In a vast, airy warehouse on a south London industrial estate, groups of impressively lithe women are striking elegant, gravity-defying poses on trapezes and ropes up high.

There’s an air of balletic grace at the Hangar Arts Trust, a circus and aerial skills training centre, in Greenwich . . . until my juggling lesson begins.

My teacher is Nik Litton, the amiable co-manager, who cuts a reassuringly burly figure. He started out as a juggler, he tells me, adding: “Around 80 per cent of people are juggling three balls within half an hour.” No pressure then.

I’ve never juggled or, frankly, thought there was much point to it unless you were or had aspirations to be a clown, a children’s entertainer or a dreadlocked trustafarian. I’d dismissed it as being in a similar vein to ambidextrous activities such as playing the piano and all those patting-your-head-while-rubbing-your-tummy tricks; either you can do them or you can’t. But you don’t often get a chance to challenge your juggling prejudices. So here I am ready to set them aside and learn a plethora of circus skills.

We begin with a warm-up. Nik asks me to throw a ball from one hand to another. I relax. This isn’t too bad. He adds a little twist — I have to clap once, then twice and then three times between the throws and catches. It all starts to go a bit wrong as I struggle to fit in three claps, but no matter, Nik is satisfied and hands me a second ball.

I’m ready to get to grips with the basics, which means learning the cascade technique of juggling three balls. Nik demonstrates; sending one ball up in an arc and, just as it’s dipping, throwing the other ball up in another arc;

somehow effortlessly catching the first ball before the second lands in his other palm.

My turn. I find myself throwing both balls at the same time and snatching at them simultaneously. I can’t seem to get the second ball high enough. Iautomatically pass it across from one hand to another as I obsess about catching the first ball. And, I’m apparently not looking at either ball! “You’ve got to be pretty well-co-ordinated to be throwing and catching two balls without looking,” he says, impressed. Somehow I’ve learnt the showering technique, the basis of the much more exotic four-ball pattern. Great, I’m a problem juggler.

I need to be re-programmed. Nik instructs me to focus on getting both balls to arc properly, one after another, and not to catch them. At first, my hands shoot out, before grudgingly doing as they are told. With my arcs much improved, we reintroduce the catches. It’s all quite a mental effort. I can almost feel the cogs in little-used, dusty corners of my brain whirring. I manage to string together a few good throws and then fluff the next few. I’m trying too hard. “Juggling is all about timing and rhythm. You’ve got to let the ball trickle in to you,” says Nik. Watching him send balls rising and dipping rhythmically in an endless, flowing loop is mesmerising, especially now that I can appreciate the skill involved.

It’s time to up the ante to three balls. I’ve barely got the hang of two, but Nik insists I’m ready, handing me a third ball to add to the one already in my right hand, which is my lead hand. I’m to throw one ball from this hand and then the ball in my other hand up in the usual arcs and catch them, continuing the pattern with the remaining third ball in my right hand.

After several clownish attempts which end with balls bouncing all over the place, I very nearly manage to string three arcs and catches together. I continue, totally absorbed, but strangely relaxed as I settle into a rhythm, meditatively building on my two-ball technique, determined to slip in a third ball and master it. Zen and the art of juggling . . . I’m hooked.

Learn circus skills

Drop-in for classes in juggling, trapeze and acrobatics at the Circus Space, London, N1, from £5 a class www.thecircusspace.co.uk

Everyone from children to professionals can have a go at a community circus, which runs a team-building course. Sheffield, from £5 a class. www.greentop.org

Local juggling classes listings are available at www.jugglingdb.com

To find out about the Walkers promotion, visit www.sensationscrisps.co.uk

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