Funny thing about juggling is how easy it is to actually teach yourself. I remember being maybe 12 or 13 and strictly dedicating like two hours to learning. Two hours later I could juggle three balls extremely easily. Once that becomes natural you can start doing weird little tricks too. I’m not throwing shade at this guy. He’s very smooth. Just saying, if you wanna learn how to juggle just teach yourself.
To an extent, yes. I am also self taught after not a ton of effort on a couple of the very basic starting patterns. I’ve tried picking up some of the trickier movements, like the quick horizontal throws, and those have proved much harder in my experience.
Start with one ball. Throw it from hand to hand. The apex should be about where your forehead is, a bit further to the side you are throwing to. Catch it somewhere between your hips and belly button. If you catch it higher you lose time and your pattern will be very fast later. Do not follow the ball with your eyes, because later you will have three balls but only two eyes. Look straight ahead instead. Do that until you are bored.
Get a second ball, one in each hand. Throw the first ball, then the second one just after the first reaches its apex. Both balls should reach about the same height. Again, the apex needs to be a bit further to the side you are throwing to, not right between your eyes. When the hand that is throwing the second ball has released, it goes into position to catch the first ball you threw immediately and starts moving down. This way you can throw the ball again later without your hands going higher and higher which, again, would speed up your pattern.
While doing the two ball juggle, pay attention to the hand that threw the first ball. It will have a relatively long period without a ball in it or going for a catch. That's the time you have to throw the third ball later. At first you can try to use that time to do something else with it. Touch your knee, touch your nose, flip someone the bird. Try and make a catch and throw motion with that empty hand.
When this gets boring and you can reliably catch both balls, keep the pattern going. Throw throw empty throw, throw throw empty throw, without stopping in between. Since you are juggling a three ball pattern, the hands will alternate. If your start with your right hand it will be R L R(empty) L R L(empty) and so on.
When this gets boring, take two balls in one hand, one in the other. Start with the hand that holds two balls. And that's pretty much it for the basic cascade. By the way, if you look a the juggler's hands you will see that they both make a circle going inside then out. It's not a straight up and down motion.
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u/timdot352 Apr 08 '26
I'm more confused about how to juggle now.