Juggle Five Balls
Many people can Juggle Two Balls, some folks can Juggle Three Balls. There are even a select few that can Juggle Four Balls. However, if you really want to put on a show, practice these steps so you can learn how to Juggle Five Balls!
Steps
- Begin learning this trick by tossing one ball from hand to hand.
- Throw one ball from your dominant hand in a perfect arc going to your other hand. To get five balls going, your tosses will have to be higher than with the three ball pattern. Practice throwing one ball back and forth, in a perfect arc, about a foot above head-height.
- Next, practice a two-ball-exchange at this greater height. Toss the first ball, then throw the next ball from your subordinate hand hand in a perfect arc toward your dominant hand when the first ball is at its peak. Keep repeating this high two-bag exchange for as long as necessary.
- A good 'drill' for doing five is to practice the following with three balls.
- Put two in your dominant hand, and one in the other.
- Throw both balls from your dominant hand to the hand with one ball, and while they're in the air, hand off that ball to your other hand. Just go back and forth, throwing 2 then handing one off. Toss, toss, pass, catch, catch. It helps you practice quickly catching and throwing two consecutive balls.
- To help your hands get fast enough to Juggle Five, practice a Three Ball Flash (that is, throwing and catching all three balls with a space in between where you have no balls in your hands). Clap during the space.
- Then try doing a Five Ball Flash. Check your rhythm and accuracy by throwing all five of them as if beginning a cascade juggle, but let them fall to the ground instead of catching them. If you throw with the timing and accuracy required for a five juggle, they should land one after the other in a regular rhythm and end up quite close together on the floor just in front of your feet. In the early stages, try this exercise at a slow speed to help you develop a sense of the timing and feel of five alternating right/left (or left/right) throws. When you get comfortable (or tired of bending over), practice catching the balls you flash up.
- If you've practiced the above steps, you have the feel for the height and speed it takes to Juggle Five. The pattern is identical to juggling the three ball cascade, it is just a lot faster and a foot or so higher. All that remains is to just do it...
- Hold 3 balls in your dominant hand and 2 in the other. Juggle a regular cascade pattern, but more quickly, with the tosses going higher, and with greater accuracy. That sounds easy enough...
Tips
- You can try this whilst standing in front of a bed to stop the balls from hitting the ground.
- Learn to Juggle Three Balls and Juggle Four Balls first.
- It is very important to keep the balls traveling in a sideways figure-eight to keep the balls from colliding. The balls should always travel in the same path over and over, criss-crossing in the center. This becomes natural with practice.
- You can get juggling balls at a magic shop or from the internet, or you can Make Juggling Balls (Balloon Method) .
- If you have a friend who can juggle 5 balls, ask them to help. Start facing your friend with about two feet of space in between. Toss all 5 balls in the air in rhythm and let your friend worry about the catches. Next, reverse this and let them throw all 5 while you catch. This will help you master the timing a little bit at a time.
- As with any exercise, it is wise to warm up your muscles with stretching first.
Warnings
- At first, this may seem difficult.
- Do not learn to juggle three in one hand. It seems like it would help with the quick throws and catches; it does; but it gets you into the habit of throwing balls directly up instead of across to the other hand. It makes learning five take much longer, because you have to break that habit.
- This may take months, or even years to learn. The pattern is the same as three ball juggling, the differences are speed, height, and accuracy; you need more of all three.
Things You'll Need
- Five juggling bean bags or juggling balls
- Two hands
- Commitment
- Patience
Related Articles
- Juggle
- Juggle Two Balls
- Juggle Three Balls
- Juggle Four Balls
- Make Juggling Balls from Tennis Balls
