any learning experience provides a valuable opportunity to revisit fundamental principles of growth and change. Over the past 25 years, we have complemented our academic research into the brain and learning with practical tests. We've challenged ourselves continuously to learn new things particularly things for which we'd been told, as children, we had little or no talent. We've learned many new skills such as singing, swimming ballroom dancing, tennis, languages, martial arts, drawing and juggling. Any one of these subjects could provide a fertile metaphor for exploring the art of learning and life. But juggling offers something special. We chose juggling as the focus of our book because learning anything involves keeping a number of things "up in the air at the same time, because dropping the balls' provides an ideal metaphor for gracefully coping with mistakes, which we consider one of life's most important abilities. Juggling also provides a sense of inner quiet in the midst of activity, a special experience of mind and body in harmony. And juggling's essential light-heartedness encourages easy access to the fundamental human learning modality of play.