Juggling for combat???

Looking through the internet the other night i stumbled on a website about juggling. Reading up on it it turns out that doing a complicated sequence of actions, like juggling, actually causes the areas of the brain that process visual information and control hand-eye coordination to grow.

With this in mind, would "cross-training" MMA in unrelated fields like juggling, skipping, etc, in order to improve coordination, technique and skill be worthwhile?

Read up on the study.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3417045.stm

http://www.nldline.com/juggling_&_the_brain.htm

http://12.31.13.113/healthyliving/mindbody/dec04juggling.htm

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Reading up on it it turns out that doing a complicated sequence of actions, like juggling, actually causes the areas of the brain that process visual information and control hand-eye coordination to grow.

Sweet, I'm going to bust out the X-Box.

Writing your signature the same every time requires an incredibly complex series of motor actions in the body.

So yes, juggling does increase the areas of your brain involved in hand eye coordination. For juggling. Of course, if you are extremely underdeveloped in that part of the brain, there could be more carryover, but boxing would be more effective.

-doug-

Can you juggle?

The cross-over is pretty minimal, imo. Juggling is pretty specific to juggling - it's all about throwing the objects to the same height, at the same speed, and at the exact right time.

Once you get decent at it, it's an automatic response. As soon as the object hits your hand, you immediately toss it.

If you want to be good at juggling, juggle. If you want to be good at boxing, box.