“No longer just a party trick, juggling might also enhance your brainpower.”

– Medical News Today

SPARKS — Robert “The Jockey” D’Amours claims juggling has made him smarter.

“There’s scientific proof it increases your intelligence,” the 58-year-old tax accountant and retired jockey joked. “Before I took up juggling, I was an idiot. Now I’m a moron.”

Ordinary juggling isn’t challenging enough for D’Amours, as he demonstrated at Tuesday’s 2010 Joggling Championships on the Sparks High School track.

Juggling plus jogging equals “joggling.” In competition, jogglers must keep at least three balls aloft while racing down the track. Long-distance jogglers run 5 kilometers (3 miles) while juggling three balls. Shorter-distance jogglers run 100 to 1600 meters with up to seven balls in the air. In relay races, balls are handed off from joggler to joggler. If balls are dropped, jogglers must turn around, pick up their balls and start again.

“Your balls are bigger than mine,” Sparks resident Buddy Beard yelled at participants from the street.

Ball jokes are inevitable around jugglers or jogglers, D’Amours said. He chose to ignore the heckler while warming up for a race with teen jogglers like Justin Kolas. The 16-year-old Californian plans to finance his musical education with performance juggling. Danish joggler Lauge Benjaminsen, 17, said he won the equivalent of $20,000 in his first competition on a Danish television talent show.

Reno joggler Gordon Cornell, 50, described joggling as “running with the arms” and said he joggles to keep his mind and body healthy.

“It’s the ultimate mind-body workout.” Cornell said. “I wish it was an Olympic sport.”

Participant Larry Kluger said any persistent person can learn to juggle. For children, he starts with scarves: The slow-moving, lightweight objects make it easier to master the X-shaped, criss-cross pattern of basic juggling.

“There’s research that juggling can boost students’ reading and academic scores,” Kluger said.

Juggling may improve brain health, according to the website Medical News Today.

“Researchers in the UK found that learning to juggle boosts brain connections by making structural changes in the white matter of the brain. They hope the study will help develop new treatments for diseases such as multiple sclerosis where central nervous system pathways have become degraded.”

Juggling events continue through Saturday during this week’s annual International Jugglers’ Association convention at John Ascuaga’s Nugget in the Rose Ballroom, or the “gym” as jugglers call it. For more information, visit the IJA website at www.juggle.org/festival.