completely involved in an activity for its own sake. This interview is part of a series being produced by Jaguar Mary. It features hoop master Jonathan Livingston Baxter, better known as simply Baxter. In this video, he discusses the concept of "emerge or die" and how it applies to Flow practice. Although he is a hooper and discusses ideas around developing a practice based on the hoop, what he's talking about in this clip is valuable to spinners/prop manipulators of any type. There is much that Flowsters can learn from others that play with different toys, and this is a prime example of that. OjnM2yEyeQw |
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