I have been looking at the biography of Michel Thomas, which I will not try to summarise here, but I did find good quotes about his attitude to learning and the educational establishment. Anyone who knows me knows how much I disliked the education I had, and yet how much I enjoy learning. I work for the Leisure and Lifelong Learning group in my local council now, which just about sums up why I happened to be a juggler for a while...there was no urge to be a performer, I just wanted to spend the bulk of my time in Leisure and Learning...and that particular skill happened to support itself.

It also took me into teaching - and I always thought of teaching as 'sharing an enthusiasm' and overcoming people's bad learning experiences - juggling was a particularly simple (but apparently difficult) skill, which could rapidly give people a sense of success and achievement. The lessons learned - in 'learning how to learn' could be applied to other areas of life. I always thrived with self-selected students, but often had trouble with ready-made groups doing my course as a compulsory event. Much harder work.