Five Ball Lift Bounce Cascade

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Juggling 5 balls is very difficult. However, the good news is that the bounce version is easier than the toss version. If you want to juggle 5 balls in any form, you need to practice really consistently, ideally every day. Juggling 5 balls forced me to actually practice the “right way” -- i.e., stopping the pattern when it started to fall apart and systematically incrementing the number of throws/catches I was attempting. Even though it’s really hard to juggle 5 balls, once you get it to work, it’s very exciting and rewarding. If you’re up for the challenge, let’s get started.

Step 1: Three-Ball Release

The first thing you need to know to juggle 5 balls is how to hold three balls in one hand. You’ll always start with three balls in your dominant hand. The balls should be in a triangle (see image below). Hold the green ball between your index finger and middle finger. Hold the purple ball between your thumb and the side of your index finger. Hold the red ball between your ring finger and pinky finger. Your hands may have to stretch a lot, and it might feel awkward. Try to get used to it as much as possible.

Next, you need to practice releasing three balls from one hand. The balls are thrown in this order: green, purple, red. All of the throws are with a Lift Bounce. First, throw the green ball. As soon as you throw the green ball, roll the purple ball to your fingertips (this usually happens automatically) and throw the purple ball. As soon as you throw the purple ball, roll the red ball to your fingertips and throw the red ball. Catch all of the balls with your LH.

It’s worth talking about catching three balls in one hand. Unlike beanbags, bounce balls are perfectly round and you can’t squeeze them into a smaller shape, so it’s rather difficult to catch three balls in the same hand. This can be really frustrating if all of your throws are good, but you simply can’t catch that last ball! Here’s how to catch three balls:

You’ll notice that the catching technique is the opposite of the throwing technique.

Keep practicing the three-ball release until you can do it perfectly without thinking about it. Then, move on to Step 2.

Step 2: Flash

The next step is to try to flash five balls. A flash means throwing and catching the same number of balls that you’re juggling. So, if you complete a five-ball flash, that means that you threw and caught 5 balls in a row. That’s your goal for this step. Do not try to do more than five throws and five catches. I’m not usually one to insist that you practice this way, but your practice needs to be really disciplined to learn five balls.

It might take you a long time to get a five-ball flash. Remember that you have to release the balls really quickly. As soon as your RH makes a throw, you have to throw the ball from your LH and vice versa. Work on the three-ball release if that’s giving you trouble. Once you can consistently flash five balls, try to qualify them.

Step 3: Qualify

A qualify means throwing and catching the number of balls that you’re juggling times two. So, if you qualify five balls, that means that you threw and caught 10 balls in a row. When you qualify five balls at least once, you can say to other jugglers that you can juggle 5 balls!

Slowly work up to the qualify from the flash. Try to get 6 throws/catches then stop. Once that feels comfortable, move on to 7. Continue until you get to 10. For me, it felt a little more natural to go from 5 to 7 (rather than 5 to 6) and 7 to 9 because that way both hands made one more throw than before. As long as you’re slowly incrementing, it doesn’t really matter.

When you start making more than 5 throws/catches, it can be hard to keep track of what’s happening. Originally, I had 5 balls that were all the same color, and I got very confused once the pattern started. Then, I got one ball that was a different color (red), and I put the red ball as the third ball to be thrown out of my right hand. That helped a lot.

The off-color ball also helped me to count the number of throws/catches. Since the red ball was thrown last from my right hand, that meant that the red ball was the fifth ball to be thrown overall. Thus, every time I caught the red ball I knew that I had made another 5 catches (as long as I hadn’t dropped any of the others!). If you have balls that are all different colors, pick one color to always be the last one that’s thrown. If you have balls that are all the same colors, I recommend getting one ball that’s a different color.

When you qualify 5 balls, celebrate!! You did something that’s really really difficult. You can now try running the pattern as long as you like. Congrats!!

If you already know how to do the toss version of the 5 ball cascade, you can transition between the toss and bounce patterns for a really cool effect. Check out this video by my friend Jared Davis:

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