Learning to juggle five balls

Learning to juggle five balls is a long process. It took me two months, but I was completely obessesed at the time. If you are a more sane person, who wishes to take time out for things such as work, social interaction, and urination, you should give it about a year.

I am assuming here that you know how to juggle three balls. This is going to take much longer.

You will need nine things:

• Five squishy round things that won't roll, break things, meow, squeak or otherwise complain, evolve, or grow mold when you lose them under the couch.
• Two hands.
• A bed or couch in a room with a high ceiling.
• 20 minutes a day.

First, just try it. Put two balls in your left hand, and three in your right. (reverse for lefties, ambidextrous people should cut one ball in half) Throw them all up and try to juggle.

They fall all over the place. You are learning. This is why we have the bed.

You should approach the problem from some other angles, as well, but most of your time will be spent just throwing the balls all up into the air and trying desperately to keep the pattern going. The other angles to try are a three ball chase, a three ball flash, and watching somebody else do it.

Eventually, you will experience Five Ball Englightenment. Past this point, it is just a matter of cleaning up your pattern and learning some tricks.

The first thing to realise is that five ball juggling is simply impossible. Three balls are possible, because the spare ball just goes from one hand to another like a lost puppy. Four balls are possible, because each hand just does two in one hand at the same time. But with five balls, there are three balls up there!

Before you start, have you practiced the four ball fountain? It is important, because it is much more wearying for body and mind than any three ball pattern. Do four balls until you can do at least a hundred catches. Trust me on this.

Now, have patience, because everybody struggles with the five ball cascade. The only way to master five balls is to slowly learn to break through the realms of possibility. Expect to spend all your waking hours, and more, struggling with the pattern.

Try other patterns while you are learning the five ball cascade... it's tempting to just keep throwing five balls up in the air, but every so often you're going to have to swallow your pride and practice the three ball chase (or 'snake'), three ball shower in both directions (and also switching direction every two throws), plently of three ball flashes, three-five if you can do it, and any other patterns recommended to you. (There are millions of approaches)

Before you run off to try five balls, there's just one more thing I should mention, and that is the sheer unprecditability of learning five. Some days you will 'have it', and some days you will struggle to even get a few throws right. Some patterns will help you, and some will utterly destroy all the progress you've made for the last six months. Such is life. I found that my most profound breakthrough came just after learning to unicycle... Just remember when you're beating your head against the wall in annoyment: you can't control it. Just do it.