ABSTRACT
Psycho-perceptual motor skills and visual anticipation have the potential to improve the performance of circus artists, yet little is known about these skills in the circus context. This chapter therefore applies research from sport to the circus setting. First, this chapter describes OPTIMAL theory’s predictions regarding the effect of motivation and attentional focus on the performance of motor skills in circus. Adding another layer, perceptual motor skills that are likely relevant to circus performance are explained. Within this, the importance of visual search and visual anticipation for performance in circus is emphasised. Then, the chapter describes the foreseen benefits of visual anticipation training programmes for circus artists. Specifically, the potential of video-based and virtual reality temporal occlusion training on the visual anticipation abilities of circus artists is described. The chapter concludes with a note on the importance of a representative training environment for performance in circus.
