Have you been wondering if you could ever learn how to juggle?

Good news! You’ve just found the answer to this question, which is yes you can learn how to juggle. After going through this article and the video along with it, you will have learned how to juggle. We’re going to start off with the juggling pattern that is known as the three ball cascade. It’s the juggling pattern that looks more like a figure eight than a circle. The pattern that looks like a circle is known as the shower pattern.

Juggling really is all about breaking something down to its simplest steps possible. Before you get the fun started you want to make sure that you have 3 juggling balls that are of equal size and weight.

Juggling Balls – What You Need To Get Started

If you can find 3 balls of the same size and weight you’ll be good for the beginning. You might have some tennis balls or baseballs laying around the house which will work. With tennis balls, you can place a thick sock around each ball to help prevent them from bouncing as much when you drop them. You can also buy a set of juggling balls which will make the whole experience way better. I put together an article to help you pick the best juggling balls here: Check out our recommendations for juggling balls here.

Once you’ve got the balls the first thing is going to be believing that you can learn to juggle. Right now you can’t, but you’ll be able to as long as you believe that you can.

Believe You Can Juggle 3 Balls

A lot of us go into this believing we aren’t coordinated enough to juggle. If you’re reading this right now, you might think it will be difficult or that you can’t do it. The good news is that if you are reading this, it means you know it is possible and you at least somehow believe you can do it. That means you will be able to juggle.

The truth is anyone can learn to juggle, as long as you believe you can and are willing to follow the step by step instructions.

Go ahead… you can even say “I’m going to learn to juggle 3 balls!” out loud right now. That will help your belief. It’s weird, but this kinda stuff works great for training our brain to achieve things.

After you’ve done that the first step for juggling is going to be starting off with one ball.

Learn How To Juggle One Ball

You’re going to stand up with your feet around hip-width apart. You’re going to throw the ball by tossing the ball from one hand to the other. Every toss should go up and above your eye level and should be towards your opposite shoulder.

You see how the “x” is above my arm and head in the photo? It’s a little outside of my shoulders as well, but ideally the ball will hit those “X” spots.

What are your arms doing during this? Your arms should be at a 90 degree angle on your sides so that when the ball is thrown, it goes along the plane that would be where the line is drawn in the picture below.

You can see that the my elbows are at my side while i’m doing this. In the picture I had just tossed the ball so that’s why its not directly at my side.

You’ll want to do this for around 50 throws. Throwing from one hand to the other and making sure that the ball goes above your eye level and stays along that plane each toss.

With juggling, the throw is more important than the catch.

As long as your throw goes to the right place, the ball will drop directly down into your hands so its easy to keep juggling.

After you’ve done 50 throws with just the one ball its time to start with juggling 2 balls.

Learn How To Juggle 2 Balls

When it’s time to move onto juggling 2 balls, it’s very similar to what you just practiced with juggling 1 ball. The first throw is going to be tossed from your right hand up towards that spot above your shoulder just like before. When that first throw reaches its peak, that’s when you’ll throw the second ball. The second ball, or throw, will go to the spot up above your opposite shoulder.

The idea is exactly the same as juggling one ball. Except this time you have a ball in each hand.

You focus on hitting that spot where the “x” is on each throw. The difference here is after the first throw reaches the “x”, you throw the second ball with the other hand. So what I recommend doing is saying “throw” and then “throw” back and forth again so you actually remember to throw the ball each time.

This is a subtle little hint to our brains to remind us to toss the ball instead of try to shuffle it into the other hand.

When the first throw reaches the peak (right before it comes back down), its time to toss the second ball. That’s why saying the words “throw, throw” is so important. It reminds you to actually throw the second throw.

You might notice that after you throw the first ball, that you try to shuffle the second ball back into the hand that just threw the first one. Don’t do this, as that’s a different style of juggling known as “the shower” and it’s much more difficult to learn than the cascade pattern which you’re learning now.

As you do this you might notice that the ball goes out in front of you (out of reach) on either the first or second throw. When this happens, don’t worry. It’s natural and happens to a lot of people. What this means is that the throw didn’t go to the right place. It’s normal for this to happen because you’re doing an exercise and activity that is new to you. Your body doesn’t have the muscle memory built up yet to hit the same spot with your throw every time… yet.

What you’ll want to do is stand in front of a wall, around arms length away from the wall. This will give you enough space to practice juggling, along with a wall that will prevent you from throwing the ball too far out in front of you.

Once you can get to 50 throws with the two balls, you’re ready for 3 balls.

Learn How To Juggle 3 Balls

Moving on to 3 balls is almost identical to juggling 2 balls, but you just have one more ball.

Is it really that simple? Yes.

Is it easy? Ehh… not so much, but as long as you practice you’ll get it.

So for this, you want to make sure one hand has 2 balls in it and the other hand has 1 ball in it. You always throw the first throw from the hand that has 2 balls in it.

You toss that first ball up and to the spot above your shoulder, and then throw the second ball, just like when you were juggling 2. But now, when the second toss reaches its peak, you throw the third ball.

So it’s “Throw, throw, THROW” instead of just “throw, throw”.

The hardest part for this is throwing that third ball because it’s a bit more chaotic. Your first toss might have not gone where you want it, which sometimes leads to a bad second toss and the pattern falls apart. It doesn’t matter, the goal at this stage is to be able to make each of the three throws. At this point just make sure you throw all 3, it doesn’t matter if you catch them or not.

Focus on hitting that same spot “x” with every throw. Some throws might go a little lower (its normal) but keep trying to throw to that same spot every throw. IT’s important because the throw matters more than the catch.

If you hit the right spot with each throw, the pattern works out for you and the catch happens almost unconsciously.

You’re going to need to practice this a lot longer than you practiced 2 balls. The throws need to hit that spot each time, otherwise you’ll struggle with this. Just remember to say “throw, throw, throw” and actually throw the ball each and every time.

When you do this, you’ll be training your brain to throw the ball where it needs to be and you’ll get better at catching them the more you do this.

If you’re still struggling, it’s perfectly fine to go back to 2 balls and practice again. We all learn at our own speed and don’t get down on yourself if you mess up. If you need a little break, take one.

Now I know that video always teaches better than written word (at least for me) so I’m going to be sharing a tutorial video below.

Video about How To Juggle Step by Step

If you want to get a copy of my full video course that has even more video tutorials and training you can click here.

Juggling Troubleshooting Tips and Common Questions

Juggling can be challenging, and it’s common to run into problems along the way. In this section I will help you with fixing common problems such as dropping balls, walking while juggling or uneven throws.

Not Throwing The Third Ball

One common problem that beginner jugglers have is when they are moving from 2 balls to 3 balls. You might be comfortable with the first 2 throws, but that third throw doesn’t happen for whatever reason. An exercise that you can do here is to set up with the 3 balls and simply say to yourself “throw, throw, throw” and make sure you throw every single ball. Don’t worry at all about catching them either, just get the third throw ball out of your hand. There tends to be a little mental block that people have with the third throw, so just making sure you get it out of your hand breaks that mind block. Don’t worry at all about catching them either. That will come with time as you practice this more.

Dropping the Balls While Juggling

As a beginner, you aren’t going to catch a lot of the throws you make and it’s perfectly normal. When you’re starting you aren’t hitting the same spot that you aim for every time. If you think about throwing a baseball or a football, or even a frisbee, when you were learning to throw it, did it ever go to the right spot every time? My guess is that no… it went pretty much everywhere but where you wanted it to go at the beginning.

The same thing is true with juggling. That’s why at the beginning we focus a lot on the 1 and 2 ball pattern. You want to build a strong muscle memory of hitting the right spot as often as possible because it will make the catch easier. Once you get the third ball (and 4th,5th,etc) it can get pretty chaotic quickly.

If you have been able to do the 3 ball flash (3 consecutive throws and catches) then you are on the right path. If you notice that the fourth throw tends to go nowhere near where you want it to, that’s the throw to focus on during your practice time. Even if your 2nd or 3rd throw are bad, focus on making sure that 4th throw hits the right spot. This could be true of your 5th or even 10th throw. At some point in our patterns, we tend to let the chaos take over and this causes us to drop.

When you notice that it’s getting a little uncomfortable or the throws are nowhere near where you want them to go, it’s time to just stop the pattern. It’s perfectly fine to stop it too. Once it gets too crazy, it’s hard to get back into the pattern.