I grew up in the boonies back in the 80's. The only real contact I had with juggling was probably cartoons like described above. I really wanted to learn though and would walk around the woods for hours trying to juggle oak galls in that "circle style" only able to keep it up for a few seconds at a time.

My first day at college, before classes started, I was in the dorms. Everyone was getting to know each other, and I saw someone juggling the right way. It instantly clicked. All the hand-eye practice the 'wrong' way actually helped. That's why I always tell people that the first thing I learned in college was how to juggle.